Cob Yoda's cob house

[Eric Hart]

At 06:30 PM 12/3/97 -0600, you wrote:
>On Wed, 3 Dec 1997, Will Firstbrook  WCB of BC <wfirstbr at msmail.wcb.bc.ca>
wrote:
>>[SNIP]
>>Yet some of our ideas may be very difficult to implement. 
>It ain't easy bein' green.  But that's what the list is for, right?
>>
>>One of the area's that seems tricky is my eldest son's room. 
>[SNIP]Any Ideas on how this could be done?
>Cob roofing is our favorite topic.  We are planning both a 11' hallway with
a cob 
>barrel vault and a 15.5' cob dome.  For our larger dome, we are thinking of
using 
>cut Hebel aerated concrete block (very light weight, good insulator, about
3-4x 
>stronger than the best cob mix we have made.)  Note: we have not found any
round 
>windows that are screened and open.  Anyone have any ideas
>about round windows where you need ventilation and have lots of mosquitoes?
        Put in a regular rectangular window (double hung would work best if
its the right size) and then put wood or an earthen plaster (or wattle and
daub) over part of the window in a circular pattern.  You will need enough
clearance on the inside and outside to raise and lower the window into the
circular covering you made.  That's the easiest way to make a round window I
know about and its amazing what you can do with plaster (which can be made
to match the cob).  I imagine you could find a round casement window which
opened and that had a screen but it would cost a fortune.  If you still want
a real round window, you could settle on the ones that don't open and put
below it a simple opening that has a screen on the outside and a shutter on
the inside.  Its just a box that allows for ventilation and which can be
closed from the inside.  Not too hard to build and if you wanted to get
fancy, you could make it round or something besides rectangular.  Imbedding
several large diameter pipes into the wall with screens on one end and a
plug on the inside end might work also (and be incorporated into the cob
better).  

Eric D. Hart
Community Eco-design Network
PO Box 6241
Minneapolis, Minnesota  55406  USA
(612) 306-2326
http://www.tc.umn.edu/nlhome/m037/kurtdand/cen/