The Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage has been doing even more great natural building projects since I visited 3 years ago. Ziggy built his own 200 sq. ft. cob house after 9 months of full time labor using less than $3000 on building materials. Take a look at his photo album, his blog that documents the process, and his detailed recipe for building your own.
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It appears that gravity would pull the roof downward and the angle of the roof beams would push the walls outward. What keeps the roof from flattening down from the peak?
love it. of course, 9 months of labor means 9 months of not working elsewhere for a living. that wasn’t figured into the cost, now was it? 9 months at even $7.50 per hour = $10,800. At $12 per hour, $17,280 cost that should be figured in. That makes it $20K for a 200 sq. ft house = $100 per sq foot. Most folks don’t have 9 months to put in to building a tiny tiny spot to live in. I do love it though. Reality tells me to build with straw bale.
Arrggh. And that’s with a mud floor, unpainted walls, no electricity, probably no plumbing and unpaid labor from friends too, apparently. Not even a kitchen in the photos, nor a bathroom. Of course, this wasn’t done in regard to money, but creativity, fun, simplicity, learning, experimenting. But most folks live in the real world, and can’t take 9 months off to play. It’s actually quite an expensive little building when one really considers everything. If you added in a real floor, (and I do like mud floors) electric, plumbing, kitchen and bath, you’d probably be looking at $150 a sq. foot or more, easy!
Hi Miriam –
Thanks for your input and your calculations! I’m sure that helps viewers who may be considering such an endeavor. I also support creativity, fun and simplicity on this site. If that isn’t the real world, I’m not sure what is!
I’ve been to the Dancing Rabbit community and some of my friends live there. It is a place, not unlike other intentional communities (ic.org), where people choose to live together and support creativity, fun and simplicity over a life of accruing currency.
well said thistinyhouse!