At Cob Cottage Company we have found that many visitors and workshop participants have similar questions about cob. Here are some of the most common questions. It's a traditional building technique using hand formed lumps of earth mixed with sand and straw.
Cob is easy to learn and inexpensive to build.
It dries to a hardness similar to lean concrete and is used like adobe to create self supporting, load bearing walls. Cob has been used for centuries throughout Western Europe, even in rainy and windy climates, as far north as the latitude of Alaska. This ancient technology doesn't contribute to deforestation, pollution or mining, nor depend on manufactured materials or power tools. Cob is nontoxic and completely recyclable, which is important in this era of environmental degradation, dwindling natural resources and chemical contaminants. Cob is one of many methods for building with raw earth, the world's commonest construction material.