Home Building

The typical American home does not suit the typical homesteader. The home building resources on this page provide alternatives which address three major problems with the average American home today: First, the construction of the typical American home is wasteful of resources due to both size and the materials used. Second, the typical American home is not particularly energy efficient. And third, conventional methods of construction are too complex for the average owner to take on a major role in the construction of his or her own home. The methods listed below offer alternatives to the timber-framed home which make use of easily available construction materials, are energy efficient, and can be owner built.

General Sites

Green Buildings Introduction: From the Center of Excellence for Sustainable Development, a project of the U.S. Dept. of Energy, comes this set of pages on green building. There is a good introduction to the topic, as well as a collection of links to various state and local initiatives, building codes and ordinances, and other publications from a variety of federal and state agencies.
Sustainable Building: From the Green Builder Program of Austin, Texas, this collection of environmentally sensitive and resource efficient building resources includes the complete text of the 400 page Sustainable Building Sourcebook, an excellent reference source for any homebuilder.
Small, Efficient and Beautiful: Larger homes require more resources to construct, and more resources to heat and cool. This arcticle from the Energy Source Builder newsletter offers design tips to make the most efficient use of space in whatever type of home you're designing.

Types of Alternative Building

Earthship Biotecture: First created by the architect Michael Reynolds, Earthships can be built of nearly cost-free materials, and are designed to be self-sustaining, efficient and durable homes. The north, west and east sides of an Earthship usually consist of discarded tires filled with rammed earth and covered by earth berms. The south side is a wall of windows, providing light and allowing for passive solar heating of the thermal mass of the Earthship. This Web site is maintained by Michael Reynolds, and is a comprehensive source of information on all aspects of Earthships, including water, sewage and power details, as well as beautiful photos of Earthships and building seminars. A variety of architectural drawing are also available for sale.
Cob Cottage Company: A mixture of clay, sand, straw and water, cob is a durable and easily available building material. Building with cob is easy to learn, inexpensive, and leaves no disposal problems for future generations.
House of Straw - Straw Bale Construction Comes of Age: Building with straw bales results in a low-cost, highly insulated home that can be owner-built using a sustainable local resource. This U.S. government report on a straw bale demonstration project in the Navajo Nation is an excellent introduction to straw bale consruction.
Surfin' StrawBale Online Resources: A large directory of annotated links to Web sites related to all aspects of straw bale construction.
Rammed Earth Development: Rammed earth is the process of mixing earthen materials (sand, clay and gravel) with a small amount of cement, pouring the mixture into forms and then ramming, either manually or mechanically, to produce strong, durable walls. This is the Web site of an Arizona-based contractor specializing in rammed earth construction. The site gives a good introduction to this building method.
Ramed Earth: This site is maintained by an Australian who built his own rammed earth house. It has a page of links to further rammed earth resources on the Web.

Home