Kate Edwards and Charlotte Eve, who run Edwards & Eve Cob Building company, have spent over a decade teaching people how to build with cob. The pair said: “Our aim is to empower as many people as possible to build their own affordable and sustainable home from the earth; and educate as many people as possible about the benefits of cob and earth building”.
“We enjoy building projects for other people and carry out renovations on earth buildings, but we particularly relish sharing our cob building expertise on our cob building workshops. This way many more people around the UK and globally will be free to build their own homes and share their knowledge with others too.”
Charlotte says, “It’s the perfect eco-friendly substance. It’s sustainable, cheap, and you get raw material from the garden. It’s easy to work with. If you build a wall and want a larger window, you saw the cob. If you want a smaller window, you add cob. It’s that flexible.”
They have trained over 300 people a year – from surveyors and architects looking to learn more about the materials to novices who want to build instead of rent and buy. People have arrived from Japan, Bulgaria, US, Canada, Germany and Norway for the courses that have proved to be a great success.
Kate was a psychotherapist and Charlotte worked long hours in advertising before they made the move to become cob specialists. Their journey started when they found a tiny, unwanted, run down thatched cottage in the cobbled backstreets of Norwich. They bought the home and started a massive revamp project with plans to more than double the size of cottage using cob.
“The build itself was stressful. I remember making clay plaster in the dark in a snow blizzard whilst Kate clay-plastered inside, trying to get the house finished in time for family visiting for Christmas. Christmas Eve we were frantically laying the oak floor and painting walls.”
Overall it took just £10,000 to complete it all and create a huge home fit for a pair of risk takers. A brand new staircase and fireplace were added completely for free as they’re made of cob found in the back garden. Kate even ended up thatching the house herself using reeds from the marshes around the area. In comparison the average house price in the UK is £291,000 and has been on the rise over the last few years.
“Our old jobs are a distant memory now. We’re full time cob builders and tutors, with a 2-year-old son, and the three of us spend all day playing in the mud,” Charlotte said. “I feel that we are living the dream – away from the noise, pollution and stress of modern life, in our mud home by the water.”
You can read the original article at www.thesun.co.uk
How come this cottage turned out so cheap to build? Does it lack electricity and plumbing?
I believe it has those amenities; it was just needed a lot of repair which they were able to do themselves without spending much money.
The house even looks like a vernacular British cottage! Though unless it has no electricity, no insulation and no running water, £10,000 \ $12,700 is honestly probably too good to be true. While it is possible to build a dwelling that cheap, in the developed world, (so far as I know) it’s almost impossible to build a house of this size with basic modern conveniences under $30,000 or so.