Building with Volunteers vs Hiring Workers

No.043 — Read old posts on Tinyfarmlab.com
Reading Time 4 minutes

If you watched our last video, you might be wondering if we are leaving mountain life for good.

Don’t worry, we’ll be back in the mountains in the autumn.

As we have done for the past four years, we take a break during the monsoons. When the rivers swell up and the wooden bridge washes away, the village becomes inaccessible.

Yes, we do sound a bit anxious in the video but as we write this, we try to remember the words of the famous poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

We are currently in Delhi and we look forward to spending time with our family, catching up with friends, and consulting on exciting projects.

Now, coming back to today’s topic. There are various ways to go about building a cob house:

• With volunteers

• With hired construction workers

• As a team or couple

• Alone

We tried a bit of everything during different phases of our project.

Here’s what our experience taught us:

Building with Volunteers

Many people think that building with volunteers is cheaper. However, those who have built a house this way might disagree.

Volunteers come through platforms like Workaway, devoting 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, in exchange for the experience, stay, and food.

Many consider this as free labor but on the contrary, depending on your hospitality, the expenses for accommodation, food, and drinks can add up significantly.

Also, hosting people demands a lot of your energy outside the site work and throughout the day.

Most volunteers are novices with no prior construction experience.

They are usually not equipped for heavy tasks like breaking rocks or carrying heavy materials in remote sites. Hence, work productivity is often lower compared to professional construction workers.

However, they enjoy making cob and getting creative with murals and sculptures.

Building with volunteers might be slow and less efficient, but it has invaluable rewards. We made friends from around the world and know we have multiple homes globally when we travel.

We had great cultural exchanges, with different cuisines cooked every night, from Greek salads to Italian pastas to French ratatouille.

While making cob, we danced to Albanian folk songs, German techno, Japanese rock, and the house anthem—Tunak Tunak Tun.

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Building this way involves a lot of play, with the site always lively with deep conversations, mud splashing, and music.

As we always say, the mud will wash away, but the memories stay forever.

By taking this route, you not only have fun but also share the joy of building with mud, inspiring many others to take this path.

We have written a post about how to find such volunteering opportunities. You can read it here.

Building with Construction Workers

Building with hired construction workers has its own benefits. The work gets done faster and more efficiently.

You also generate livelihoods for unskilled workers who can be involved in activities like sieving mud and carrying rocks. You help them learn new skills and unlock new opportunities.

However, the relationship often becomes transactional. Most construction workers are unfamiliar with building with cob, so you might face reluctance and need to guide them every step of the way.

We happened to work both with volunteers and hired workers for most part of the project where volunteers made cob and hired workers helped us do skilled work such as stone masonry and breaking rocks.

In the finishing phase of our project, we hired more construction workers so they could be trained in skills like mud plastering and flooring.

Building in a team and alone

There were times when we were the only two on-site building.

Sometimes, only one of us was there, enjoying the solitude, listening to a podcast, and building on a sunny winter afternoon.

Many people decide to build it in teams or sometimes as an individual.

Katherine Wywern built her cob house almost single-handedly and we LOVE IT!

Ianto Evans and Linda Smiley, the founders of The Cob Cottage Company had built the Heart-House to demonstrate how accommodating a small house can be and the creative scope building with cob can offer.

Each method has its challenges and rewards. Whether you choose to build with volunteers, hire workers, work as a team, or build alone, the experience is unique and fulfilling in its own way.

We’d love to hear about your experiences with building a mud house or volunteering for one.

Love,

Raghav and Ansh

What you can watch - Of House and Heart, a documentary on a cob cottage from start to finish

A heartwarming video of building a cob house with the community.

What you can listen to - Anna Heringer | Architects in Conversation

Join Dietrich Neumann and Jonathan Duval in conversation with Anna Heringer, Architect and honorary professor of the UNESCO Chair of Earthen Architecture, Building Cultures, and Sustainable Development.

What You Can Read - Building a better world: a construction volunteer's guide

This post talks about how to get started as an volunteer.

P.S. - Did you check our latest video?

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#2: Connect with us on LinkedIn and Instagram where we share nuggets from our daily life.

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