Cob: Re: The $0 Per Square Foot House

[Shannon C. Dealy]

On Sun, 29 Sep 2002, Theodore  Schluenderfritz wrote:

> Shannon,
> I was looking at your page about "The $0 Per Square Foot House" just
> wondering if you could give a quick update on how it is holding up, and
> if you have worked any more on it.

Unfortunately, due to a variety of circumstances, I haven't had time to
work on it, though of course part of the problem may be that it is already
serving it's purpose, my primary need for it was as a tool-shed/storage
building, and even though it's roof is just a tarp, it serves it's purpose
quite well.  At this point the main hold up is that I have to harvest a
large quantity of tall grass to use for thatching the roof, and this can
pretty much only be done during August since that is when the grass is
tall enough and hasn't been knocked over by wind and rain.

> also, did you dry out the grass and plants before using it on the mix.

No, though it does tend to be somewhat dryer by the time it is tall enough
to use, it is usually at least eight to twelve inches tall before I
cut it (often much taller), though if it is much more than twelve inches
long, you will want to cut it into shorter pieces once it has been
harvested, otherwise you won't be able to pull "cobs" out of the mix when
it is done.  In the first batch I did on this building, the average length
of the grass was over two feet and it was so completely bound together
that I was forced to use a machette to cut cobs out of the batch since I
couldn't pull off pieces.

> I'm doing the same sort of thing but on a much smaller scale, I'm making
> a little shrine to hold a statue (about 2 ft x 3ft interior measurement
> and about a foot thick walls. I'm in the city so I'm just using grab
> grass, which I hope won't rot before the cob dries...oh, also I fear I
> have hardly any clay.

I don't actually know what all the grasses are that I was using, it is
just the mix that grows naturally in that field, and I often get alot of
other plants in with grass including: ferns, blackberry and thistle
(ouch!), dandelions, etc..  As far as your clay content, it doesn't take
alot of clay (depending on the type of clay), the only way to be sure
though is to just make a test brick and see how well it holds together, if
you're not happy with the result, see if a friend has soil with a better
clay content you could use to supplement your soil, or (for a small
project like yours), check to see if you can get a small quantity from
something like a garden supply store or pickup a couple of buckets from a
quarry, road cut, or some other similar location.

Shannon C. Dealy      |               DeaTech Research Inc.
dealy at deatech.com     |          - Custom Software Development -
                      |    Embedded Systems, Real-time, Device Drivers
Phone: (800) 467-5820 | Networking, Scientific & Engineering Applications
   or: (541) 451-5177 |                  www.deatech.com