[Cob] Mix

[Dorothy Cordochorea]

Dear Janet,

Are you, by any chance, in Oregon?  If so, would you mind sharing what
county you are in?  My husband and I have just purchased land in Washington
County, Oregon, and we are planning on building a cob home, probably
incorporating strawbale.

As part of the "buyer's due diligence" I did a lot of investigating with
regard to feasibility of our plans. Washington County is one of the most
difficult counties in Oregon with regard to requirements for permits and
such.

One of the people I met with was Joshua Klyber, a cob builder and contractor
who is also a part of the Multnomah County Building Department, and working
to get appropriate code for cob building, and to facilitate the permiting of
cob structures.  He told be about the challenge to cob buildings created by
the focus on R-values, without taking into account the use of mass heating
as an alternative, such as we plan for our cob home.

I was startled at your plan to build 3' wide cob walls in order to get the
R-value up, and that you were doing this in order to address the county's
concerns.  That's why I have asked what county you are in.  If we may be
facing a similar demand in Washington County, I'd like a heads up!

Joshua suggested that a way to deal with the issue of the R-value of cob is
to incorporate straw bale, and floor and ceiling insulation, high r-value
windows, etc. in order to meet an alternative* average* R-value
criterion.

My sympathies, by the way, on having to deal with all the hassles of meeting
county requirements for a permitted dwelling.  I'm really not pleased to
need to do that myself.  It is so difficult to deal with requirements whose
assumptions are based upon mainstream housing construction techniques, and
that do not even understand, much less take into account the differences of
building with cob!

Dorothy