A Cob Oven At Boom Festival, Portugal. Build Your Own $20 Outdoor Cob Oven. (The following entry is all about making a cob oven, a lovely and inexpensive outdoor pizza oven.
The construction details have been trimmed back a bit, but this article should still give you a full idea of necessary materials and the building process for making your own oven!) I must admit, I’m a bit of a breadhead. Few things are as exciting to me as freshly baked bread with a dab of butter, or hot and greasy scallion pancakes, or fluffy and airy naan, or a pizza fresh from the hearth of a wood-fired oven. (That last one trumps all the others.) I thrive on bread. Earlier in the year, the idea of baking in the outdoors in a wood fired oven became something of a romanticized (in every positive sense of the word) notion to me. So I picked up a copy of Kiko Denzer’s Build Your Own Earth Oven, a little gem of a book covering the construction of cob ovens from the ground up.
The Foundation The Fire Brick Oven Hearth (Laying out the beer bottles, and later, filling in with sawdust/clay mortar) The Hollies. Earth is probably still the world’s commonest 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. 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, warm in winter. Cob has been used for millennia even in the harsh climates of coastal Britain and Ireland. Why doesn’t it wash away in the rain? The DIY House That The Real Estate Industry Hopes You Won’t See. Cob Building Basics: DIY House Of Earth & Straw. Related Content Earth Building in Thailand I had heard there are thousands of new earthen houses in Thailand.
That really amazed me, so I set o... In early 1999, a young woman from Florida happened across an article online about the recent revival of an ancient British method for sculpting dirt houses. Intrigued, she used her savings to travel to Vermont for a five-day workshop, where she learned how to mix clay, sand and straw by foot, and then knead lumps of the stuff into solid walls nearly as durable as concrete. After returning to Florida, she and some friends used the techniques she had learned to build a small pottery shed in her parents’ backyard. Cob Building Basics Videos. Building Using Cob. Building with Cob: Post-Collapse Solution for Shelter. Cob Projects - Cob Houses & Timeless Art of Cob Building.
Construction Of A Cob House - Flickr. Cob Building With Groundworks. Cob In the Community. This Cob House. Hi everyone, I just recently got back from a 7-week intensive Natural Building course out in Oregon learning some of the newest, cutting edge techniques in the Natural Building realm.
As some of you may know, I’m taking my business to the next level by offering design and build services to people who are interested in having their own cob and natural buildings constructed. I… Continue reading A building needs a strong foundation to rest upon. This is the first detail to consider when building any structure. Last year I was contacted by OPIC (Overseas Private Investment Corporation) to design a cob hotel for their humanitarian efforts overseas. It’s time to take a look into the world of natural building by looking at some of the most influential cob builders. I was recently interviewed by James Ru for his new book Perma Artist which is a compilation of conversations with eco-artists, land artists, and artists concerned about the environment. Cob Houses - Live Debt Free With Sustainable Development. More Building with Cob
I Love Cob! Mud Masters. Cob Workshops.org - Lists Cob Building Workshops In N. America. Cob Building Course Video. Devon Earth Building Association, information about cob and earth building techniques, training courses and issues. Top 10 Most Influential Cob Builders. It’s time to take a look into the world of natural building by looking at some of the most influential cob builders.
You might have heard of some of these people before as they’ve demonstrated their craft and expertise in the field. Many of them you might just be hearing about for the first time. Without further ado, here is my top 10 list of the most influential people in cob building. 1. Ianto Evans www.cobcottage.com Ianto is the director of the North American School of Natural Building and master teacher and builder at the Cob Cottage Company in Coquille, Oregon. Laughing House at the Cob Cottage Company, Coquille, Oregon 2. Www.risingearthbuilding.blogspot.com Mike followed through the apprentice program at the Cob Cottage Company in 2008. Chapel Hill, North Carolina 3. Www.cobandon.blogspot.com Greg was born and raised in Syracuse, NY, and studied design at Syracuse University.
Pickards Mountain Eco-Institute, North Carolina (photo courtesy of ourgreengoodlife.org)