/diy/ - Do It Yourself

>>364126
Cob is natural,m yes, but clay AND sand AND straw may not always be present wherever the home is being built. trees are all over the damned place and unless you're building in places with permafrost, a dugout is the most efficient way to insulate your cabin.

>>364107
This >>364110 is a better solution than cob. Get an axe and a saw and an adze a shovel and a pick. but a few sacks of cement and a good packframe and a few square yards of canvas tarp and LOTS of rope. Build a dugout, cabin. Cheap, easily heated and easily constructed.

>>364100
What wikipedia doesn't tell you about medieval cob homes is that home repair was a year long, constant struggle, and that what a medieval peasant would consider "warm" was considerably cooler than you or I. Please note the slew of [citation needed] tags in that section of the article. That's a sign that the article was written by an ideologue.

>>364094
> Viking long houses were literally stone and wood frames covered in about three feet of earth and grass.

Yeah. 6 inches to a foot of stone and wood, topped by a yard of sod. AND they had anywhere from 2 to 10 people living in a few hundred square feet AND they kept a fire burning all the time.

This is NOT an ideal home. it's just the best they could do with the materials at hand. The Haida and Tlingit people (who also built longhouses) used heavy timber and thick planks and whole logs to build their shit out of. Why? Because wood is a better insulator than stone or even earth. You only build with earth when you have no other choice or when you need your buildings to be fire-resistant and armored.

>>364068
OK, looking over the pics, that is NOT a cob/rammed earth home. it's timberframe with plaster and lath walls, using cob-like mud as plaster. It's not good for much colder than about 40 or 50 degrees.

"Thermal mass is a concept in building design that describes how the mass of the building provides "inertia" against temperature fluctuations, sometimes known as the thermal flywheel effect. For example, when outside temperatures are fluctuating throughout the day, a large thermal mass within the insulated portion of a house can serve to "flatten out" the daily temperature fluctuations, since the thermal mass will absorb thermal energy when the surroundings are higher in temperature than the mass, and give thermal energy back when the surroundings are cooler, without reaching thermal equilibrium. This is distinct from a material's insulative value, which reduces a building's thermal conductivity, allowing it to be heated or cooled relatively separate from the outside, or even just retain the occupants' thermal energy longer."
-wikipedia entry on Thermal Mass

Which is just a long winded way of saying that if you have a significant temperature shift (say..... greater than 20F) between night and day (like in a desert or in northern climes) then you can ameliorate the loss of heat, by using very DENSE building materials.

However, thermal mass is in no way a REPLACEMENT for insulation. Insulation will help keep you warm when the temperature never gets above freezing (like in northern winters).
A properly built log cabin is pretty damned warm. And does not suffer problems with moisture, and erosion the way that rammed earth homes tend to.
What do you think Adobe is? it's fucking MUD that's been plastered onto lath and pole walls and then sun baked to a rock hard consistency. This sort of thing is ancient and only exists in dry arid places. Otherwise your walls tend to melt.

>>364058
A) There may be some cob i the upper portion of that building (can't see too well, poor resolution), but it looks like the lower portion is unsheathed timber studs framing plywood walls, and the rook looks like a wooden shake roof. Not much point in mixing the two styles, seeing as the cob is only a few inches thick and in any sort of truly cold weather will become permafrost, while the insulative rating of uninsulated plywood is about the same as that of cardboard.
B) You can heat it, but for the prices we're looking at, either you're gonna have a tiny, shitbird wood stove, or more likely a DIY fireplace. Neither of which are decent heating sources for a home in winter.
C)The building material IS the insulation, that's why the walls are a fucking meter thick!

I live in Alaska. NO ONE but the insane build rammed earth homes here, and when they do (stupid fucking hippies), the walls are 28 - 38 inches thick. And even then, they're a beast to heat in the winter.

There's a reason that rammed earth, cob and adobe homes are traditionally only found in deserts.

>>363920
A) that is not a cob construction home, that's unsheathed timberframe construction.

B) Anywhere that is regularly stays below freezing is NOT going to provide enough heat to do ANYTHING to keep your narrow ass alive, cob or no cob.

C)Thermal mass is a SECONDARY defense against thermal fluctuation and requires the building to be insulated. Without the insulation it's about as effective as trying to keep a bathtub of water warm while it's submerged in an icy river.

Also please note that the walls on a meduim sized COB home are about 2 to three feet thick and cost about the same as a timberframe home. Cheaper to erect a Quonset hut in a hole and then insulate the fuck out of it and bury the damned thing.

>>363972
A few years ago they were selling land just west of Kingman, Arizona for something like $6000 for 60 acres. No power, sewer or water and the water table was at about 700 feet.

>>363830
Yep, Oh, and he didn't make the window panes.

>>363742
You would freeze to death in that house in any sort of seriously inclement climate. No insulation, looks like single-pane windows and the door is too big.

That whole thing is a heatsink.

>>363825
Watch "Alone in the Wilderness" some dude back in the 60's moved to bumfuck Alaska, built a cabin by hand and lived in it for the next 30 years. Built damned near everything from the cabin to the cache; a fridge for the summer and a sled for the winter.

Dude was hardcore. About the time he turned 90 he decided to move back to town. The winters got just a little too hard for him.

>>362028
You can always use a high pressure water system to bore the hole. Smooth, round, perfect.

>>360775
er../ck/ not /diy/.

>>361018
Really? it's about $10 a quart here. $30 a gallon.

>>360961
Here, s4s red oak in 1x12 runs $10 a board foot. You can't FIND appearance grade oak in 12 inch widths you have to order it from the lower 48.

Whereas an 8 foot stick of the same thing in pine is only $15 a pop.

>>360881
OK. The real oak planks may account for some of the cost there. Getting good oak is fucking outrageous expensive.

>>360740
If I were to build it, It'd cost me around $300 and I'm dealing with the outragous meterials costs here in Alaska. And I don't use nails or screws. Pure old-world style carpentry here; pegs and glue, mortise and tenon, dovetailed joints. Use 2x2 for the upright supports, 2x10 for the shelves (mayhap add some angled supports for the shelves in the form of spindles). Hidden peg and sleeve hinges on the doors, no castors, use VERY smooth runners instead, or glue on some of those "carpet-magic" furniture pads to the drawer cabinet.

Even with all that, Total cost would be in the $300 - $400 range, retail really should be right around $1000 to $1500

>>360761
nononononono....

/diy/>/k/>/sci/>/cgl/>going stag

>>360673
Drill a hole, glue in a wooden dowel and glue a wooden finial on the end of that. finish the whole thing to look like your desk.

Cheap ($10 or less) and attractive.

>>360687
You know, street signs are just T6061 Aluminum sheets, cut to shape. You can buy the sheets online or from specialty fabricators for a fairly cheap price.

>>360302
I can vouch for that one. The cider tastes a little yeasty if you use the baker's yeast, but otherwise it's fine.

>>359861
If you wanna survive outside of a built up area, meeting maslow's basic needs is a requirement.

*Bush engineering (i.e. building a cabin, working out waterflow dynamics, latrine construction etc.)
*Plant/mushroom identification, Basic hunting, fishing, butchering/field dressing
*firebuilding/firestarting
*Water purification
>pic related

>>359737
What sorta tools? This thing is the best thing since go/no go gauges at the firing range.

>>358841
I use mine to do closed loop sawing like >>358838
described. I also use mine for cutting cogs and gears. Anywhere that slow, fine cutting is a must. Never used it for cutting dovetails, I have a router for that.

Kokobolo wood is nice. So is desert ironwood, teak, mahogany, ebony and most fruit woods (cherry, apple, pear, etc...)