Cob Castles

$2.99

THIS IS THE PDF VERSION OF COB CASTLES

KINDLE VERSION

Cob Castles serves as a comprehensive guide for learning how to build sustainable homes using cob, a natural and versatile form of adobe made from clay, sand, straw, and water. It provides step-by-step instructions on sourcing and mixing materials, designing structures, and constructing walls, floors, and roofs with cob. The book emphasizes the ecological benefits of using cob, such as its low environmental impact and excellent insulating properties. It also covers practical techniques for shaping cob into organic, durable forms, allowing builders to create customized, artistic spaces. With tips on tools, site preparation, and maintenance, Cob Castles empowers readers to embrace natural building methods and craft unique, functional homes that are environmentally friendly and deeply connected to the earth.

Description

Earth is probably still the world’s most common building material. The word cob comes from an old English root meaning a lump or rounded mass. Cob building uses hands and feet to form lumps of earth mixed with sand and straw, a sensory and aesthetic experience similar to sculpting with clay. Cob is easy to learn and inexpensive to build. Because there are no forms, ramming, cement, or rectilinear bricks, cob lends itself to organic shapes: curved walls, arches, and niches. Earth homes are cool in summer, and warm in winter. Cob’s resistance to rain and cold makes it ideally suited to cold climates like the Pacific Northwest, and to desert conditions.

Cob has been used for millennia even in the harsh climates of coastal Britain, at the latitude of the Aleutians. Thousands of comfortable and picturesque cob homes in England have been continuously occupied for many centuries and now command very high market values. With recent rises in the price of lumber and increasing interest in natural and environmentally safe building practices, cob is enjoying a renaissance. This ancient technology doesn’t contribute to deforestation, pollution, or mining nor does it depend on manufactured materials or power tools. Earth is non-toxic and completely recyclable. In this age of environmental degradation, dwindling natural resources, and chemical toxins hidden in our homes, doesn’t it make sense to return to nature’s most abundant, cheap and healthy building material?

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