My husband and I are trying to come up with a game plan. We are halfway through our lease, and he's halfway done with school, considering taking fire school over the summer. Where do we go from here? It's too early to tell, but we've come up with some different situations that help us sort out when the best time would be to move, and a lot of it has to do with job situation and funds to move.
All this being said, whether we move this year or the next, we are planning on building our house with cob! I think if you've read my blog before you know this.
I like to post about natural building materials to raise awareness of this movement, and just how common natural building actually are if you think about it. Of course it is not for everyone. But awareness like this helps us question the building system. Do not feel like I am accusing all of you who live in regular houses that you are doing something wrong. I live in a regular house! That's not it at all. Supply comes from demand and if people as a whole demand better building systems and nontoxic building materials and more support for codes to be in place for natural building, then we will be better off.
Here are 8 reasons to build with earth and other natural materials. (via the Hand Sculpted House, by Ianto Evans.)
1. Health
Modern buildings are usually toxic to both builders and inhabitants. Many of the most fervent supporters of natural buildings are people with acute chemical sensitivities and other environmental illnesses. Even the mainstream press carries stories of cancers and respiratory problems linked to formaldehyde-based glues, plastics, paints, asbestos and fiberglass. The toxicity of these materials impacts everyone associated with them: workers in the factories and warehouses. builders on the construction site (my grandfather who once was an electrician and worked around asbestos for a greater part of his career, and is now suffering from interstitial lung disease) and inhabitants of the end products.
Natural materials such as stone, wood, straw, and earth are not only nontoxic, they are life enhancing. The chemical stability of earth suggests how safe this material is. Earth seems least likely to stimulate bronchial infections, allergy problems, skin irritations, or any chemical sensitivity. Clay is known in fact to be a curative, a healing material that has long been valued for its ability to absorb toxins. Earthen houses, without sealants or cement stucco, breathe gently and slowly through the entire wall surface. The walls may also have abilities to absorb airborne irritants within the building and to soak up and level out humidity or dryness.
2. Psychological well-being
There is increasing evidence that modern buildings compromise our psychological and emotional health as well as our physical well being. Right angles, flat surfaces that are all one color, and constant uniformity don't exist in the natural world. These traits may trigger a subconscious reaction that tells us, "There's something wrong here," keeping us nervous and stressed. Even though modern day people are conditioned to prefer the new, the shiny, the predictable, we respond at a deep level to unprocessed materials, to idiosyncrasy, and to the personal thought and care expressed in craftsmanship
3. Financial empowerment
Most new houses cost at least $100,000 and take a lifetime to pay for. Real earnings are declining and housing costs continue to rise, trapping people in lifelong mortgages. Many homeowners take jobs they dislike to pay for houses they do not love. They hand over control of their personal finances to banks, which are some of the most ecologically damaging institutions on the planet.
But it doesn't have to be that way. By using local, unprocessed materials such as earth and straw, by building smaller and smarter, and by providing much of the labor yourself, you can create a ghome that is almost unbelievable affordable. With earthen building especially, the raw material is almost free, and the skills needed are very basic. There are many people who have built cob homes for under $5000, and it is possible to construct a small but lovely cottage for $500.
A house you build yourself can be constructed slowly, in phases, as you can afford to buy the components. You can also save yourself money in the long run with a smaller, more efficient house that uses simple passive solar technology for heating and cooling.
As the price tag drops from hundreds to tens of thousands or even to a few thousand dollars, it becomes easier to shrug off the yoke of loans and mortgages. Your options for work broaden, and you lose less in taxes and transport. You can cut down the hours you work away from home and spend more time with the kids or grow a big vegetable garden that will reduce your needs and increase your satisfaction even more.
4. Comfort
Earthen buildings are cool and fresh all summer long. Cob houses stay snug and warm in winter, soaking up each house of sunlight to slowly let let out heat later. Comfort also means acoustic privacy, both from exterior distractions and from noise generated in the same building.
5. Democracy and empowerment
Industrial cartels, the building industry, and government have all conspired to prevent most people from building their own housing. We grow up being told, "You can't build a house unless you're a professional builder."" We're convinced that we need to spend $150,000 and buy a 2,000 square foot home. And as components for such houses become more technical, heavy and dangerous to handle, building indeed becomes the province of young men with expensive noisy machines.
Natural building is democratic. Most natural building techniques, particularly cob, are accessible to old women and little boys, the impractical, the handicapped, the impoverished. Cob is so safe that even tiny kids can do it, there's nothing heavy to fall, no dangerous machinery, no tools so expensive that we can't make or buy them.
Natural building encourages resourcefulness through the use of found and reclaimed materials and building elements, not only saving money but adding to the life and spirit of the building.
6. Tradition and heritage
The construction industry would prefer it if we forget that natural building is a strong tradition in many places. Contuniuing to build with earth maintains that tradition. In England, with forty thousand cob buildings in the county of Devon alone; in Australia with its heritage of cob and adobe; in China with ninety million earthen buildings; even in the southwestern United States, we still have a strong tradition. There are cob building from the 1830's in New York and Pennsylvania, pre-Columbian towns of earth in Arizona and New Mexico. California in 1980 had 200,000 earthen homes. Tehre are century-old adobes in Toronto and Idaho, and "tabby" houses in subtropical Florida. Almost all of us have millennia-long connections with earthen buildings. Hardly anyone is without an ancestor who lived in an earthen home, in many cases quite recently.
My great grandfather grew up in a cob house in Ireland.
7. Durability
All biological materials have a predictably short life. Wooden structures generally survive only for a few generations. As we currently build, using fast grown softwood, a house is in poor shape in half a century.
Earth by contrast, being geological, lasts indefinitely. Inhabited earthen buildings in the Middle East and India are often more than a thousand years old. In that time, forty human generations have come and gone. If you build an earthen home now, your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchild would see it!!
8. Environmental impact
Building with natural materials reduces the push for resource extraction and for industrial processing. It reduces pollution, deforestation, and energy use.
Of course, it's impossible to build a house with no environmental impact, but it's our responsibility to minimize and localize the damage.
Hope these reasons impact you like they have me! I keep searching for answers to questions and problems, and this is an answer I've come up with for us. Building a house like this is an answer to our financial situation, with many many benefits and good outcomes.
All this being said, whether we move this year or the next, we are planning on building our house with cob! I think if you've read my blog before you know this.
I like to post about natural building materials to raise awareness of this movement, and just how common natural building actually are if you think about it. Of course it is not for everyone. But awareness like this helps us question the building system. Do not feel like I am accusing all of you who live in regular houses that you are doing something wrong. I live in a regular house! That's not it at all. Supply comes from demand and if people as a whole demand better building systems and nontoxic building materials and more support for codes to be in place for natural building, then we will be better off.
Here are 8 reasons to build with earth and other natural materials. (via the Hand Sculpted House, by Ianto Evans.)
1. Health
Modern buildings are usually toxic to both builders and inhabitants. Many of the most fervent supporters of natural buildings are people with acute chemical sensitivities and other environmental illnesses. Even the mainstream press carries stories of cancers and respiratory problems linked to formaldehyde-based glues, plastics, paints, asbestos and fiberglass. The toxicity of these materials impacts everyone associated with them: workers in the factories and warehouses. builders on the construction site (my grandfather who once was an electrician and worked around asbestos for a greater part of his career, and is now suffering from interstitial lung disease) and inhabitants of the end products.
Natural materials such as stone, wood, straw, and earth are not only nontoxic, they are life enhancing. The chemical stability of earth suggests how safe this material is. Earth seems least likely to stimulate bronchial infections, allergy problems, skin irritations, or any chemical sensitivity. Clay is known in fact to be a curative, a healing material that has long been valued for its ability to absorb toxins. Earthen houses, without sealants or cement stucco, breathe gently and slowly through the entire wall surface. The walls may also have abilities to absorb airborne irritants within the building and to soak up and level out humidity or dryness.
2. Psychological well-being
There is increasing evidence that modern buildings compromise our psychological and emotional health as well as our physical well being. Right angles, flat surfaces that are all one color, and constant uniformity don't exist in the natural world. These traits may trigger a subconscious reaction that tells us, "There's something wrong here," keeping us nervous and stressed. Even though modern day people are conditioned to prefer the new, the shiny, the predictable, we respond at a deep level to unprocessed materials, to idiosyncrasy, and to the personal thought and care expressed in craftsmanship
3. Financial empowerment
Most new houses cost at least $100,000 and take a lifetime to pay for. Real earnings are declining and housing costs continue to rise, trapping people in lifelong mortgages. Many homeowners take jobs they dislike to pay for houses they do not love. They hand over control of their personal finances to banks, which are some of the most ecologically damaging institutions on the planet.
But it doesn't have to be that way. By using local, unprocessed materials such as earth and straw, by building smaller and smarter, and by providing much of the labor yourself, you can create a ghome that is almost unbelievable affordable. With earthen building especially, the raw material is almost free, and the skills needed are very basic. There are many people who have built cob homes for under $5000, and it is possible to construct a small but lovely cottage for $500.
A house you build yourself can be constructed slowly, in phases, as you can afford to buy the components. You can also save yourself money in the long run with a smaller, more efficient house that uses simple passive solar technology for heating and cooling.
As the price tag drops from hundreds to tens of thousands or even to a few thousand dollars, it becomes easier to shrug off the yoke of loans and mortgages. Your options for work broaden, and you lose less in taxes and transport. You can cut down the hours you work away from home and spend more time with the kids or grow a big vegetable garden that will reduce your needs and increase your satisfaction even more.
4. Comfort
Earthen buildings are cool and fresh all summer long. Cob houses stay snug and warm in winter, soaking up each house of sunlight to slowly let let out heat later. Comfort also means acoustic privacy, both from exterior distractions and from noise generated in the same building.
5. Democracy and empowerment
Industrial cartels, the building industry, and government have all conspired to prevent most people from building their own housing. We grow up being told, "You can't build a house unless you're a professional builder."" We're convinced that we need to spend $150,000 and buy a 2,000 square foot home. And as components for such houses become more technical, heavy and dangerous to handle, building indeed becomes the province of young men with expensive noisy machines.
Natural building is democratic. Most natural building techniques, particularly cob, are accessible to old women and little boys, the impractical, the handicapped, the impoverished. Cob is so safe that even tiny kids can do it, there's nothing heavy to fall, no dangerous machinery, no tools so expensive that we can't make or buy them.
Natural building encourages resourcefulness through the use of found and reclaimed materials and building elements, not only saving money but adding to the life and spirit of the building.
6. Tradition and heritage
The construction industry would prefer it if we forget that natural building is a strong tradition in many places. Contuniuing to build with earth maintains that tradition. In England, with forty thousand cob buildings in the county of Devon alone; in Australia with its heritage of cob and adobe; in China with ninety million earthen buildings; even in the southwestern United States, we still have a strong tradition. There are cob building from the 1830's in New York and Pennsylvania, pre-Columbian towns of earth in Arizona and New Mexico. California in 1980 had 200,000 earthen homes. Tehre are century-old adobes in Toronto and Idaho, and "tabby" houses in subtropical Florida. Almost all of us have millennia-long connections with earthen buildings. Hardly anyone is without an ancestor who lived in an earthen home, in many cases quite recently.
My great grandfather grew up in a cob house in Ireland.
7. Durability
All biological materials have a predictably short life. Wooden structures generally survive only for a few generations. As we currently build, using fast grown softwood, a house is in poor shape in half a century.
Earth by contrast, being geological, lasts indefinitely. Inhabited earthen buildings in the Middle East and India are often more than a thousand years old. In that time, forty human generations have come and gone. If you build an earthen home now, your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandchild would see it!!
8. Environmental impact
Building with natural materials reduces the push for resource extraction and for industrial processing. It reduces pollution, deforestation, and energy use.
Of course, it's impossible to build a house with no environmental impact, but it's our responsibility to minimize and localize the damage.
Hope these reasons impact you like they have me! I keep searching for answers to questions and problems, and this is an answer I've come up with for us. Building a house like this is an answer to our financial situation, with many many benefits and good outcomes.
10 comments:
i am really seriously considering this as a housing option. we live way out here in the country on many acres with lots of readily available natural building materials. i'm just scared that it will be structurally unsound or something. but i'm going to go do some research. do you have any sites in particular you recommend?
So excited to hear you're considering this!!
I really really recommend the book
The Hand Sculpted House by Ianto Evans. I asked my local bookstore to order it and bought it there, you can also order it online.
http://www.amazon.com/Hand-Sculpted-House-Practical-Philosophical-Building/dp/1890132349
It gives everything you need, from foundation, to what you need to make the cob, how to build different roofs, paints, finishes, floors, floor plans.
Let me go through all of my cob links and see which ones are best and I'll post them up! :) I'm so excited for you.
That book is THE go-to book for building with cob. Most people I stumble upon who have built with cob own this book. It's really a must have in addition to other resources.
i love these 8 reasons, and i am sure there are a million more. i have always wanted to build a natural home, i am just not exactly sure what. ive always loved the adobe look, the rounded edges, the 'hobbit' like feel. i have a huge book on building green that lays out several different methods. the more i read about your cob solution, they more tangible it sounds. i am getting to the stage in my life where this is more and more on my brain. i cant wait to one day begin to build my very own home, just like my parents did.
I can definitely relate, Laura, I feel like I'm in that stage of life also (doesn't it feel a little crazy?) It's nice to find you and Renea who are my own age and interested in similar things. So neat that your parents built their own house. I'd actually never heard of natural building until my brother told me about it two years ago. I thought he was talking about a mud house until I saw pictures, I was sold right away! I may build a hybrid of cob and strawbale, strawbale as insulation and cob on the outside and inside of it, for more warmth in the cold Montana winters. Good luck on your adventure and finding out what's right for you! Keep me up to date! :)
Thank you for sharing! I am not feverishly searching for cob house photos. I've seen it done before but didn't actually consider it until you posted this! I am so excited to talk to my husband about it for when we move. :)
Whoops just noticed I wrote not instead of now. ;)
Yes yes! Search for photos, there are some amazing houses out there! Let me know what your husband thinks! What state are you moving to? Excited for you!
We're moving to Oregon in probably 8 years. (I like researching early. ha!) I think he'll love to do it. It's just being uninformed at the moment that worries him. :)
Did you catch my blog of links to more resources? There's tons and tons of things to look at. Oregon sounds beautiful! I've never been, but have been wanting to visit the coast there for a while. My brother moved there a few months ago and really loves it. How exciting for you guys!
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