Cob (an old English word for lump) is old-fashioned concrete, made out of a mixture of clay, sand, and straw. Becky Bee's manual is a friendly guide to making your own earth structure, with chapters on design, foundations, floors, windows and doors, finishes, and of course, making glorious cob. "I believe that building with cob is a way to recreate community and experience the joy of working together while taking back the right to build our own homes and look after our Mother Earth." She loves doing something that makes sense in a world where lots of things don't.
Cob, a structural composite of earth, water, straw, clay, and sand, has been used for centuries, in virtually all parts of the world, to create homes ranging from mud huts in Africa to lavish adobe haciendas in Latin America. This practical and inspiring hands-on guide teaches anyone to build a cob dwelling.
"The ancient method of cob building uses a simple mixture of clay sub-soil, aggregate, straw and water to create solid structural walls built without shuttering or forms, onto a stone plinth. It is now undergoing a renaissance as an 'eco-friendly' building material because of its amazing 'green' credentials. 'Building with Cob' shows how to apply this ancient technique in a wide variety of contemporary situations, covering everything from design and siting, mixing, building walls, fireplaces, ovens and floors, lime and other natural finishes, and gaining planning permission and building regulation approval. It also explains in detail how to sensitively restore an old cob structure. This book is a step-by-step guide, lavishly illustrated with over 300 colour photos and 85 diagrams."--Amazon.
Learn how to identify, locate, and effectively use alternative building materials, including cob, adobe, rammed earth, bamboo, cork, wool carpeting, and more. You will also learn about the structure, climate control, siting, foundations, and flooring options you gain when using these materials. Ultimately, you will come to understand that these materials are cheaper, easier to build with, stronger, more durable, and more fire resistant.
Earth is the mother of all construction materials For thousands of years, people have dug up the clay-soil below their feet and transformed it into the most versatile building material. Worldwide, people are rediscovering the advantages of earthen construction, and for good reasons: it's easy to work with, extremely affordable, environmentally friendly, non-toxic, durable and beautiful! You will learn how to build with the most popular and time-tested techniques: Cob Adobe Light straw-clay Earth bags Earthen floors Earthen plasters and paints A few simple tools, such as buckets, shovels and wheelbarrows are all you need to get started. By describing how to identify, harvest, combine and process the basic ingredients of clay-soil, sand and straw, this book makes it clear and simple on how to make earthen building something you can start with the moment you put down the book! These techniques are being used to build entire houses, but they can just as easily be applied to smaller projects, such as backyard sheds, cabins, outdoor fireplaces, garden walls and play houses. As a bonus, part 3 of the book has complete instruction on how to build a traditional earthen pizza oven, using the techniques covered in the book. This makes for a great starter project! An often overlooked possibility is using earthen building methods to renovate existing homes on a shoestring budget, transforming run-down houses into earthen homes, without having to work with toxic or environmentally harmful building materials. After reading this book, you will realize how simple it is to integrate earthen materials with conventional building materials. What Mother Earth Magazine said about "House of Earth" "Conrad Rogue is a great builder, teacher, and philosopher. He is original in his thinking, skilled in his techniques, and passionate about the beauty and potential of earthen construction. And above all, he has the rare ability to skillfully convey all of that in his writing." Conrad Rogue has been teaching earthen construction since 2001. He is the founder and director of House Alive. (www.HouseAlive.org). He has taught workshops in the United States, Pine Ridge reservation, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Kenya and India.
Strawbale Home Plans is a meditative and conscientious exploration of the innumerable reasons to consider straw bale as a viable building material. Environmentally friendly, super insulative, economical, and natural, straw bale can be used to build everything from garden walls and shed roofs to small homes. The vibrant pages of this practical guide are filled with rich photos of organic, fluid, undulating structures pulsating with subtle creativity. Indeed at once a pragmatic construction manual and a philosophical, artistic guidebook, this handbook provides food for the mind and soul.
Earth ovens combine the utility of a wood-fired, retained-heat oven with the ease and timeless beauty of earthen construction. Building one will appeal to bakers, builders, and beginners of all kinds, from: - the serious or aspiring baker who wants the best low-cost bread oven, to - gardeners who want a centerpiece for a beautiful outdoor kitchen, to - outdoor chefs, to - creative people interested in low-cost materials and simple technology, to - teachers who want a multi-faceted, experiential project for students of all ages (the book has been successful with everyone from third-graders to adults). Build Your Own Earth Oven is fully illustrated with step-by-step directions, including how to tend the fire, and how to make perfect sourdough hearth loaves in the artisan tradition. The average do-it-yourselfer with a few tools and a scrap pile can build an oven for free, or close to it. Otherwise, $30 should cover all your materials--less than the price of a fancy "baking stone." Good building soil is often right in your back yard, under your feet. Build the simplest oven in a day! With a bit more time and imagination, you can make a permanent foundation and a fire-breathing dragon-oven or any other shape you can dream up. Earth ovens are familiar to many that have seen a southwestern "horno" or a European "bee-hive" oven. The idea, pioneered by Egyptian bakers in the second millennium BCE, is simplicity itself: fill the oven with wood, light a fire, and let it burn down to ashes. The dense, 3- to 12-inch-thick earthen walls hold and store the heat of the fire, the baker sweeps the floor clean, and the hot oven walls radiate steady, intense heat for hours. Home bakers who can't afford a fancy, steam-injected bread oven will be delighted to find that a simple earth oven can produce loaves to equal the fanciest "artisan" bakery. It also makes delicious roast meats, cakes, pies, pizzas, and other creations. Pizza cooks to perfection in three minutes or less. Vegetables, herbs, and potatoes drizzled with olive oil roast up in minutes for a simple, elegant, and delicious meal. Efficient cooks will find the residual heat useful for slow-baked dishes, and even for drying surplus produce, or incubating homemade yogurt.
The Whole Building Handbook is a compendium of all the issues and strategies that architects need to understand to design and construct sustainable buildings for a sustainable society. The authors move beyond the current definition of sustainability in architecture, which tends to focus on energy-efficiency, to include guidance for architecture that promotes social cohesion, personal health, renewable energy sources, water and waste recycling systems, permaculture, energy conservation - and crucially, buildings in relation to their place. The authors offer a holistic approach to sustainable architecture and authoritative technical advice, on: * How to design and construct healthy buildings, through choosing suitable materials, healthy service systems, and designing a healthy and comfortable indoor climate, including solutions for avoiding problems with moisture, radon and noise as well as how to facilitate cleaning and maintenance. * How to design and construct buildings that use resources efficiently, where heating and cooling needs and electricity use is minimized and water-saving technologies and garbage recycling technologies are used. * How to 'close' organic waste, sewage, heat and energy cycles. For example, how to design a sewage system that recycles nutrients. * Includes a section on adaptation of buildings to local conditions, looking at how a site must be studied with respect to nature, climate and community structure as well as human activities. The result is a comprehensive, thoroughly illustrated and carefully structured textbook and reference.
