This is the cob-bale extension we're building at the moment, onto our 400 year old wattle & daub and clay-lump cottage. The front walls you see are solid cob. The back wall is north facing, so it has straw bales embedded into it. This combination of straw and cob means that when this extension is finished, it won't need any heating! So not only is cob the ultimate sustainable building material - when cob houses are finished, they're also very eco to run. They're just so dammed perfect!You can see here that Kate has started the thatch. Today she's been on the roof in the freezing cold, building the chimney stack, ready to thatch around. I'll put pictures of that on soon. We're going to build a Romford cob fire place in the sitting room - it's an open fire but it's as efficient as a woodburner - we'll take you through how to build one when we do ours.
Right, I have to go as I can't concentrate any more with the banging - our new apprentice Rojo is chipping the cement render off the old house so we can replace it with a lime render. It is essential that earth houses have a lime render so the walls can breath and no moisture is trapped.
Okay. See you later.
Charlotte.
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