Living Homes: Stone Masonry, Log and Strawbale Construction, 6th Edition

Most of the housing being built today is shoddy. Volume homebuilding corporations breeze into town, rape the land, slap up substandard cardboard-quality "houses" on postage stamp-sized lots and charge hundreds of thousands of dollars per unit. Many of these contractors get run out of the state, change their corporate name and then move on the next urban sprawl boom.If you're sick and tired of seeing beehive neighborhoods spring up in your town with siding walls you can put your fist through, do yourself a favor and take this crash course on alternative homebuilding. This book will give you an excellent starting place to learn about how you can build your own high quality, inexpensive home with low environmental impact.There is a lot of detail in this book on the methods presented. The "butt and pass" log home building chapter alone is worth 20 times the cost of the book. You won't easily find that information anywhere else outside of taking a log home building class from the Log Home Builders Association in Monroe, Washington, which is the only place I know of that teaches that method.

This is a good source for anyone interested in homesteading today. Illustrations are a little out-dated but still a solid source for you to build with. It covers as the name implies living in a home in harmony with what God gives us to manage. What the author covers here would be something you would find in a permaculture book's section on home construction. But this is buy far the best and most detailed book I've fold that covers all aspects of build a home for you and your family to live your life in....that's what you do. You don't build to sell...you build to add value to the quality of your life with as little as possible recourses used.

Living Homes has provided me with entertainment and information I was seeking. I am planning on building a new house and this book gave me a lot of information to think about. I like the energy efficiency that the book promotes and it gives a lot of ideas to think about when planning an energy efficient home. Stone masonry fireplaces for heat was a subject that I wanted to explore and the book has some information on it. It also describes many different types of heating systems involving heating water in a floor and solar heaters.

Bought this book for research on building a masonry heater. While it did provide plans and some guidance, the addition of the DVD (sold separately) really helped round out the words on the page. There's just something about seeing a person lay mortar or how they operated around a certain area that was helpful to see. Also, there seems to be lots of great information about other aspects of green living that I haven't been able to dive into as of yet, but looks promising.

This is one of the few books that I've come across about alternative building methods that is truly catered towards how to build it yourself on a budget. He doesn't cover every possible green building technology, but he covers the ones he knows and has worked with in great detail, including step by step instructions, pictures, a recount of which methods and materials have worked well and which haven't, and ideas about what he would consider doing differently in the future. I've read it cover to cover and will certainly use it as a reference during the planning and building phases of our future home.

It Is Very Good Book Because The Auther Has Lived What He Has Wrote About. And The Book About Excactly As thE The Title Reads. Even If You Dont Build Your Whole House With These Methods, There is Good Ideas Here For Add Ons, Remodels ANd Outside Shops And Shelters. One Of Those Reads Were You Not Only Like The Content, But The Auther As Well.

Good book.

Great book for the do it your self kind of person. Bought the book just for the directions on the masonry fireplace. Author has great YouTube videos showing him building the fireplace. If you want to live a life with a with a more sustainable footprint this book is full of knowledge

I found this book a good place to start when thinking about sustainable design. Poor editing notwithstanding, it's easy and enjoyable to read. I would have appreciated some more technical details.

今話題のエコハウスを手作りしたい方にオススメの本です！エネルギー効率を最大限に高め、自然環境との調和を考えた家を手作りするノウハウが全て書かれています。テラコッタタイルの作り方なども載っています。ただし、全て英語でカラー写真はありませんので、実際に作業をする前に、確認のため著者に質問したいと思う箇所もあります。