My Cob House Obsessions

My Cob House Obsessions

Have you ever seen a Cob House? This is nothing new. In fact, cob houses have been around for hundreds of years! Cob is made of mud, sand and straw and used to build all kinds of things.  I’ve seen beautiful houses.  I’ve seen backyard fire pits and even benches made from cob.  There is a perfect consistency used to build cob.  If it’s not just right it could crack or worse, not hold.

Cob houses are built with a rock foundation and a good size roof.  Protecting the cob house from the natural elements would be a limestone plaster.  If you have any sort of artist type bone in your body, you will go crazy at the thought of ways to make your cob house special.  The sculpting possibilities are endless.  I’ve seen beautiful colored glass bottles sculpted right into the walls of stunning cob houses for extra lighting too.

Here’s a part cob house that was built right here in Texas.  This home was built by Gary Zuker, a University of Texas Computer Engineer with no carpentry experience behind him.  He built it for a mere $25,000 (not including the labor involved).  It took him 3 years to complete.

Texas Hobbit House


(photo credit: Tinyhousetalk.com)

Cob house in Texas

(photo credit: Tinyhousetalk.com)

Texas Hobbit House

(photo credit: Tinyhousetalk.com)

Building a house on a budget is perfect when you use the elements on your land to build your home.  Some cob houses can be built for just a few thousand dollars.

Here are a few of my recommended books:

Building with Cob: A Step-by-Step Guide

The Hand-Sculpted House: A Practical and Philosophical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage: The Real Goods Solar Living Book

Building Green, New Edition: A Complete How-To Guide to Alternative Building Methods Earth Plaster * Straw Bale * Cordwood * Cob * Living Roofs (Building Green: A Complete How-To Guide to Alternative)

The Good House Book: A Common-Sense Guide to Alternative Homebuilding Solar * Straw Bale * Cob * Adobe * Earth Plaster * & More (A Natural Home Book)

Earthbag Building: The Tools, Tricks and Techniques (Natural Building Series)