Obviously, the current form of housing for the average American is not going to work in a post-peak world. Many of you have expressed interest in building a house that would be more environmentally friendly/energy efficient/self sufficient. I’ve compiled a list here of the various environmental home building webpages I’ve come across. I hope they’ll be of help.

First up is Cobworks an organization that builds cob and earthhouses. These are houses built out of natural materials such as earth, straw and sand. The focus here seems to not be on sustainable housing from an energy efficient point of view, but of reducing your impact on the environment by building your house out as much natural materials as possible. The site is not information heavy on the properties of earthhouses, I guess it depends on what kind of house you build. The other advantage is that it seems like you can build your house yourself, for pretty cheap. Looking at the pictures, the houses also have a very cool organic feel to them; curved walls and built in sculpture. To me the houses look like adobe houses one would find in Mexico or something, so I was kind of dubious about how well they would work in the north. But the company is based in Canada, and they have pictures of cob houses with snow on them, so I guess they must be able to withstand the cold. They offer workshops where they come to where you live and teach you how to build your cob house. If you live close to their part of Canada, you might want to check them out.

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Tags: cob houses, earthship, green housing