Cob Building on Mayne Island

It's been an incredible week of work and making new friends. Cob building has been more exciting than I imagined and I look forward to doing some more down the road. "What is Cob?" you ask. Here's a little history from your friendly wikepedia.



History and usage

Cob is an ancient building material, that has possibly been used for construction since man first housed himself. Cob structures can be found in a variety of climates across the globe; where many homes have survived over 500 years and are still inhabited. Many old cob buildings can be found in Africa, the Middle East, Wales, Devon, Ireland, Cornwall, Brittany and some parts of the eastern United States. Traditionally, English cob was made by mixing the clay-based subsoil with straw and water using oxen to trample it. The earthen mixture was then ladled onto a stone foundation in courses and trodden onto the wall by workers. The wall height would progress according to how long it took for the last course to dry. After drying, the walls would be trimmed and the next course built, with openings for doors and windows being placed as the wall takes shape.

The walls of a cob house were generally about 24 inches thick, and windows were correspondingly deepset giving the homes a characteristic internal appearance. The thick walls provided excellent thermal mass which was easy to keep warm in winter and cool in summer. Walls with a high thermal mass value act as a temperature fly wheel inside the home. Surprisingly, the material held up really well in rainy climates, so long as a cob house was built with a tall foundation wall and a large roof overhang.


Modern cob buildings

When Kevin McCabe built a two-storey, four bedroom cob house in England in 1994, it was reputedly the first cob residence built in the country in 70 years. His methods remained very traditional; the only innovations he added were using a tractor to mix the cob itself, and adding sand or shillet (a gravel of crushed shale) to reduce the shrinkage.

In the Pacific Northwest of North America there has been a resurgence of cob building both as an alternative building practice and one desired for its form, function and cost effectiveness. There are more than ten cob houses in the Southern Gulf Islands of British Columbia built by Pat Hennebery and the Cobworks workshops.



Not only has Pat built many homes here on Mayne but he also organizes an annual cob workshop in Baha, Mexico. This year they are constructing a national history museum in a small town called San Antonio which is about 35 minutes from Cabo San Lucas.

The people I have met here have been truly supportive and have extended a great effort to help me find a way to stay on the island for the winter season. And so even though I thought it was too late and would return to Ontario this week, I have found renewed support and I will decide this wednesday should I stay or should I go.

Above all working and housing difficulties it has been the the new friends i have met and old ones i have come to know again that make me want to stay.


The cobbing this week was fairly informal. A few people who have taken workshops this year returned to Pat and kit's place to help finish constructing a home they will soon move into, a project that was started earlier. There is a large straw bale house , framed with driftwood logs and plastered a beautiful yellow including decorative releifs. We worked on filling in the final gaps on the cob kitchen addition to the balehouse and also the cob bathouse. (detailed photos can be seen at flickr)
It is quite incredible what you can do with cob and a wild imagination is not a bad thing here. Ready to see some imaginative designs? click here to link to the cobworks gallery of houses on Mayne island.