Rob Roy - Essential Cordwood Building: The Complete Step-By-Step Guide

Praise for

Essential Cordwood Building

Rob Roy is the worlds foremost expert on cordwood construction and his new book is the best and most comprehensive guide to the subject ever produced.

Lloyd Kahn, author of Shelter, Tiny Homes, and Small Homes

Rob Roy has influenced a whole regeneration with his cordwood building techniques, liberated countless people from the slavery of a large mortgage, and enabled ordinary people to build all kinds of structures from workshops to comfortable homes in low impact, ecological ways. Here he has gathered the latest methods with the essence of these cordwood techniques. Full of information and stories. A great read.

Maddy Harland, Editor, Co-Founder of Permaculture Magazine, Author of Fertile Edges regenerating land, culture and hope

Cordwood building has always been my favorite, and it is obviously Rob Roys too. Here is a mine of information, laid out well, covering all aspects of cordwood building. He looks at the overall considerations, then gets down in the detail, always practical, and writes simply, with lightness and humor, from his long experience. There is more than enough here to get you started down a long, creative, satisfying path as a self-builder.

Tony Wrench lives with his partner Faith in a cobwood roundhouse he designed and they built together 20 years ago in West Wales, UK. He runs occasional natural building courses and is the author of Building a Low Impact Roundhouse

Rob Roys Essential Cordwood Building certainly contains all of the information that a newcomer would need to delve confidently into a wide variety of cordwood projects. Rob has been the go-to expert on cordwood construction at www.greenhomebuilding.com for well over a decade and has always answered readers questions with authority, wit and patience. I could trust nobody more implicitly than Rob to teach the attributes of what has to be one of the most effective, economical, ecological, energy efficient and beautiful approaches to natural building. In one simple operation you can build walls that provide both insulation and thermal mass, requiring no further interior or exterior finish work; there is no other method where this is true!

Kelly Hart, founder of www.greenhomebuilding.com

In Essential Cordwood Building, Rob Roy has distilled the critical information required to think and plan your way through the design and construction of a cordwood structure, and presented it in a very accessible format. His tone is familiar and personal, and draws upon a deep wealth of experience in his craft there may well be no better resource on cordwood construction than Rob Roy! The book is well-organized and thorough in its detail, proving to be a truly valuable resource to anyone considering working with cordwood.

Jacob Deva Racusin, Co-Owner, New Frameworks Natural Design/Build

With Essential Cordwood Building, Rob Roy has succeeded, as only he can, in combining an articulate step by step methodology with an enduring lesson in personal economics. If you want the single biggest investment of your life to be a get-it-done-with-and-move-on experience free of those mortgage entanglements and full of log-and-mortar security youd do well to follow the path that Rob Roys has so clearly marked, and build your own cordwood home.

Richard Freudenberger, Energy and Resource Manager at Living Web Farms and former publisher, BackHome Magazine

Series editors

Chris Magwood and Jen Feigin

Title list

Essential Hempcrete Construction, Chris Magwood

Essential Prefab Straw Bale Construction, Chris Magwood

Essential Building Science, Jacob Deva Racusin

Essential Light Straw Clay Construction, Lydia Doleman

Essential Sustainable Home Design, Chris Magwood

Essential Cordwood Building, Rob Roy

See www.newsociety.com/SBES for a complete list of new and forthcoming series titles.

THE SUSTAINABLE BUILDING ESSENTIALS SERIES covers the full range of natural and green building techniques with a focus on sustainable materials and methods and code compliance. Firmly rooted in sound building science and drawing on decades of experience, these large-format, highly illustrated manuals deliver comprehensive, practical guidance from leading experts using a well-organized step-by-step approach. Whether your interest is foundations, walls, insulation, mechanical systems, or final finishes, these unique books present the essential information on each topic including:

Material specifications, testing, and building code references

Plan drawings for all common applications

Tool lists and complete installation instructions

Finishing, maintenance, and renovation techniques

Budgeting and labor estimates

Additional resources

Written by the worlds leading sustainable builders, designers, and engineers, these succinct, user-friendly handbooks are indispensable tools for any project where accurate and reliable information is key to success. GET THE ESSENTIALS!

Copyright 2018 by Rob Roy. All rights reserved.

Cover design by Diane McIntosh.

Illustrations by Dale Brownson.

Background photo AdobeStock_58151515.

All interior photos by Rob or Jaki Roy unless otherwise noted.

Printed in Canada. First printing November 2017.

This book is intended to be educational and informative. It is not intended to serve as a guide. The author and publisher disclaim all responsibility for any liability, loss or risk that may be associated with the application of any of the contents of this book.

Inquiries regarding requests to reprint all or part of Essential Cordwood Building should be addressed to New Society Publishers at the address below. To order directly from the publishers, please call toll-free (North America) 1-800-567-6772, or order online at www.newsociety.com

Any other inquiries can be directed by mail to:

New Society Publishers

P.O. Box 189, Gabriola Island, BC V0R 1X0, Canada

(250) 247-9737

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Roy, Robert L., author

Essential cordwood building : the complete step-by-step guide / Rob Roy.

(Sustainable building essentials)

Includes index.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-0-86571-852-4 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-55092-647-7 (PDF).-- ISBN 978-1-77142-242-0 (EPUB)

1. Log-end houses--Design and construction--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Building, Wooden--Handbooks, manuals, etc. 3. Sustainable construction-- Handbooks, manuals, etc. I. Title. II. Series: Sustainable building essentials

New Society Publishers mission is to publish books that contribute in fundamental ways to building an ecologically sustainable and just society, and to do so with the least possible impact on the environment, in a manner that models this vision.