I live in the Piedmont region and became curious about cob and whether it would truly work in this climate. Virginia has significantly more days of below zero weather than Oregon and I was concerned that the freeze/thaw would rule out cob as a viable building material. To prove it to myself I followed instructions from Yanto Evans book entitled, The Hand Sculpted House and I mixed up a small batch of cob and built a model and set it out in the backyard to see what would happen. In time the little roof blew off and the windows began to leak...but I am happy to report that three years later...the cob is still solid on this little model. This was a cob only structure with no limestone finish on the outside and it still held up. When it rains the outer layer gets a bit soft, but it dries out and holds its integrity. I was very pleased with this little experiment and it's given me the confidence to continue. The next step is a little studio down in the woods.
