Cob House Construction in Maharashtra

Overview

Cob is one of the oldest building methods there is: walls built up by hand from a stiff mix of subsoil, sand and straw, with no bricks, no blocks and no formwork. The result is a thick, monolithic, sculptural wall with high thermal mass — slow to heat, slow to cool — and a soft, hand-made character that cannot be reproduced in blockwork. It suits people who want a genuinely natural, low-embodied-energy home and are drawn to the aesthetic.

This service is for clients building a cob or part-cob home, usually on rural or farmhouse land, who want a contractor that takes the method seriously rather than talking them out of it.

PBJ’s approach

The two things that determine whether a cob house lasts are keeping the wall dry from below and from above — “a good hat and good boots”, as natural builders put it. PBJ Infra details a proper stone or concrete plinth and a generous roof overhang first, then builds the walls, then finishes them in breathable lime or earth plaster. Where a fully monolithic earth build does not serve the brief — long spans, bathrooms, service runs — PBJ designs a hybrid, using conventional construction for those elements and one team across both.

Technical considerations

• Subsoil test: the clay-to-sand ratio of the site’s own subsoil is tested before committing to a mix.
• Plinth height: the earthen wall starts well clear of splash-back and any chance of standing water.
• Roof overhang: wide eaves keep driving rain off the wall face.
• Breathable finishes only: lime or earthen plaster; cement render on cob traps moisture and fails.
• Build time: cob walls need drying time between lifts, so the programme is longer than a blockwork equivalent — worth planning around.

Related work

Cob house projects almost always sit within a wider farmhouse construction brief and start with land development on the plot.

Talk to PBJ about a cob house →