Wattle and Cob: An Earthen House Built by Hand


Here’s another super low cost, all natural housing method. Snakes of cob are coiled around a pole frame.

“Peak Moment 215: “I think it’s very very important to know you can provide things for yourself? build your own house? grow your own food? make your own medicine.” Walking his talk, Greg Crawford shows the magical wattle-and-cob house he built with hand tools using local materials: alder trees in the surrounding forest, and clay from what later became the house floor. Building his house was an “experiment in intuitive architecture… using common sense while “letting the building evolve, change and grow on its own.””

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Becky Bee’s Cob Builders Handbook

Cob Builders Handbook by Becky Bee
Cob Builders Handbook by Becky Bee

You Can Hand-Sculpt Your Own Home
“Cob (an old English word for lump) is old-fashioned concrete, made out of a mixture of clay, sand, and straw. Becky Bee’s manual is a friendly guide to making your own earth structure, with chapters on design, foundations, floors, windows and doors, finishes, and of course, making glorious cob. I believe that building with cob is a way to recreate community and experience the joy of working together while taking back the right to build our own homes and look after our Mother Earth. She loves doing something that makes sense in a world where lots of things don’t.”

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Old Cob Houses in New Zealand

Cliff, one of our readers, sent me these photos of old cob houses in New Zealand. They look really nice, especially considering their age. I knew New Zealand and Australia have a long history of building with earth, but I didn’t realize how well the buildings are holding up and how beautiful they are. The … Read more