[Cob] Small houses

[Yun Que]

   Cat here, I have been looking at layouts for 8 sided houses and they
   are very spacious, the largest being about 70' accross.  The beauty of
   some of them is that a central stair acts as an air shaft to keep the
   house fresh and the sq ft roof and foundation are less than in a
   conventional.  This saves time, materials.  Also look at the Japanese
   traditional homes built before the turn of the century, simplicity,
   calm and outstanding organization for storage.

   Took a ride the other day in a 100 year old hand operated
   elevator!!!!  one hops on and pulls a rope, they are no more
   complicated than a dumb waiter only the wheels and gears are larger.
   The builder was realy thinking!! the walls of the shaft were all
   shelves!  The occupents used the space to store there pantry goods.
   All very accessable with the pull of a rope, sooooo sweet.  (there was
   not much in the way of saftey mesures, but I'm sure a little inovation
   could correct that.  Another plus is that it takes less room than a
   stair case.  The counter weights made it easy to move and if my
   perceptions were working it took the same amount of time to rise from
   one floor to the next as going up stairs.  My favorite though is the
   simpicity of moving stuff. Big stuff like dressers and such!

   The construction was 11" x 11" timbers and it went up 4  14" floors
   smooth as silk.  A central elevator shaft could support floor joists
   and roof beams, dug into a well foundation it could house heating and
   cooling shaft, as well as that crazy storage!!!!  I loved it gotta
   have one!!!! :)
   for the good of all C.
   >From: "Shannon C. Dealy" >Reply-To: dealy at deatech.com >To:
   coblist at deatech.com >Subject: [Cob] Small houses >Date: Mon, 1 Mar
   2004 20:35:35 -0800 (PST) > >On Wed, 25 Feb 2004, Mary Hooper wrote: >
   >[snip] > > While a cob house requires "downsizing," I still think it
   should be a home > > and not a magazine picture. If anyone has ideas
   to share on the subject of > > what is enough simplicity and how real
   people should fit into their > > handbuilt homes, I'd like to hear
   from you off line if you/shannon thinks > > this is not on topic.
   mjhooperNOSPAM at trccomputing.com (take out the nospam) >[snip] > >I
   don't have a problem with some discussion of small houses
   (particularly >if they are Cob), so long as we don't go overboard and
   turn the list into >the "small house" list. This is particularly
   relevant for Cob, since it >is alot of work to build, so it makes
   sense to start small when building >with it. > >If you like small, my
   cob house has 70 square feet plus a loft, >squeezing it into the 120
   sq. ft. exterior footprint and 10 feet above >grade maximum height
   didn't leave alot of options :-) > >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) 929-4089
   | www.deatech.com > > >_______________________________________________
   >Coblist mailing list >Coblist at deatech.com
   >http://www.deatech.com/mailman/listinfo/coblist
     _________________________________________________________________

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References

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