Exploring cob

Cob is a great technology to work with, unhurried. You can’t raise more than about a foot and a half of wall on any given day, because beyond that the self-weight of the mud will make it slump. And then you need at least a day, even under a fierce sun, to dry out the built wall sufficiently for the next build. If you have lot of volunteers however, there are two ways you can go.

TIP!
To speed up work have more than one project going at a time, especially if they are small. When you have raised a wall on one, you can leave it to dry and move to the second location to continue working.

A number of cob block bricks can be moulded in forms [this is actually the adobe route] and sun dried. These can be passed on by a line of volunteers and a greater height can be built in one day.It is useful to have a number of cob blacks handy anyway. There are many places they come in handy, like when fairing a detail, working at a height, making ledges or tiny lintels.

The second option is the one I followed when a group of over ten enthusiastic volunteers showed up one day. I had begun work on both the bath-space and the kitchen. So there was more length of wall to work on in two separate locations.

3 thoughts on “Exploring cob

  1. Nice blog ! Currently I am building a house in my native village . Completed upto the basement level with stone masonry. Decided to continue with cob for super structure. The one mistake I have done is I have made a 7′ high door frame. And I have the design of having an open space in the middle of the house similar to the old “Agraharam” house and so I Have to raise the centre to 10′ and the walls are going to be around 8′. I have very little space left out in the outside ,so having longer eaves is not possible.

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