Jeremy Henley

I've been here 7 years with no issues but my house isn't visible from any road or the lake. There are homes in this county with rvs framed up to the back door so they aren't too stringent on code enforcement.  I kept my house small i.e. 250sq. Runs on rain water and composting toilet so I pulled no permits.

John C Daley wrote:Where is the block?
What is the water front on?
Are there restrictions on land use because of the proximity of the waterfront?

I believe this block is the extreme North East end of the lake. If you look on a map app there is a block of pines there that is now cleared land(will still show as pine forest on the map)
Can't build within a certain proximity to Lake as it's "state property" but its stocked with some good fish. Permitting is what you make of it. There's several people in this county that live off grid completely.

Radon isn't much of a risk unless you build a tightly sealed house with a dirt floor.

Land they just logged next to ours. We homestead off grid next door if anyone is looking for raw land to start homesteading.

What about shrinkage? It shrunk a quarter inch in spots. Dry slower? More larger pieces of sand? If I add some lime would it cut down on the elasticity? The wall is super solid(i punched it a few times) Here's another poc of the soil jars after sitting overnight.

Got together my native soils and made some test bricks. They all did really well with the drop tests. They all also had a little bit of shrinkage. I didn't think it was enough to worry about. So I built a test wall...it has cracks. It dried very fast so that didn't help im sure but still more cracking than I would like(good thing it was the small wall)
In light of this, I did the soil in jars test(I know I shoulda started with that) The pictures are after only sitting for a half hour. Don't think I have much clay at all. The red one looks like all silt. Here are my questions... do either of these soils look suitable for cob construction? They both stick together very well. Loaf up good etc. However my mix of 75% tan and 25% red is definitely wrong. The wall seems very solid, just shrunk and cracked alot. I can only assume that gets worse over time.

Is the wall a loss? Better to redo entirely? Can it be patched with a better mixture?

Thank you. She seems to be doing fine. I believe it was an abort for some reason. The other one is still very pregnant so hopefully that continues with no complications.

Oh awesome thank you. Didn't even see those somehow.

Ok thank you for the info

I live off grid in Virginia and am interested in hosting a cob workshop. Ive built a cob oven and a rocket mass heater out of cob. Included some pics for your enjoyment(mass heater needs one more heavy straw insulating layer). Im no craftsman of cob but I would like to build a wall now to extend my greenhouse and didn't know if anyone would want to do a workshop here. Ive started digging the rubble trench and will keep progressing on it as time allows. I know there are cob experts that do workshops, I just don't know where to start to see if anyone would be interested. Any input or advice is appreciated.