Cob Building Construction Refined
An exciting project involving British and French partners, led by the University of Plymouth is further developing a traditional building material to make low-energy, commercially viable house construction possible, using locally sourced materials.
The CobBauge team are working with Cob; a mixture of earth and fibre, such as straw, which is then mixed with water. Cob was commonly used for building construction in South-West England up until the Victorian era.
CobBauge is developing, an innovative cob using local soil and agricultural fibres / waste fibres from industry. This will contribute to the reduction of CO2 emissions, improved energy efficiency and cost savings:
· Creating an inexpensive, well-insulated material, using less than half the heating energy to a cob house compared to traditional building methods
· Reducing waste, thus saving in landfill costs
· Requiring minimal transport costs (using local suitable soil).
The team have built a prototype new cob house on the University of Plymouth campus (see pictures above and below). This house is being extensively monitored inside and out, using technology supplied by Tempcon:
HOBO MX1101 Wireless Temperature and Humidity Data Logger Sensors
HOBO MX2301A Wireless Temperature and Humidity Data Logger Sensors
HOBO AC Split-Core Current Sensor
Davis Airlink Air Quality Monitors (inside and outside the building)
HOBOlink cloud platform enabling remote viewing and managing of the data from the HOBO MX sensors.
“HOBO MX1101 sensors have been used to great effect on the CobBauge research project. With these sensors, we have been able to quickly monitor temperature and relative humidity inside our prototype earthen building. This has helped us to better understand drying rates for this innovative earthen material and how thermally comfortable occupants feel inside.” Matthew Fox PhD ARB, Member of the CobBauge project team.
Find out more about the cob construction project: CobBauge project website
‘CobBauge: What on earth is going on’ article at building.co.uk
About Tempcon
Tempcon Instrumentation Ltd was established in 1980 and specialises in instrumentation for measuring, controlling and logging: temperature, humidity, pressure, voltage, current, energy (kWhs), wind speed/direction, soil temperature and most other parameters required for: process control, environmental research or quality control.
