Ecological Building

[Shay]

ECOLOGICAL BUILDING

The Whole House Book – Ecological Building Design & Materials – Pat borer and Cindy Harris.

Must have book for Ecological Building and materials. Excellent.

Out of the Woods - Pat borer and Cindy Harris.

Excellent detailed book using the Walter Segal method of timber frame construction.

Ecohouse – A design guide – Sue Roaf.

Good book covering all aspects. (get the Whole House Book first!)

The New Natural House Book – Creating a healthy, harmonious, and ecologically sound home. – David Pearson

Beautifully produced book with fabulous photographs. Make a great coffee table book

Building with Straw Bales – A practical guide for the UK and Ireland – Barbara Jones.

Good  book on the subject. I’m not convinced of its use in our climate!

Graphic Guide to Frame Construction – Rob Thallon

Brilliant book with excellent timber framing details.

The Passive Solar House – Using solar design to heat and cool your home – James Kachadorian

Great book. However much doubt is cast over the underground duct system he endorses i.e. the possibility of fungal/mould growth in the ducts.

Building the Timber Frame House – The Revival of a Forgotten Craft. – Tedd Benson

Good book if you intend building an oak framed traditional structure.

Appropriate Building Materials – A catalogue of potential solutions – Roland Stulz and Kiran Mukerji

A good book for building materials for the third world.

[djh]

My views, for what they're worth :-

The Whole House Book – Ecological Building Design & Materials – Pat borer and Cindy Harris.
Must have book for Ecological Building and materials. Excellent.

Excellent, indeed.

Out of the Woods - Pat borer and Cindy Harris.
Excellent detailed book using the Walter Segal method of timber frame construction.

Haven't read this but I can also recommend Jon Broome's "The Green Self-Build Book", which has a lot of information about the Segal method and much else besides.

Ecohouse – A design guide – Sue Roaf.
Good book covering all aspects. (get the Whole House Book first!)

I have mixed feelings about this book. It covers a lot of area but not in great depth and there didn't seem to be a solid grasp of the physics so I was left second-guessing every opinion.

Building with Straw Bales – A practical guide for the UK and Ireland – Barbara Jones.
Good  book on the subject. I’m not convinced of its use in our climate!

I'm sold on straw bales, even in our climate, and I think Amazon Nails probably know as much as anybody in this country. But I preferred Bruce King's "Design of Straw Bale Buildings" as a resource.

The Passive Solar House – Using solar design to heat and cool your home – James Kachadorian
Great book. However much doubt is cast over the underground duct system he endorses i.e. the possibility of fungal/mould growth in the ducts.

Definitely worth reading, though even the German earth-tubes are going out of fashion because of mould as well as Kachadorian's concrete ducts. It's also another publication where it's hard to quantify the savings from the design. But if you can overcome those doubts, it's an interesting idea! One point to beware is that it used to claim the enclosed software was "open source" but it isn't. The publisher agreed to change the description but I don't know whether it's been done everywhere.

I haven't read the other books so can't comment. Other books I have read include:

Simply Build Green - John Talbott
An interesting read and good for many practical details.

Building with Lime - Holmes & Wingate
A bit old-fashioned but chock full of invaluable real world how-to information.

The Green Building Bible and the Housebuilders Bible are also essential reading.

And Passivhaus-Bauteilkatalog is mind-numbingly impressive. Fortunately now available in a bilingual edition.

[Shay]

Hi djh,

Is Passivhaus-Bauteilkatalog good on details?

[djh]

Is Passivhaus-Bauteilkatalog good on details?

Yes, that's basically what it is. A catalogue of PHI approved details.

[Shay]

Ouch!

It costs £70.

[djh]

Ouch!

I guess that depends on whether you intend to use the book 

If you're going to build a Passivhaus, I think it's a complete no-brainer. It'll cost more to do the simulation to prove a non-approved detail, just like meeting building regs without following the approved documents.

But even if you just use a single wall to roof detail, or wall to floor, or a window installation, I'd say it has to be money well spent.

[Brandon]

Graphic Guide to Frame Construction – Rob Thallon

Brilliant book with excellent timber framing details.

Building the Timber Frame House – The Revival of a Forgotten Craft. – Tedd Benson

Good book if you intend building an oak framed traditional structure.

Graphic guide... a great book, usefull for the details.

Tedd benson, the best (in my opinion) large section timber framing book available.

Use both these in the course of my work.

Passivhaus-Bauteilkatalog

Will look into this, sounds usefull. Thanks for the heads up.

[lightfoot]

Brandon, Shay & All,

If your into, or would like to know more about heavy timber framing etc, then you may find the (UK) Carpenters Fellowship website interesting....checkout the publications section for a extensive list of useful timber framing books from both home and abroad... http://www.carpentersfellowship.co.uk/

You may also find the (US) Timber Framers guild useful too... http://www.tfguild.org/

Another couple of great inspirational books are 'Shelter' and the follow up 'Homework'

http://www.shelterpub.com/_shelter/shelter_book.html

http://www.shelterpub.com/_home_work/HW-book.html


Lightfoot.

[daftlad]

I am thinking of buying this book.
The Passive Solar House – Using solar design to heat and cool your home – James Kachadorian
The first edition was published in 1997 and is significantly cheaper than the 2006 version. Apart from the software is there much difference between the two editions?
Also this seems like a good tread that some of you book worms could contribute to?  maybe I need to write a review of my masonry stove book?
cheers everyone.
ta ta