Will a Cob House Burn? 🔥 Testing Cob vs Fire!

[@thiscobhouse]

🔴 Download my 20 hour premium video course on Cob Building and Natural Construction: www.thiscobhouse.com/online-cob-house-workshop/

[@shannonmaire]

Cob houses are so interesting. I've been researching them for years. If everyone had a cob house in California they could return to a structure rather than piles of ash. Sometimes, the old ways are better.

[@lizandrog3805]

Considering what's going in L.A. right now, this is such a great topic to address.

[@OtherDalfite]

Makes me sad because you know California would never allow a house like this, not without making it completely cost preventative.

[@jimross364]

I'm 20 miles from Pacific Palisades and all the chaos and fires going on right now. If everybody had an stabilized earthen structure Cobb or Rammed Earth the story and outcome would be totally different. Non-Combustible is going to be the new buzz word and if it isn't, you're just a fool yet again. I'd be happy to give up some R value to keep my home... Just need to work on the earthquake stability part because that's what's coming next along with the floods. It's all a great topic for 2025. Thank you for all your expertise....

[@Purpose_Porpoise]

A house made with straw that won't fall down? This one'll confuse the Big Bad Wolf.

[@joschmoyo4532]

Dirt doesn't burn. Period. Concrete and cement mortar however disintegrates in extreme heat. Always use larger beams for your roof if you can. They will char rather than burn.

[@karensprings4237]

We are looking to pre char our beams to make them more fire resistant. And using metal roofing. Living in a forest, we are looking to make our home as safe as possible.

[@joschmoyo4532]

@karensprings4237 I'm going to pre char the exposed beams at some point. We experimented on the chicken shed siding first with a propane blow torch. It works amazingly well. Once you get even a preliminary black surface it refuses to burn anymore. Very cool. Our Cob rocket barbecue is totally immune to the hottest fire we could make. It did melt the glass bottle we buried in the side a bit.

[@NickCatranis]

Nice! Alex is an awesome dude, just had a consult with him - he was very helpful and I got a lot of value from it 👍

[@patandersen4271]

Happy New Year everyone.

[@NiiJiiLuv]

See ain't no money to be made from themselves homes that why these stupid ordinances and regulation makers and passers won't allow it foreal ..

[@Cool_boy258]

Good video. How would they hold up against a flood?

[@thiscobhouse]

It depends on several factors there, really. It's my thought, that cob walls could sit submerged for a certain amount of time with minimal damage, until it breaks its saturation point. Then it would be too late. But if water just rises and quickly falls back down maybe in a few hours, I think they'd be fine. Cob is more resilient to water than most people expect, but water is still the most likely thing to damage cob walls. But it requires prolonged and extreme amounts of water, like, flooding, to be of any threat.

[@NiiJiiLuv]

I think Tadalak or however it's pronounced will stop that issue a great deal.

[@Cool_boy258]

@@thiscobhouse thanks

[@The1SpiritofLife]

It’s so great to know Alex good job doing that. It’s so important for this earthen construction to be to code so that we you know get the best value from our homes as well as you know things like fire safety. I wonder if there’s a way to create like a cob barrier that could hang down either decoratively or be you know Locked into place if there was a fire coming that would block the air coming in through the soffits and you know if there’s a way to maybe integrate into the roof structure like I’ve seen in Indian videos you can do on cob houses you can put tile on the like like floor tile on the top of the roof And then you can have a patio up there even but I was also wondering if it is as fire proof if you were to combine cob and stones like I was thinking how fun it would be to do a random you know a large gemstone or a number of them in the walls of my house. Have you tried that at all and how structurally sound is it compared to other Stabilization or filler methods of the walls? Thanks for answering my questions.

[@swatson1190]

How about stone and cob? Would it stand up to water and fire? Ancient round houses were built that way.

[@usumit191]

This is my Indian house 1000 year old tecnic

[@tylerx293]

YEEEESSSSSSSS! FFS😒 when will they finally build for people and not strictly for profit

[@johan4413]

Very informative thanks Alex. How would light straw-clay react against fire? There's a lot of straw there, but completely coated in dirt, so I'd assume it's quite resistant too.

[@thiscobhouse]

Yes, the straw-clay is also very fire-resistant. It will burn, but very slowly. At least with my own torch tests, the flame doesn't spread because of the clay coating.

[@redfoot69]

Cob walls should be blast heat protective against nuclear bombs and some what radiation proof.

[@Mr_Squiggle]

Fire 🔥 protection before the fire is beneficial. Water tanks, sprinklers, and independent power supply or air power etc in a fire emergency. No water system can work when everyone is using it or burn houses are bleeding water pressure. The mains need valves to stop this. Millions of $ on property, $0.00 or little money 💰 on fire prevention or preparation. Water needs to be independent of main water supply.

[@teridelnero9606]

A little torch?? Try a flaming fire tornado! Nothing will make it through that!!

[@thiscobhouse]

The official fire rating test used something much bigger of course. I know it put a sustained 2000 def F torch to the wall for 2 hours. I don't know what temperatures a fire tornado would be though. It is a good question.

[@elenalevasheva3830]

Спасибо за видео. Интересно и полезно. Проблема этого строительства , что его нельзя стандартизировать . Нет правильных пропорций глины, песка , извести и соломы. Это зависит от состава глины , а она всегда разная, где -то будет больше содержания песка , а где-то меньше . Поэтому это вопрос мастерства, которое нельзя получить за короткое время . Раньше этому учились у мастеров ГОДАМИ и поэтому дома стояли годами. Как вы это представляете сейчас? Важно не только чтобы стены не сгорели , а чтобы дом не развалился через 5 лет . Никто сейчас не может дать гарантию, что дом простоит хотя бы 20 лет.

[@thiscobhouse]

It's not that difficult to learn this method of construction, actually. It won't take years like some people say.