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COB & EARTH SCULPTING

oven
|Adobe Cob & Rammed Earth |... Plasters of Earth & Lime |... Wood & Stone |... Homesteading |... Design Your Home| ... Papercrete/Low Cost|... Heat: Stoves & Ovens |... Solar/Off the grid|... Practical: Roof,Floor,Plumb,Wire,Greywater | Straw Bale |... Videos| ... New Books!|... Good Used Books |... Rare and Unusual Books page! |... Useful Web Links| ... How to Order| Order Form | Ken Kern Owner Builder Books

See a handmade N. California cob house

Appropriate Plasters For Cob & Stone Walls ... This pamphlet produced by the Devon, England Earth Building Association (where hundreds of cob cottages exist) covers use of lime renders and washes for protection and repair of cob and stone. Gives mixes, directions preparation methods, resources in the UK. Imported, 8 pages, xerographic. #1014...$5.00... Order Here

Appropriate Building Materials.The grandaddy of information on building techniques and materials. Imported from the UK this big book covers EVERYTHING about natural building, with photos, hundreds of sketches, uses in practice, unusual treatments, very low cost methods used in countries with few resources and much more useful information. Great to keep as a basic reference and idea book. 433 pages, 6x9, paperback #1026...$33.00... Order Here

Building with Adobe & Stabilized-Earth Blocks- 1964 : Leaflet #535, USDA . 8 page booklet, 5"x7" size, xerographic. Describes selecting soil; mixing, molding and curing adobe bricks with a form mold and with a Cinva Ram block press (ram photo shown). Explains building walls with cross section diagrams showing construction methods, roof design and attachment. Gives recipes for finish coating walls (plasters)- a casein & TSP wash, limewash and lime plasters. Black and white diagrams throughout. #535..$2.00..... Order Here

A modern adobe design is much like methods used 50 years ago.
Building with (almost) Free Materials-A Series of Articles... by Charmaine Taylor. Explains how to use Adobe, Agstone, Papercrete, Paper Adobe, Cob, Cobwood, Superadobe, Rammed Earth, Lime and alternative materials (reed, coir, hemp, jute) for building small projects and structures. Describes finding clay, woodchips, fabrics, testing soil, and how to make and use these materials. Photographs, recipes/mixes, and a history are given. A good starting point for learning about natural & alternative methods, 35+ pages, B&W photos. Unleash your creativity for almost no cost! #1045...$10.00 ..Order Here

Building with Bamboo ... by Jules Janssen . A practical handbook for construction uses of bamboo, its limits, seasoning, harvesting for floors, walls, roofs, ceilings, roof trusses and bridges. Clearly presented technical information, tests, and drawings. 65 pages, many b/w photos, illustrations,6x9 #1017...$18.00 ... Order Here This is a great 'how to' book! Imported from the UK.

A newly published book on bamboo building" Grow Your Own Home", $42. is in German and English, with incredible building information. Color photos, design details, fittings and attachment styles are shown for creating anything from simple roofs to enormous, sophisticated structures (like the open conference-exposition hall built in Hanover, Gr) #7567...$42.00... Order Here

The NEW Hand Sculpted House book is available- go to the Webstore link.

The Cob Builders Handbook: You can hand-sculpt your own home. Featured article and book in Mother Earth News, October 1998. by becky Bee ...One third of the world's population live in homes of earth, with thousands of cob buildings still in active use in England and Wales today. This handbook teaches (with humor) all the necessary basics with chapters on design, site selection, materials, foundations, floors, windows, doors, finishes and creative cob building techniques. Becky Bee has built structures in the US, australia, New zealand, Central America and Samoa. 173 pages, profusely illustrated. #1002... FREE ONLINE, SEE the WEB LINK HERE

Earth Construction: A Comprehensive Guide ... by Hugo houben and Hubert guilland- translated from French, this extensive, 362 page, profusely illustrated resource covers EVERY aspect of earth building known, and is considered "the" primary resource for earth builders. Packed with information on testing soils; it reads like a good science book, and is invaluable for showing approaches beyond cob and rammed earth for construction. Earth rolls, sod turves, mudball, puddled clay and many historical earthen methods are described and shown in drawings. An asset for a personal or group's resource library. Hundreds of illustrations, B&W photos, 362 pages, softcover, 8 x 10. Imported. #1022... $47.50... ORDER HERE

Earthen Floors ... by Bill Steen and Athena Steen. Natural earth floors are fast becoming the finish of choice for people building with adobe, strawbale and cob. Comfortable to walk on, forgiving of dropped pottery and simple to maintain. Earthen floors are inexpensive, don't off-gas like man-made products and are easily repaired. This illustrated booklet covers all aspects of earthen floors: base preparations for various climates, earthen mixtures; installation; non-chemical sealants; and upper story applications. 30 page booklet. #1004...$10.00... ORDER HERE


New Edition, expanded to 100 pages, color photos! Building Your Earth Oven by Kiko Denzer. Learn how easy and practical an outdoor baking oven is to build and use. The design is a two layer retained heat oven, and can be built with onsite materials such as earth and sand, and uses a brick base-floor, or even an earthen floor. These ovens burn a small amount of wood, get very hot, and allow you to bake breads and meals slowly after the coals have been raked out. Kiko sculpts his ovens with wonderful animal and nature shapes. Imagine a huge Phoenix bird, its belly the oven, the flue its throat, with smoke escaping from the upturned beak! Children can help build these ovens, and play with earth at the same time. Complete instructions, 100 pages, 8.5x7, line drawings, and wonderful COLOR oven photographs of frog, squirrel, and Phoenix bird oven-bench, plus B&W of a snail and other fanciful ovens. #1003... $15.00... Order Here

See also the Bread Ovens Quebec book for a cob/stone outdoor oven.

Keely Earth Plasters for Straw Bale Homes : By Keely Meagan of Earth Artisans, NM (shown plastering a straw bale house with Jazz, the cat.) 53 pages of everything about using earth and mud for a natural finish on bale walls. Covers earthen recipes, planning, testing, problems, how to mix and apply each coat, tools (trowels and others) and materials needed, resources. 44 pages with great black & white instructional photos. This is a warm and engaging teaching book! #1056...$14.00... Order Here

Thatching- A Handbook by Nicholas Hall, UK. A good descriptive 'how to' with excellent drawings, covers problems solving, tools needed and more. See how thatching is actually done to help you decide on this method of roofing. Many illustrations, 47 pages, b & w. #1016...$15.00... Order Here
Building with Earth VIDEO: Cob Philisophy Cob Cottage Company VIDEO An inspiring demonstration about building with earth, called 'cob' , in the old European tradition. Learn how to live more simply, and see Ianto and Linda Evans with their cob cottage, built for only $500.00, 28 min., #1007... $22. (Also rental).. Visit the VIDEO page to order.
Want to know more? Call Cob Cottage Co. for a class schedule, and Subscribe to the Cobweb..a great newsletter, $25.00 for a 2 year subscription, 2 issues per year. Tel: 541-942-2005

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© Copyright 2000 Taylor Publishing, Eureka CA . This page updated 038-04

This is the OLD website for The Dirt Cheap Builder. To order books fast and easy online please click on this Webstore link. It will take you to the same books shown here, and more!