The Cob Builders Handbook: You Can Hand-Sculpt Your Own Home


Becky Bee - 1998
    Becky Bee's manual is a friendly guide to making your own earth structure, with chapters on design, foundations, floors, windows and doors, finishes, and of course, making glorious cob."I believe that building with cob is a way to recreate community and experience the joy of working together while taking back the right to build our own homes and look after our Mother Earth."She loves doing something that makes sense in a world where lots of things don't.

The Solar House: Passive Solar Heating and Cooling


Daniel D. Chiras - 1990
    Yet while heat from sunlight and ventilation from breezes is free for the taking, few modern architects or builders really understand the principles involved.Now Dan Chiras, author of the popular book The Natural House, brings those principles up to date for a new generation of solar enthusiasts.The techniques required to heat and cool a building passively have been used for thousands of years. Early societies such as the Native American Anasazis and the ancient Greeks perfected designs that effectively exploited these natural processes. The Greeks considered anyone who didn't use passive solar to heat a home to be a barbarian!In the United States, passive solar architecture experienced a major resurgence of interest in the 1970s in response to crippling oil embargoes. With grand enthusiasm but with scant knowledge (and sometimes little common sense), architects and builders created a wide variety of solar homes. Some worked pretty well, but looked more like laboratories than houses. Others performed poorly, overheating in the summer because of excessive or misplaced windows and skylights, and growing chilly in the colder months because of insufficient thermal mass and insulation and poor siting.In The Solar House, Dan Chiras sets the record straight on the vast potential for passive heating and cooling. Acknowledging the good intentions of misguided solar designers in the past, he highlights certain egregious--and entirely avoidable--errors. More importantly, Chiras explains in methodical detail how today's home builders can succeed with solar designs.Now that energy efficiency measures including higher levels of insulation and multi-layered glazing have become standard, it is easier than ever before to create a comfortable and affordable passive solar house that will provide year-round comfort in any climate.Moreover, since modern building materials and airtight construction methods sometimes result in air-quality and even toxicity problems, Chiras explains state-of-the-art ventilation and filtering techniques that complement the ancient solar strategies of thermal mass and daylighting. Chiras also explains the new diagnostic aids available in printed worksheet or software formats, allowing readers to generate their own design schemes.

The Homegrown Paleo Cookbook: Over 100 Delicious, Gluten-Free, Farm-to-Table Recipes, and a Complete Guide to Growing Your Own Healthy Food


Diana Rodgers, NTP - 2015
     Anyone can have the same healthy, balanced lifestyle and a closer connection to their food—whether you live in a house in the suburbs, a farmhouse in the countryside, or an apartment in the city. The Homegrown Paleo Cookbook shows you how. With over 100 seasonal Paleo recipes, guides to growing your own food and raising animals, and inspiring how-tos for crafts and entertaining,The Homegrown Paleo Cookbook is a guide not just for better eating, but for better living—and a better world.

Mike McGrath's Book of Compost


Mike McGrath - 2006
    And he’s never stopped studying, because he wants to give the best, most up-to-date information to the listeners of his nationally-syndicated Public Radio show, “You Bet Your Garden.” He offers the fruits of his labors in this illustrated guide that reveals why compost is the answer to virtually every garden question. McGrath explains why compost improves soil structure; why it provides the perfect amount of food for every plant; how it fights plant diseases more safely and effectively than any chemical fungicide; and how to make your own. This is a must-have on every gardener’s bookshelf!

The Tiny Book of Tiny Houses


Lester Walker - 1993
    Pub the Date: October 2011 Pages: 96 in Publisher: penguin the Profiles seventeen small buildings some used as permanent housing. Some as temporary accommodations. And some as workplaces including Thoreau's cabin and an ice fishing shanty and provides structural diagrams and plans

Dirt-Cheap Survival Retreat: One Man's Solution


M.D. Creekmore - 2011
    But how many of us can afford such a spread without a crippling mortgage? If you can't make the hefty payments on your survival retreat, the bankers will evict you, leaving you worse off than those who failed to prepare in the first place. M.D. Creekmore's motivation for finding a low-cost retreat was the need to live on a lot less money after he lost his job and got divorced. He started living in a travel trailer, parked on two acres he'd bought a few years back to use as a campsite and bug-out location, never dreaming he'd be living there full time. But he has called his trailer home for the past four years and says that "for the first time in my life, I'm actually content." Living off the grid in a travel trailer isn't for everyone. But if you are looking for a way to own a debt-free home--and enjoy the security that comes with it--here's the author's dirt-cheap plan for finding suitable land; buying a used trailer; securing it against the elements and intruders; providing alternative power sources; dealing with water and waste issues; maximizing your space; and establishing a workable storage system for food, water, medicine, tools, and other equipment. The good news is that the author has done the hard part for you.

Working Alone: Tips & Techniques for Solo Building


John Carroll - 1999
    You won't have to wait for a helper or pass up a job that seems too difficult to do alone. And if youre a homeowner working on your own house, you will be amazed at what you can accomplish.Written by a builder with 30 years' experience, Working Alone is packed with more than 50 innovative tips and techniques. You'll learn how to handle nearly every aspect of home construction alone, from foundation layout to raising walls to building decks.This book, the only one of its kind, offers a myriad of unique solo solutions. A perfect example is the problem of bringing a large sheet of plywood up a ladder. Even with a helper, this is a difficult and dangerous task. But if a large C-clamp is fastened to one end of the plywood, it's easy to pull the sheet up the ladder from behind. Clever techniques like this will have you solving common problems safely and efficiently.

Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts: And Whatever the Heck Else We Could Squeeze in Here


Derek "Deek" Diedricksen - 2012
    Combining his artistic abilities, wild imagination, and his passion for small houses, he self-published Humble Homes, Simple Shacks, Cozy Cottages, Ramshackle Retreats, Funky Forts, and Whatever the Heck Else we could Squeeze in Here in 2009. This book is a collection of Diedricksen’s creative/imaginative sketches for building small houses, shacks, cottages, and forts. The sketches are accompanied with hand-written commentary, both instructive and comical. Derek’s main purpose is to get your creative juices flowing and encourage you to get off the couch and use your hands. Believing that specific building plans squash creativity, he avoids too many detailed instructions, giving you the chance to put your own creative spin on your very own small abode (even if it is just in your imagination).

Earth-Sheltered Houses: How to Build an Affordable...


Rob Roy - 2006
    It describes the benefits of sheltering a home with earth, including the added comfort and energy efficiency from the moderating influence of the earth on the home’s temperature (keeping it warm in the winter and cool in the summer), along with the benefits of low maintenance and the protection against fire, sound, earthquake, and storm afforded by the earth. Extra benefits from adding an earth or other living roof option include greater longevity of the roof substrate, fine aesthetics, and environmental harmony.The book covers all of the various construction techniques involved, including details on planning, excavation, footings, floor, walls, framing, roofing, waterproofing, insulation, and drainage. Specific methods appropriate for the inexperienced owner/builder are a particular focus and include:Pouring one’s own footings and/or floor The use of dry-stacked (surface-bonded) concrete block walls Post-and-beam framing Plank-and-beam roofing Drainage methods and self-adhesive waterproofing membranes The time-tested, easy-to-learn construction techniques described in Earth-Sheltered Houses will enable readers to embark upon their own building projects with confidence, backed up by a comprehensive resources section that lists all the latest products such as waterproofing membranes, types of rigid insulation, and drainage products that will protect the building against water damage and heat loss.Rob Roy is a former contractor with 27 years of experience and 12 previous books to his credit, including Cordwood Building and Timber Framing for the Rest of Us. An expert on underground building, he founded the Earthwood Building School in 1981 with his wife, Jaki, and is frequently a speaker at events throughout North America.

Earthbag Building: The Tools, Tricks and Techniques


Kaki Hunter - 2004
    This has led to widespread interest in using natural materials—straw, cob, and earth—for building homes and other buildings that are inexpensive, and that rely largely on labor rather than expensive and often environmentally-damaging outsourced materials.Earthbag Building is the first comprehensive guide to all the tools, tricks, and techniques for building with bags filled with earth—or earthbags. Having been introduced to sandbag construction by the renowned Nader Khalili in 1993, the authors developed this "Flexible Form Rammed Earth Technique" over the last decade. A reliable method for constructing homes, outbuildings, garden walls and much more, this enduring, tree-free architecture can also be used to create arched and domed structures of great beauty—in any region, and at home, in developing countries, or in emergency relief work.This profusely illustrated guide first discusses the many merits of earthbag construction, and then leads the reader through the key elements of an earthbag building: Special design considerations Foundations, walls and floors Electrical, plumbing and shelving Lintels, windows and door installations Roofs, arches and domes Exterior and interior plasters.With dedicated sections on costs, making your own specialized tools, and building code considerations, as well as a complete resources guide, Earthbag Building is the long-awaited, definitive guide to this uniquely pleasing construction style.Kaki Hunter and Donald Kiffmeyer have been involved in the construction industry for the last 20 years, specializing in affordable, low-tech, low-impact building methods that are as natural as possible. They developed the "Flexible Form Rammed Earth Technique" of building affordably with earthbags and have taught the subject and contributed their expertise to several books and journals on natural building.

More Not So Big Solutions for Your Home


Sarah Susanka - 2010
    Homeowners are certain to embrace this new collection of articles by the best-selling author and visionary residential architect who sparked a movement toward "better, not bigger" homes. Practical solutions abound in this creative reference - everything from how to use color and unify an interior with trim to finding space for an "away room" and designing a laundry room that works. Susanka poses - and clearly answers - such questions as "How much space do you really need?" and "Where does the garage belong?" Written in her engaging conversational style and illustrated with her own inviting sketches, More Not So Big Solutions for Your Home is a collection of attainable home improvements is a valuable addition to any smart and thoughtful homeowner's library.

Projects to Get You Off the Grid: Rain Barrels, Chicken Coops, and Solar Panels


Instructables.com - 2010
    Twenty Instructables illustrate just how simple it can be to make your own backyard chicken coop, or turn a wine barrel into a rainwater collector.Illustrated with dozens of full-color photographs per project accompanying easy-to-follow instructions, this Instructables collection utilizes the best that the online community has to offer, turning a far-reaching group of people into a mammoth database churning out ideas to make life better, easier, and in this case, greener, as this volume exemplifies.

The Hand-Sculpted House: A Philosophical and Practical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage: A Practical Guide to Building a Cob Cottage (The Real Goods Solar Living Book): 10


Ianto Evans - 1990
    Use the oldest, most available materials imaginable — earth, clay, sand, straw, and water — and blend them to redefine the future (and past) of building.

Bungalow Style


Treena Crochet - 2005
    This title shows a wide variety of interior details and describes how to add or restore elements that suggest a historic flair while keeping the home comfortable and functional.

Grow Your Own Vegetables


Joy Larkcom - 2002
    Covering every aspect of vegetable gardening from preparing soil to manures, composts and fertilizers, from growing techniques to protection, pests, from diseases and weeds to making good use of space, this is a comprehensive guide to ensuring the best results from your garden or allotment. With cultivation information for over 100 vegetables, including site and soil requirements, cultivation, pests and diseases, and cultivars, this illustrated handbook is a must for vegetable gardeners of all levels and experience.