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Title: Building Green: A Complete How-To Guide to Alternative Building Methods Earth Plaster * Straw Bale * Cordwood * Cob * Living Roofs
ISBN: 1579905323
Author:
Clarke Snell
Tim Callahan
Publicate Date: 2005-12-15
Publish: 2005-12-15
List Price: $29.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $17.28
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $16.71
Amazon Merchant Price: $19.77
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| Customer Review: |
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1: Building Green
My daughter and I purchased this wonderfully complete volume for a granddaughter who with her husband is moving to Oregon to build an eco-friendly home on a plot of land. This well-illustrated handbook should help a lot.
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2: building green
What a wonderful book! I love the way it is set out in two sections... the theory and the practical. The conversational style of writing means that I feel like I have a friend on hand, ready to talk me through the whole process, explaining terms, concepts and methods in a clear, concise way.
I'd say if you are only planning to buy one book on alternative building methods, this should be the one.
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3: Realistic Green Building for the long haul
This book is an excellent reference on how to build while taking the environment into consideration. I was really impressed with how they integrated traditional building techniques with Green Building techniques. The book covers what to think about before you even break ground, site work, foundation work, non chemical termite prevention, walls, windows, doors, roofing, flooring, and landscaping considerations. Where Green products make the most sense, they are used. In places where the authors chose a more traditional method (concrete in the foundation, small amounts of rebar, a mass produced new door, and timber roof trusses) they go into detail about why they chose that method (long term energy efficiency outweighing the initial energy cost of the raw materials). While grey water systems, rain catchment systems, composting toilets, and solar power systems are encouraged, they are not covered in any detail in this book. The demo house being built throughout the book is a tiny one room guest cottage, instead of a home that a family could live in (composting toilet outside) so that's why I only gave 4 stars. I would have loved to have seen a whole family home built, but maybe that would be several books.
Not everyone can move to an ecovillage and live in a 200 sq ft cob home (even if they dream about it). This book brings green building into the reach of many more people and shows how to build a home that is much more likely to pass code and be a real possibility in today's society. I plan to use it as a guide when I build my own home in the future.
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4: Finally a book that is useful
Myself, being in the building industry, really appreciated that there was a believer and a skeptic to write this book and build the house using the thoughts they had. I like the honesty of the authors and how they worked thru to a common goal, and shared each step along the way. I even found it to be a great book on general engineering, helpful in reminding me of things I already know, and reinforcing them in less conventional ways.
This is a very hand's on book with loads of pictures and illustrations and for all of us with "pie in the sky" ideals, there is the balance of reality in time, costs, and functionality of green building.
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5: great service
recieved product within one week great book thinking about building using all natural products
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