For a long time I have wanted to try mixing cob with a cement mixer but never had the opportunity. But today I was helping a friend render his wall with Adobe in a stone house and as he had a cement mixer there and I was tired I offered to try to mix it…
Category: Natural Building
The Reason to use Fibre in Adobe Mixes
Today whilst plastering with Adobe onto a cement block stem wall we encountered a problem. We were aware that using fibre in an adobe mix was necessary to spread the cracks more evenly across a surface but when we started on our second mix and realised we had forgotten to add grass we stood in…
How to make a Tough, Consistent Colour Clay Paint
Here we will go in to detail about how we made a natural paint for a clay wall. Using only clay, water, sugar and flour.
How to make Adobe bricks
We are making a fireplace for our house and decided to use Adobe bricks. They use more or less the same mixture as your average cob, but instead of moulding the form using wet cob, you build using bricks which have already dried in the sun. Adobe bricks are much more commonplace in hot and…
How we made our Cob Floor
We have just about finished our cob floor and it looks and feels beautiful. As such I thought it necessary to start the blog post about how we did it. It was a lot of work but the techniques weren’t all that difficult. Here we go First up level the places in your home that…
Wattle and daub with pine and olive
We have made our internal walls using a pine structure and green olive branches. It has worked very nicely so here is a little guide on how we did it. Firstly we built the structure using 70x100mm pine joists. We secured them to the floor horizontally and connected them to the first floor joists vertically….
Hang pictures on a cob/stone wall
Hanging things on walls built with natural materials generally requires different techniques from a modern build, and sometimes a bit of pre-planning. We are at the stage of our build where we are rendering the walls with cob and we know the layout of the rooms. As such, we are comfortable to start deciding where…
Off Grid Solar Hot shower
Before we begin, depending on where you are on the planet, this shower will not likely work during the cooler months. We are in central Portugal and experience 40+ degree C summers, and 10 to 15 degree winter days. During summer we had scorching hot water every day, warm water on cloudy days, but it…
Pallet long drop and compost toilet
Here are a couple of compost toilet designs you can make very quickly using a few pallets. First of all the situation: you need a toilet that same day, and you then need a permanent compost toilet for the foreseeable future. So here is our idea, using the same pallet for the long drop as…
Mediterranean Permaculture 