We have been hard at work this year on
Spiritwood Natural Building’s headquarters a.k.a our balecob house which is why
blog posts have been few and far apart. Now that the cold weather is here and
our roof is on, we can slow down a bit to give some long overdue updates on the
shape and function of our new home.
As can be seen in the floorplan below, this house is
much larger than our current cob home--more than double the size! I’m extremely
happy with the amount of work we were able to complete in a single year while
both holding down full time employment. I have to be honest though, it was an
extremely difficult year to get this far in our build. It can never be
stressed enough that building small is the wisest decision any budding natural
builder can make. From April to October we easily invested 30-40 hours a week
to this build on top of our “paying” jobs. By the time we got the roof on, we
were both mentally and physically exhausted. Hooray winter; a forced break!
I won’t go into detail on each moment of the
build, but save some of the technical information for later posts; otherwise
this post would go on for ages.
So what did we get done?
Foundation
![]() |
Earthbag foundation |
We opted to build an earthbag foundation for
this house on a rubble trench. The alternatives would have been
collecting enough urbanite or field stone for a stacked foundation, or a poured
concrete foundation which is both expensive and terrible for the environment.
![]() |
Tamping earthbags |
This was our first earth bagging experience and definitely not our last. Although very physically taxing, bagging is a speedy process once you find a groove, fairly inexpensive, and is composed mostly of natural local materials.
Walls
While our first cob home was completely built with cob material from the build site, the new house was built with a
combination of strawbale and cob walls. Strawbale walls bearing the direct
weight of the roof is called Nebraska style or load bearing walls and is not
commonly used in the code friendly home.
![]() |
Balecob wall during construction |
![]() |
Thick 30" walls |
Roof
![]() |
Poly-iso insulation on roof |
Because of the huge roof surface of the house,
we opted out of laying down an epdm pond liner for a living roof and instead
chose to roof in metal. This also has the added benefit of being a much lighter roofing material (3lbs per square foot with the insulation vs. 30lbs per
square foot).
We decided to build the roof as an unvented roofsince we were able to find a great deal on poly-iso insulation board on
craigslist. Unvented roofs use closed cell insulation--non air
permeable--instead of fiberglass batting, and do not rely on an attic space to
prevent condensation issues.
Bolting down beams with 14" lag bolts |
![]() |
David centering rafters on massive beam |
We found that the roof was once again the most
expensive part of the house. The cost of metal, underlayment, screws, wood, and
insulation cost twice as much as the rest of the house combined. (total costs
and a full breakdown of expenditures will be posted when the house is complete)
Loft

![]() |
front shot of sunroom window frames and contrasting roof lines--each rafter tail was hand cut |
The Majority of the loft is 5-6 feet tall and perfect for a future bedroom, but the downslope of the roofline is also lofted
for storage space at 2-3 feet in height. The floors are the same tongue and
groove boards that we used for the ceiling, but we may yet put down another
layer of hardwood for more sound proofing and protection.
So what will happen in 2018?
Next year we will work on all the finishing construction that we couldn't start this year. This includes
installing the well pump, running solar panels and electric, plastering the
inside and outside, pouring the earthen floors, building the rocket mass heater
and bench, and applying tadelakt to the bathroom tub and walls. I’m sure there
are a many more things that we will need to do, but hopefully we will have
enough time left over for our first teaching workshop. Stay tuned for more info
on what we accomplished this year and our plans for 2018.
I think your hard work is paying off...great results.
ReplyDeleteI'm so proud of you and Katherine!
Outstanding, you guys. I'm so impressed with everything here.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jesse, I would love for you and your family to see everything once this house is done. Would love to see your projects and get some ideas from you.
DeleteKeep up the awesome work and the awesome posts. The work you are doing on this house is a huge inspiration for the plans for my own house. I think this design is brilliant and you're documenting it so well, it is so helpful! I can't wait to see more in 2018!
ReplyDeleteThanks Erin. We are doing small things right now while it is so cold still, but we'll try to make a new post this week.
DeleteLooking forward to your updates. I still have trouble following how you constructed your roof. A wee sketch may be helpful to explain.
DeleteWe will make sure we do a better post on the roof. It was a lot of work and could be documented fully to help people doing similar projects.
Delete