Will MacBride

Hey there Jay C. Whitecloud:

Thanks for the reply. The third house down on this page:
http://naturalhomes.org/cobhouses.htm is one example of the kind of curvilinear roof I'm talking about.

Or even this one: http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCob_(material)&ei=ATafVMDsLpbroASs_YKgBw&bvm=bv.82001339,d.cGU&psig=AFQjCNEWwfh92Kt926EmoBw_rS7fa4JirQ&ust=1419806319972483

By the way: the link above connects to the wikipedia page for cob and its the picture a little ways down the page - it says its an example of a modern pacific northwest style cob house.

When you say infill are you talking about building a whole wooden frame and then simply using the cob as the non-supporting wall material? I assume so. With that I would also have a couple of questions:

1. Should (or can) the cob simply sit on the wood (say on a plywood subfloor and up against studs and headers, etc.)? I've heard or read that it expands and contracts differently, moved under wind pressure differently, and so on, than wood, so sometimes after a while you run into issues with that. Any comments?

2. Would a doubled cob wall with an air space between them be considerably more insulative than just a single thick one? I live in Portland, Or, it doesn'tget all that cold in the winter except occaisonally. Any recomendations there?

3. The soil in the yard appears quite clay-y. It should work well enough but are there any sorts of tests to see if a soil is has a high enough clay content?

4. Is it usually ok to just go to an ocean or lake beach to get sand?

5. Do you usually have to buy straw or or can you usually get that free in some way too?

thanks a lot,

Will

Hi

My name is Will MacBride. Hey Jamie McBride who moderates this.Perhaps somewhere back in some medieval Celtic village we have a common ancestor.

My scene is this: I've been doing ordinary sorts of construction and handyman stuff for years but I'm very new to natural building. I'm about to build a cob house that I will live in and the yard of the house I now live in. I'm going to have lots of questions, but right now my questions involve basics.

One initial question, just so I can visualize better is this : does the roof of a house with simple cob walls, placed on a stone foundation, have rafters that just sit in the cob, supported thereby? Or is there, or should there be, some kind of top plate of wood or perhaps stone?

Also: how do they get those strange wavy roofs I always see on cobb houses. They look like they're framed with wood but I can never see in the pictures I see of them what's underneath. Are they using branches - saplings and stuff?

Third question: can a second floor or loft in a cobb house be cob as well, the floor, or should it be wood?

thanks

Will