yup – still alive and kickin’

It’s been a few months since I wrote here last.

I was in Australia and Singapore for nearly 3 months enjoying the sun and family and wine and seafood.

I’ve been doing heaps of research on all aspects of cob building and when I get a second I’ll pull together all the cool sites I found and share them with you. I may post them as a permanent page at the top of my blog. I could also do them up in a pdf that I’d be happy to email to anyone that would find it useful. Let me know if you want it.

Some of the areas I have been researching include:

• small house design
• passive solar design
• compost toilets
• straw bale and hybrid building
• designing a rainwater collection system
• non concrete foundations
• architectural salvage in Ireland
• walls & windows
• ceilings
• roofs
• energy technologies
• earth floors
• kitchens
• natural finishes
• gathering stories and photos of cob builds

Slowly, slowly I’m gathering information and good sites. They are all saved to favourites and to my files but I need to do some proper sorting and cataloguing. Give me a month or so. Nothing like a deadline to motivate!

I mentioned on another post that I had bought a lot of very interesting cob building books from Walnut Books through their online store. Nora is a dote and very helpful.

Well, it seems to me that there’s a section missing in all their books and a lot of the sites. This became clearer to me when I was talking with my friends that are sustainable renovating their cottage (see previous post for photos).

They borrowed the books and then said that there’s nothing about what materials to use to build the bathrooms. Obviously you can’t have exposed cob – as water and cob are a bit like vampires and sun – melting. And quite a few materials won’t adhere to cob or allow a proper airflow. My friends solved the problem and now have 2 gorgeous tiled bathrooms. Anyway – that’s a section for someone’s book.

Speaking of my friend and their cottage. It’s nearly finished and I’ll post photos in a few weeks. It will be available for rent and is the soul of peacefulness. You can sit on the decking and look out onto the curving stream (that legend has it – Charles Atlas used to swim in as a boy.) and the mountains. The downstairs has an open kitchen/living/dining and a HUGE det of french doors to the decking – as well as 2 bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms. One of the bedrooms and bathrooms is wheel chair accessible.There are stairs to a lovely mezzanine/ entertainment area plus another bedroom and toilet. It’s a clay, hemp & lime build with all sorts of sustainable materials.

I’m going to book myself in for a week and just retreat and write. The cottage has been in Frank’s family for 7 generations and will soon be part of the Greenbox sustainable holiday rent scheme. If you’re interested in renting after May this year let me know and I’ll link you to them. I’m going to help them develop a blog with photos and a small video tour of the cottage.

Check this site – a very interesting journal of a couple’s building story in Maine – still at the very early stages. The site has a lovely design and a really good list of all the best sites on cob and straw bale building. She also mentions a site where there are around 50 plans of houses under 1000 sqft. I found a few designs I really like. She has cited MudWoman as one of her links – cool given I’ve only written 4 posts.

Also check out titus2 woman as she explores how she could build a cob home.

It’s not easy finding designs and photos of small house design. Some people’s idea of a small house is something just under 2000 sqft! And as our American friends would say – Hello!! Here in Ireland we are used to living in much smaller spaces.

If you want to see a really interesting small house have a look at Simon Dales self built home in a woodland. I call it the hobbit home and I love it. And – just for the fun do a Google of hobbit homes.

If you do a Google search on small house design some interesting sites do come up.

Check out the natural homes site. It has done a mashup of Google maps and you can see where natural builders have their sites (in real time and online) around the world. If you have a site – add it in.

The other thing I’ve found really interesting is going to You Tube and typing in ‘cob building’. There are a heap of short videos and slide shows with some of the cob innovators as well as tours of homes. Worth a wander.

Still looking for land around Ballinamore at a price I can afford. I have one of those feelings that something will come along around June or July. House and land prices in Ireland have dropped a fair amount in the last 6 months.

You know – part of sustaining a dream is to allow for the moments when you wonder whether it will happen – or should you change you dream.

I wonder if I’ll find the land for a reasonable price within 5 miles of Ballinamore. I wonder whether the bank will give me a loan to build a cob house. I wonder whether the Leitrim County Council will give me planning permission – if I get the land and the loan.

All fair wonderings. Right now I’ll just wait and see what comes up in the next few months.

Meanwhile I can still share with you the information I find from my research.

Take good care.

Liz

Another sustainable cottage

Some friends of mine have been renovating a family cottage. It’s been in the family for 7 generations.

As part of the Greenbox sustainable tourism development programme they were part funded to do a sustainable renovation. Ten other cottage/home owners in cross border counties were also funded to renovate their buildings to make them available for rent as part of an overall eco tourism programme.

What does that mean? I’ll let them tell their story in more detail another time as they are still busy doing the renovation.

Basically they have used a clay, hemp, sand, water and lime mix (which is eerily similar to cob) to build walls, floors and part of the roof. You’ll notice the timber framing with the clay mix inside. One of the lessons they learnt was that they didn’t need to use so much wood (which is one of the big expenses after labour). If the walls are wide enough (2 to 3 ft for outside walls and much thinner for inner walls) they hold their own mass and are all load bearing.

For my cob building the only wood I’ll use will be to ‘frame’ doors and windows, for lintels, the roof trusses and any shelving I decide to embed on the cob inside – although I’ll also be embedding slabs of stone as shelving as well.

The tiles on the roof are recycled tires and they’ll be painting the inside rooms with eco paints (which are infused with essential oils and you get this wonderful smell of orange as you paint). Insulation included cob and sheeps wool (that had to be sent to the UK to be treated – anyone want to start a value add business in Ireland?). There are a number of skylights and a solar panel.

On all my visits I have been stunned by how clean it all smells – no chemical smells at all. The earth materials also mean that the cottage has a high thermal mass. With the insulation contributing to the passive heating – I don’t think it will need much active heating.

The cottage is sited in Aughacashel which is about 5 miles from where I live in Ballinamore. It looks over to the iron Mountains and has a stream running through the property. It’s so serene and peaceful that you feel yourself relaxing and just gazing out into the scenery.

In the process of the renovation they found that the clay on their land was not only ideal as a building material but it also looks amazing – like poured honey. So, it’s been used to make the hemp and lime mix – and the plastering material.

They’ve started selling the clay to other natural earth builders.

The plasterers had to learn a new way of putting the natural clay mix onto the walls – a kind of throw and splotch (don’t you love all the technical building terms!). I love the rounded plastering at all the ‘edges’. The curved plastering is carried through inside the house.

The cottage was initially a traditional 3 room Irish home that at one time housed up to 7 people. The extension now has 2 ensuite bedrooms downstairs (one with disabled access) with an open plan kitchen and living/dining area and fireplace.

When you walk in the front door you are in the open area and you look straight across and out through 2 huge french doors. They frame a view that just astonshes me with its quiet beauty. There are stairs that take you to 2 open mezzanine’s that have multi function – as another relaxing area or bedrooms.

The earth material needs a few months to dry naturally and in the spring they will fit out the kitchen and bathrooms.

The cottage will be available to rent in mid 2008 for anyone interested in staying in an eco cottage surrounded by mountains, lakes and some lovely local towns and pubs. And just in case you have a pint too many, your landlords are also the local taxi service.

I only live 5 miles away but I’d be tempted to book myself in for a week retreat as I plan and develop all my micro enterprises.

The whole journey has been a huge learning curve for my friends – in terms of both money and time. But I’ll let them tell their story when they get their own blog going.

My home building journey?

Right now I’m getting ready to spend 2.5 months in Singapore and Australia visiting my family and friends. When I get back in February I’ll start looking for some land near Ballinamore. I’ve already booked and paid for a 1 day cob workshop in Galway sometime in April. And – friends have mentioned a few people building cob houses in the surrounding counties that I’d like to visit in March and April. I also want to buy a small van so I can start buying doors and windows and other house stuff from salvage yards in 2008.

Take good care.

Liz

Build Your Wild Self

Here’s some fun that my brother Marc just sent me.You get to build a picture of your wild self using animal parts. Check it out at the New York Zoo and Aquarium. Apparently I’m a Bis – sha – li – ondor – tiger. Don’t mess with this mud woman folks.

More great books from Walnut Books:

• Cob Buildings – A practical guide. jane schofield & jill smallcombe. UK. 2007 (3rd ed.)
• Permaculture in a nutshell. patrick whitefield. UK. 2005 (4th ed.)
• Sacred geometry. miranda lundy. revised edition. UK. 2006.
• Natural building - a guide to materials and techniques. tom wooley. UK. 2006.
• The Whole House Book – ecological building design and materials. cindy harris and pat borer. UK. 2004
• The biodynamic sowing and planting calendar 2008. maria & matthias thun. 2007.

They arrived today and will be joining my growing library of sustainable natural building books – and the biodynamic ones and permaculture ones.
I’ll be designing a database of books, websites and organisations over the next year and will make it available.

Went wandering on the web and rechecked the Cob Projects site. I visited the ClaySandStraw site and really enjoyed their visual diary of a small cob build. It gave some very good practical images of all the stages of the build – not including the roof. Well worth a visit

A lot of people have visited this blog since it was born 2 days ago. The two posts I moved from LizBiz to here have been very popular. Glad to be of interest and assistance. Everyone’s welcome.

I’m waiting to see how many people are sent to this site when they do online searches for something like mud wrestling! Oh what a surprise they will get.

I visited a friends renovation over the weekend. They are using a clay, lime and hemp mix for their walls and a range of natural materials and energy sources. When the cottage is finished (it’s been in Franks family for 6 generations) it will be available for rent.

What left me gasping was the natural plaster they created using clay on their land. It looks like honey has been poured on the walls. I’ll post some photos when I have them. They have started to sell batches of the clay in volume buckets to other natural builders in our area and Ireland. They’ll sell you just the clay or a specific clay, lime and hemp mix.

The lads doing the external plastering soon found out that they had to develop slightly new skills to get the clay/lime plaster onto the walls. It’s a kind of throw/slap kind of motion that helps the material adhere to the walls. They have also done really beautiful curved plastering at all corners. It looks amazing. I told them that they now had an added advantage over other plasterers as they could now plaster using natural materials. There are a number of natural builds happening in cross border counties here in Ireland.

One of the things I noticed when I visited their cottage last week was how clean everything smelt. I realised that the ‘new house’ smell I was used to was really all the chemicals used in building and decorating.

As people hear that I’m planning to build a cob home I’m being inundated with:

• people telling me of other cob builds in Ireland. I’ll be visiting and documenting them for my diary/workbook.
• people asking if they can help with the build. The answer is yes.
• natural builders with experience offering advice and support.

One of the really wonderful things about this dream/goal is that my Mum and Dad have total belief in my ability to do it. And in 5 weeks I’ll be flying to Australia and Singapore to see my family. I’ll also be researching natural building there.

I’m off now to do some other things. I’m learning advanced database design this week so I can design a really useful database for this project and for other projects with clients.

Be good and enjoy the week.

Liz

Once upon a time

           There was a woman.

Now she had a great life … doing work that made a difference … living in the country and working fairly regularly in a city … playing with friends of all ages and backgrounds … and knowing what was important in her life.

She lived in a world where success was measured in strange ways. By the job you had … the money you earnt … owning a home … having a partner

She wasn’t a natural rebel but she did live her life by her own code of values and she defined success in her own terms.

One day she went to a bank to find out how much they would lend her to buy a home of her own. She ran her own successful ethical consultancy and had been in business for over 15 years.

She was sure they would love to give her a bag of gold to buy her home.

Imagine her surprise when the money lenders told her that they would give her a certain amount for only 20 years. You see, they had a problem with her age and she was without a partner to add his pile of gold (and she would rather stay happily single anyway).

Now she was a creative and resourceful woman who was always interested in finding answers to difficult situations. After exploring what she didn’t have (rich relatives, offshore bank accounts, a life of successful bank hold ups) she went to bed and slept on it.

Over many days she let the problem (or as she saw it – an interesting conundrum) just mull around in the back of her mind because she knew that the answers would not arise immediately – and they wouldn’t always be obvious. She had to make sure she was open and tuned in to all the possibilities and coincidences that arose around her.

She woke one morning and went to that magic place where all knowledge (but not always wisdom) was held and asked it where she could buy a home for the small pot of gold the money lenders had offered her.

A place she had never heard of came up many times on the screen.

The very next day she set off with a faithful companion to visit this mysterious place. It was surrounded by lakes and mountains and very friendly people. On that very day she decided she would pack her bags and move to the town.

Being a sensible if somewhat impulsive woman she decided to rent a pink cottage in the centre of town so she could get to know the townspeople.

From the first day she was greeted with smiles and welcome. She was a cheerful and happy woman herself and that drew people to her – from small children to the elders of the town.

While the pot of gold from the money lenders was still available to her she began to have misgivings. Did she really want to pay them a large amount of money every month until she was 70?

What else could she do?

She had met a number of people who had built their own homes – men and women of all ages.

Could she do it? Build her own home?

As with all people she felt the doubts first. What did she know about building? It was all too complicated and she didn’t know carpentry.

Then her natural curiosity and ability to think creatively kicked in. She went to that magical place where all knowledge was kept and asked it questions about self building and natural materials and sustainable design.

A plethora of information appeared before her and she began to see that there were other ways to create a home without being shackled to the money lenders.

You see fair reader, not so very long ago (and in many places today) people built their own homes from the earth and materials around them. They had help from their neighbours and friends. They knew how to build to capture light and heat. They grew their own food.

They were their own wizards and witches and had never heard of property developers.

She realised that she wasn’t alone. Many people were relearning old skills and building their own homes.

So, she gathered many tomes on natural building and consulted with other people.

In September 2007 she decided that she would build a cob home.

It would take time and she had much to learn but she now knew that the quest was doable. She would build her own cob home. A curvy and beautiful home that was a delight to all the senses (a bit like herself really). A place where people would feel calm and welcome. Where stories and laughter and songs would prevail.

She also decided that she would write about the journey to her home. She would share the trials, tribulations and triumphs along the way.

And … as she shared her dream with people they told her of others building cob homes and offered to help her. Some of her friends delighted in teasing her (for it was well known that while she didn’t mind getting dirty, she also loved lolling and champagne) about her dream and she smiled and told them that they would have to do better. And she knew they would be the first to help when it was needed.

And all dreams need a plan and skills and … lots of things. So she girded her loins (a very interesting look in a country town) and began gathering books and skills and ideas and images. Her knowledge grew and her confidence in the dream coming true … grew.

To her delight she found that information on drainage and foundations and lintels and insulation and roofs and compost toilets was really interesting. She began to look at space and light and the movement of the sun in a different way.

She shared the research on another of her magic blogs LizBiz and any other seeker will find the information under natural building.

She decided one day in October to start a blog that told the story of the steps towards building her home.

This is it folks.

I’ll be sharing stories, information, thoughts, learning and ideas here over the next 2 years. The plan is to buy land by June 2008, do a cob building course over 9 days in September 2008 – and begin building in the Spring of 2009.

I’ll also be sharing other people’s natural build stories. And -I’ll be writing a diary/workbook that I’ll self publish in 2009/10 and will be sold through Walnut Books in Cork. There are 4 great cob building books (2 USA and 2 UK) but none have been written about Irish cob building.

I’ve posted 2 articles (I wrote them in Liz Biz) with web refs and a bibiliography at the top of this blog. If you know any good resources or have questions please post a comment.

And with all good stories ... she lived passionately and with good humour ever after …