As a natural building teacher, I make it my goal to solve problems for my students and clients. Basically, I help them reach their goals. And in most cases, that means getting them towards their goal of building with cob. Whether that’s empowering them with the knowledge and skills to build a small cob project or a cob home that they can live in.
Since my goal is to help my students, I’m always watching out for recurring and weighty problems that they might be having in their cob building journeys.
And I’ll just cut right to the issue here…
Ever since I’ve been involved with cob and natural building, I’ve seen these problems showing up.
People are so excited to learn how to build with cob and empower themselves with these skills, but a large percentage of these people are running into various roadblocks that prevent them from attaining these experiences.
Whether it’s a stay-at-home mom looking after her children every day, a busy executive who can’t get away from the office desk, or somebody with a tight budget…
Why should they be left out of these learning experiences?
I mean if you really think about it, most people can’t go to attend a cob workshop. There are various reasons for this, but usually its one of these:
- You just don’t have enough time available
- You can’t get vacation days off
- You can’t afford the high workshop fees and travel expenses
I recognized this as a big problem facing the natural building movement.
How are people ever going to be empowered with these skills and make a difference in the way we build if most people are barred from taking workshops for these sorts of reasons?
For a solution to this problem, I wanted to completely eliminate the reasons people usually have for not being able to take a cob workshop.
So, this is what I did in a nutshell…
I took the traditional cob workshop and made it virtual.
Yes, I made a comprehensive cob workshop that can be taken via the internet.
This is what that means for you:
- You can learn from home at your own pace
- You don’t need to ever take vacation days off
- No travel required
- You only pay a fraction of the cost!
As a teacher who’s goal is to deliver my students with a pathway to success, I have made it my task to over-deliver with this course.
I guarantee that you will learn more in this online course than any other comprehensive workshop you could actually go and attend.
Live workshops are great and very important, but with most of them they just don’t cover all of the important topics. Even though workshops can be for a week or more, most of that time is usually not spent efficiently learning all the aspects of building really needed.
A standard week-long cob workshop is usually focused so much on mixing large quantities of cob and building cob walls that a whole list of other important topics is passed right over.
Again, in my attempt to solve problems I’ve made the online cob workshop comprehensive in its scope. You don’t get the hands on aspect of a live workshop, but you get everything else and then some more!
Here’s a snippet of what you’ll learn in the online Cob Workshop Classroom during the first 3 months. The lessons are comprised of videos and downloadable PDF readings.
Month One
Introduction to Earth Building
Designing Your Cob House – Introduction
Foundations – Basic Principles
Site Preparation
Rubble Trench Foundations
3-4-5 Method – How to Square a Site for Building
Building a Stone Foundation – Part 1 Introduction
Building a Stone Foundation – Part 2: Batter Boards
Cob Ingredients – Soil, Sand, and Straw
Testing and Selecting Soil
Building Plans – Foundation One: Rubble Trench, Batter Boards, Stone Stem Wall
Case Study – Joy’s Cob Brick Test
Question and Answer – Month One
Month Two
Selecting a Building Site
Passive Solar Design
Building a Stone Foundation – Part 3: Collecting Stones
Building a Stone Foundation – Part 4: Stone Masonry Tools
Laying Out a Round Foundation
Foundation Module Two: Round Foundation
Thermal Mass and Insulation
How to Make Cob – Tarp Method
Analyzing Cob Test Bricks
Basic Tools for Building a Cob House
Month Three
Building Cob Walls – Part 1: Properties & Dynamics
Mixing Cob with a Tractor
Building a Stone Foundation –Part 5: Stone Laying
Building a Stone Foundation –Part 6: Mortar & Finishing
Installing Utility Lines – Electricity & Water
Hybrid Building Systems
Passive Cooling
Case Study: Arjuna’s House – Water Lines, Hybrid Design, Passive Solar
Building Plans – Cob Wall Construction
The lessons will take you through a linear progression of how to build your own cob house.
If this sounds like it might solve some of your problems like I’ve mentioned, and if you are keen to join me and the other students currently enrolled in the program, please click here –
>> Online Cob House Workshop <<
Alex Sumerall
Owner/Instructor at This Cob House, LLC
