Justin Shapp : Relax, Take a couple of deep breaths, You can start with a shed and grow ! You Just need Two Books, Ianto Evans'
The Hand-Schulpted House
and Michael Smith's
The Cobber's Companion, get the books from cob cottage.com, your lending library, Amazon and/or Alibris books (USED). Its better to have
the books to hand than to guess how, try, and fail !
Actually I would have to live on your land before I could tell you wether or not you can get away with having the french
drains as part of your foundation trench, for that reason french drains are usually recommended as a separate or parallel digging.
Location, location, location, get the word out here and at
Permaculture groups in your area, who you are and when you are building - you might have a Near neighbor
who is a Cob expert with all the tools !
You WANT to create stem walls,also called plinth(s) to carry the start of your walls up from your foundation, 2 ft above the level of the floor for your 1st build.This is
where you are going to use the large stones to protect the lowest sections of the Cob, Eventually you will learn to apply a finish plaster to protect the cob walls from
wind driven rain.* Your 1st job is to learn how to get the walls up, 2nd is to get a roof with ridiculously wide eaves ,your good hat With those two things in place you will
have time to learn how to do interior and exterior Finish Plastering !
Have you picked out your build site,
found a good supply of clay and
learned how to do a sedimentation test on it !?!
Straw, lots off it, find out what animal
feed store in your area handles house feed and get your straw where they get theirs !
Where are your stones coming from ?
who is hauling the stones
Sharp builders sand, from where and who is hauling it into you
Order the books I pointed out to you, line up the the materials listed above, and ditch digging tools
The first job when you get your books is to find out how to make test bricks of Cob, clay varies widely and wildly
You need to know how to make strong Cob from your Clay, while you are waiting for your Cob Bricks to dry so that
you can do drop tests on them to test for strength, Gather more tools, the books will tell you what you need
Print this list you
should have most things done ,found located and promised for later by the time your books arrive !
* Eventually you will KNOW where the prevailing winds come from at every season of the year !
For the good of the craft ! As always your comments and questions are solicited and are welcome ! Big AL !
.png)
-A.png)
1
