Anne and Gord Baird are building a Cob Dreamhome in Victoria. It’s the first code approved, high occupancy seismically engineered load bearing cob building in Canada. It’s a 1550 round feet building with solar PV and wind power, grid intertie, solar thermal heating, rain water harvesting from a living roof, composting toilet, grey water re-use, and passive solar design.

They have insulated their cob walls by adding pumice, a porous volcanic rock. So their cob mix was clay/sand, pumice and straw. I just love that they are running hydronic heating tubes through the earthen floors and benches. This is a great example of a cob demonstration home. I’m sure we will be hearing more about this project in times to come.

Here is a must see photo gallery of the building process.
For more information about this project and Eco-sense services visit eco-sense.ca.

I ran across this wonderfully produced video documenting a skillfully crafted cob oven on YouTube. It’s titled The Making of a Cob Oven. The video was produced at Finca Ipe and posted by Zebede67. Very nice!

I wanted to make an oven, somewhere to bake some pizza. So I started to work…
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