Ziggy visits Cob Cottage Company
Ziggy, who built his own cob house sent me a note telling me about his visit to the the Cob Cottage Company in Oregon.
He just put up a post with a slide show of pictures of his visit. He went to visit Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley in their home in Coquille, Oregon.
Ianto and Linda are two very influential cob building pioneers in North America, and authors of The Hand-Sculpted House, the number one go-to book for cob construction.
Be sure and watch his slide show and read his post as he covers a lot of good information on cob building and what he learned from his visit. Here is what Ziggy came away with from his visit: Continue Reading »
Recipe for Building a Cob House
Over the past nine months we have been following Brian or Ziggy as his friends call him build his cob house. You can check out the last two posts on the build here and here.
Ziggy emailed me Friday night to tell me he has completed his home and moved in and has set up a page with a recipe for building a cob house on his blog. Here it is in a nut shell:
With $3000 for supplies and nine months of full time labor, Ziggy was able to build GOBCOBATRON, a small cob house with interior dimensions of roughly 15′x13′, and a footprint of (again, roughly) 20′x18′. Practically all of the labor was completed by hand (and foot!), including making and applying all of the cob.
Here’s what Ziggy actually bought, and what he paid for in building supplies:
- sand (just over 30 tons total) – $507
- gravel (about 13 tons total) – $177
- straw (16 bales) – $36 (most straw I used was free)
- black walnut scrap lumber – $100
- misc. lumber – $20
- windows – $220 (two casement, one double hung window)
- electrical – $28
- galvanized wire – $30
- nails – $100 (I couldn’t believe how expensive nails are)
- raw linseed oil (for floor) – $72
- EPDM pond liner $622
- polycarbonate for skylight $400
and for the rocket stove:
- firebricks – $70
- flue pipe – $228
It’s true… you can build your own cob house with little money, but with lots of time and enthusiasm. There’s nothing quite like the experience of building your own home with little more than your hands.
Visit Ziggy’s blog for the complete story.
Thanks Ziggy for sharing your journey with us in building your cob house.
by Kent Griswold (Tiny House Blog)
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