The Cobber's Companion: How to Build Your Own Earthen Home, 3rd Edition

Learn how to hand-sculpt your own beautiful earthen home for $10,000. This 3rd edition of The Cobber's Companion is the most up-to-date manual on building with cob, a traditional mixture of earth, sand and straw. It includes new techniques and photos as well as many helpful illustrations. Cob is easy to learn and inexpensive to build. It dries to a hardness similar to lean concrete and is used like adobe to create self-supporting, load-bearing walls; it is non-toxic and completely recyclable. Because cob adds thermal mass, it is ideal for passive solar buildings. In addition to telling you how to build with cob, this books tells how to select building materials and determine the best mixture for a given soil; sculpt a personalized house with built-in seats, counters, shelves and niches; evaluate natural alternatives for roofs, floors, plasters and insulation; reduce your dependency on money and environmentally harmful practices, and avoid the costly mistakes many novice builders make. The companion is a practical guide based on the experience of Cob Cottage Company and its associates. The ideas and techniques have been developed and tested during the construction of over 100 cob buildings throughout the US and Canada, with several more in Mexico, Denmark, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. The book is intended as a companion to rather than a substitute for workshops and other hands-on learning.