Skip to main content
Aug 12
Love0

Reciprocal roof video: removing the charlie stick

By Video, Reciprocal Roof

By sheer chance, I found this YouTube video in which several builders remove the ‘charlie stick’, or temporary support for a reciprocal roof frame. It looks like it is perhaps Tony Wrench’s account, but unfortunately he has no other videos about the building process. But this is indeed helpful! It gives me clues about the construction process:

– The charlie stick does not seem to be buried at all, which makes me think that they simply braced it (making it easier to remove later)

– The whole structure does settle once the post is removed, but not much, so the pitch is indeed “what you get”

– The top of the rafters look to be left untrimmed to their final size, which I assume gives the builder some wiggle room

Aug 11
Love0

Preparing for building the reciprocal roof frame

By Living Sod Roof, Reciprocal Roof

The past few days, I have been dwelling quite heavily on the roof design for my cob house. I will be constructing what is called a reciprocal roof, a self-supporting structure composed of pin oak and black locust poles. Reciprocal roofs are round and spiral-y, perfect for round structures. They require no center post and are apparently “simple” to construct, requiring no experience. Plus, they look great, too.

The only downside to building a reciprocal roof is the apparent lack of really comprehensive information out there on how to actually do it. Running a Google search for reciprocal roofs results in a few decent hits, but still, there seems to be a dearth of hard information on how to go about making a reciprocal roof from start to finish.

The best resource I have found thus far is Tony Wrench’s book, How To Build a Low-Impact Roundhouse. You can see some photos of his design here. Wrench has some good sketches and a decent amount of how-to information in his book (which, by the way, is pretty hard to find), but I’m still craving more. Perhaps because my case is pretty different from his and I want to be reassured that this thing is going to work.

The main difference being that my walls are load-bearing, with the reciprocal roof rafters resting directly on the cob walls. Oh, and my house is also not totally circular… That makes a big difference, too.

But anyway, here are a few other sources of images and information for the prospective reciprocal roofer:

  • The LessPress Snail Cabin has a reciprocal roof made with dimensional lumber. Also, be sure to check out their Excel spreadsheet for calculating beam lengths and positions for both circular buildings and otherwise
  • Zone5 has a brief description with some images of a Tony Wrench-style reciprocal roof construction for a roundhouse here and here
  • Check out a scale reciprocal roof model and design using dimensional lumber at Casa de Baro
  • Cae Mabon in Snowdonia of North Wales features several buildings with reciprocal roofs. Images here
  • Simon Dale’s ‘low impact woodland home‘ has a gorgeous reciprocal roof with gnarly rafters and beautiful slab decking
  • For math nerds, visit The Pavilion for a very technical description of how reciprocal roofs function
  • Design Forward has a very brief snippet about the history of the reciprocal roof design, which was invented by Graham Brown, who says: “The structure demonstrates a principle that is fundamental to life on this planet – a simple natural principle: All life is connected.” (Unfortunately, Brown’s website is down…)

This is mostly what I have been reading and looking at for inspiration. I guess the only way to determine if my own reciprocal roof design works is actually making this thing. Soon enough, I will know!

(Image from Zone5.org)

Aug 09
Love0

Cob building work exchangers wanted this fall

By Uncategorized

cobbing-edgeIf you’ve read anything on this blog in the last four months, you’ll know I am busy building my cob house. It’s now almost mid-August and I am realizing that I’ll want at least an extra pair of hands (or two) for sometime in September and October.

So, if you are interested in learning and helping to build a house with cob, contact me for more information about work exchanging.

First: get all of the details at this link: building with cob work exchange.

Then: contact me!

Aug 08
Love0

Installing lintels above windows

By Cob Building, Lintels

The past week has been extremely productive, thanks to some help from Apple and a few other folks from Sandhill Farm. The cob walls are nearing 85% complete, I’d say. But before I finish them, there are other things to take care of, too. Namely, I need to install lintels above my windows and doorway, and start preparing for the roof.

Lintels are lengths of material (usually, slab wood, pole wood, milled lumber, bamboo, etc.) used to span window frames in natural buildings. They help to bear and spread the weight of the material (cob, in my case) above windows and doorways. Depending on the material, they can be pretty decorative, too.

I cut some osage orange wood for my smaller window lintels, leaving the bark intact for a more ‘raw’ look. I’m pretty happy with the effect.

For my large south-facing window (see top photo), I chose to use some pole wood that I got from Skyhouse. I wanted something straight and easy to work with, but also round, so these fit the bill. These lintels are shorter than is ideal (they only overhang the window by six inches on both sides), but hopefully they will still get the job done.

I am just now starting to think about how the rafters of my reciprocal roof will be placed on the walls, so these next few days will be heavier on the “thinking work” side of things…

Jul 29
Love0

Cob water damage

By Cob Building, Moisture

Here’s a normal cob wall (with no/near zero significant water damage):

And another wall that has been pelted in a flash flood:

The damage isn’t that significant (it’s just surface runoff), but it sure still bugs me…

Jul 28
Love0

Back to… the rain

By Cob Building, Moisture

Rainiest year. Ever.

When I left DR three weeks ago, I figured all that rain we’ve been experiencing had left us, too, but boy was I wrong. Yesterday, we experienced yet another incredible flash floor, dumping a good 2″ or so of rain on us in less than half an hour. We just can’t seem to get a few dry days.

The day was gorgeous until a mere hour before this storm rolled in. We went to a party at Sandhill Farm, and before we left I decided against covering my house, noting the clear skies, but I should have known… never take a chance… (Covering the walls is really annoying at this point because it takes a good half hour to do it right, hence my reluctance.)

Needless to say, my house was left exposed (although it was quickly covered pre-storm with the help of some folks who were staying back at DR, the wind [60 MPH+!] whipped any and all tarps off the walls).

The north wall took a bit of a beating, washing away a decent amount of cob surface material, exposing a lot of straw. But really, it’s only just surface damage (although it still really sucks to see), and the integrity of the walls has not been lessened.

Let’s just say: lesson learned. I don’t want to see that happen again. (But I wonder if it really would have even mattered had I myself tarped the walls before we left… oh well…)

Jul 01
Love0

A goal was set

By Cob Building

I set a goal to finish the cob walls of my house before I left Dancing Rabbit for a visit to New Jersey come July 12. I thought this would be possible several weeks ago, when progress was very brisk, but with last week’s rain, I suffered a setback. Granted, there is absolutely no reason why I have to finish the walls before I leave… I have plenty of time to finish this house before late fall arrives, but I like to set markers. I get pretty crazy about wanting to get X number of batches by Y date, etc… but mostly it’s all in good fun and I don’t get that hung up on it.

I have some help coming in the form of visitors tomorrow and some guests over the weekend, so maybe I won’t be too far off from my original goal after all… we’ll see! These are exciting times.

Jun 28
Love0

A bit more rain…

By Moisture

I didn’t get a heck of a lot of time to work on the cob house since it was very wet and gray and rainy throughout much of the past six days. I must say that it’s a real drag constantly worrying about the weather and covering up the walls every night with tarps, and hoping that gusts of wind don’t come in and mess things up. (Usually, if it’s raining and not very windy, the building gets less wet than when it is both rainy/windy.) I frequently have a hard time sleeping when it’s thundering and storming at night because I worry about the condition of the building.

Of course, it’s my luck that I just so happen to be building a cob house during one of the wettest years on record. But I must say, the house is faring quite well despite the numerous flash floods and constant storming. The walls have gotten significantly wet in some spots a few times thus far, but the damage has been minimal. There has been nothing more than some minor runoff of material and the integrity of the walls has not been threatened in any way. Cob astounds me in that way — it’s simply strong and can take a beating.

I imagine once the walls are complete and the roof is up, this building is going to be standing for a long, long time…

Jun 24
Love0

Building a lean-to trestle

By Hand Tools

trestle00

Over the weekend, I built a lean-to trestle. The cob walls are getting too tall in some spots to work from the ground. I’ve been using a long bench that Thomas kindly lent to me, but I needed at least one other (and taller) option to reach high up.

I based this trestle off of a design in The Hand-Sculpted House, but I made it a bit more simplistic, since I didn’t need this trestle to be super-tall (and because my carpentry skills are pretty marginal). I used some old 2x4s and some 1x lumber. The trestle is about five feet wide and leans against the cob wall for support, and gives me an extra three feet to my standing height. It works just lovely.

Jun 23
Love0

Another cob house picture update

By Cob Building

int-se00

angle-se01

The house is starting to feel much more like an actual house now that some of the walls are 6+ feet tall. Standing inside, it’s also easier to imagine what the final house will look like, where things will go, and how big the space feels.