Exciting News in Cob Construction!

Breaking News! Cob Code Approved for the 2021 IRC

For the first time, a Cob Construction Appendix has been approved for inclusion in the International Residential Building Codes in the United States and a number of other countries. This is the third natural building material to obtain an appendix in the IRC, and offers yet another road map for other natural building materials, like hempcrete, to receive code approval.

Read more about about their process from The Cob Research Institute

This cob structure, built by Ziggy Liloia at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, is just one example of cob construction. Cob is an ancient construction method that uses the materials from the ground - clay and sand, specifically. Cob creates a building mass that Used throughout the world for millennia, cob is finally about to become recognized by the International Building Code.

The US Hemp Building Association is working to add hempcrete into the code as well. In order to do so, we’re working simultaneously with two organization to ensure adoption: The International Code Council (ICC) and American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM). The ICC provides standards for building systems, while ASTM provides standards for individual products. This means that the ICC will determine how Hempcrete can be used in a building while ASTM will determine what hempcrete is and how to measure its performance.

Read more on the US Hemp Building Association website.