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This new edition of Living the Good Life and Continuing the Good Life brings together the Nearings' classic guides to the theory and practice of rural homesteading. This couple abandoned the city for a rural life with minimal cash and the knowledge of self reliance and good health.

Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, Mother Earth News is recommending books to its readers. For more than 30 years, Mother Earth News has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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This is the first book to describe in depth the timber framing methods used by most contractors, framers and owner-builders — methods that use modern metal fasteners, special screws, and common-sense building principles to create post and beam structures in much less time. The book includes everything an owner-builder needs to know about building strong and beautiful structural frames from heavy timbers.

Recommended Product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, Mother Earth News is recommending books to readers. For 40 years, Mother Earth News has been North America’s “Original Guide to Living Wisely,” creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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For more than five years Stone House – A Guide to Self-Building with Slipforms has been the prime source for information on a unique method of stone masonry that affords everyone, regardless of their level of building experience, the opportunity to create walls and even homes of stone.

Stone House focuses on the story of author Tomm Stanley’s own experience of building his house with the slipform method. This book is certainly not your average “how-to” offering; it is more like a tapestry of information and entertainment interwoven with technical advice, diagrams and pictures, tales of the owner builder experience and as the title implies, plenty of guidance on how to build your own stone house using the slipform method of construction. It makes great reading for those that are on their way to becoming self-builders as well as the rest of us that dream of such adventures.

The book has now been revised with two new chapters, digital enhancement to the original images and new photographs.

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Building on the enormous success of his original Shelter book, Lloyd Kahn continues his odyssey of finding and exploring the most magnificent and unusual handbuilt houses in existence. Among the intriguing domiciles described in Home Work are a Japanese-style stilt house accessible only by a cable across a river; a stone house in a South African valley whose roof serves as a baboon trampoline; and a bottle house in the Nevada desert.

More than 1,500 photos illustrate various innovative architectural styles and natural building materials that have gained popularity in the last two decades, such as cob, papercrete, bamboo, adobe, strawbale, timber framing and earthbags. If you love fine, fun and/or funky buildings, you will want to own this splendid book.

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More than 70% of Americans cannot afford to own a code-enforced, contractor-built home. 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, a Mother Earth News Book for Wiser Living, 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, at home, in developing countries or in emergency relief work.

This fully-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

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Cob cottages are the ultimate expression of ecological design. Made of earth, clay, sand, straw and water, they are their surroundings, literally rising up from the earth. These houses are light, energy-efficient and cozy, with curved walls and built-in whimsical touches.

The Hand-Sculpted House is theoretical and philosophical, but intensely practical as well. You will get all the how-to information to undertake an earth and straw building project. As the modern world rediscovers the importance of living in sustainable harmony with the environment, this book is a bible of radical simplicity.

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If you're considering a solar or wind system for your home or business, this solar power guide is a valuable resource. In Got Sun? Go Solar, the authors explain how installing a solar or wind system is an economically attractive and environmentally responsible option.

From Vermont to California, homeowners are plugging in to a hot new idea — reducing or eliminating their electric bills by using free energy from the sun and wind. In this straight-talking new solar power guide, authors Rex Ewing and Doug Pratt tell other grid-connected homeowners how to capture alternative energy and put it to use in their home.

Renewable energy is going mainstream, thanks to affordable new technologies with rebates and incentives from many states. Today more and more homeowners believe that installing a home RE system is the economically-attractive and environmentally-responsible thing to do. Whether they install a solar/wind system to benefit their checkbooks or to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, they also enjoy the added independence of a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

This solar power guide covers battery backup versus non-battery systems, as well as equipment needed and installation considerations. Other topics include legal and safety issues, incentives/rebates, and permits and paperwork. An extensive appendix of resources, state energy offices, system sizing worksheets, and much more turns this 160-page book (filled with more than 120 photos and illustrations) into a must-have book for anyone interested in exploring their power options.

Contents:

• Why invest in renewable energy for your home?
• Is it legal and safe?
• How solar electricity works
• Batteries or not?
• Sizing your system
• Got Wind?
• What does it cost?
• Any financial help out there?
• Permits and Paperwork
• The Nuts and Bolts: what to look for, what to avoid
• Who does the installation?
• Appendix: manufacturers, web resources, state energy offices, sizing worksheets, glossary and more

About the authors:

The authors of this solar power guide know firsthand how these systems work. Rex Ewing, author of Power With Nature has lived off-the-grid in the Colorado Rockies since 1999. Doug Pratt, the former technical editor of the Solar Living Sourcebook, lives in a grid-tied home in northern California, and has been on the front lines of the renewable energy revolution since 1985.

Recommended product for Wiser Living: Today, more than ever before, our society is seeking ways to live more conscientiously. To help bring you the very best inspiration and information about greener, more sustainable lifestyles, Mother Earth News is recommending books to its readers. For nearly 40 years, Mother Earth News has been North America's "Original Guide to Living Wisely," creating books and magazines for people with a passion for self-reliance and a desire to live in harmony with nature.

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This Mother Earth News Book for Wiser Living reviews the history of solar water and space heating systems, then presents the basics of solar water heating, including an introduction to modern solar energy systems, energy conservation and energy economics.

Heating water with the sun is almost as old as humankind itself, and it is done all over the world. Yet there are strangely few resources on the topic in North America. Solar Water Heating fills this gap.

Drawing on the author's experience as an installer of these systems, the book goes on to cover: types of solar collectors, solar water and space heating systems and solar pool heating systems, including their advantages and disadvantages, system components, their installation, operation and maintenance, system sizing and siting and choosing the appropriate system.

Since people often get turned off by the up-front cost, the book focuses especially on the financial aspects of solar water or space heating systems, clearly showing that such systems can save significant costs in the long run. Well-illustrated, the book is designed for a wide readership from the curious to the student or professional.

About the Contributor:

Bob Ramlow is the solar thermal consultant for the Wisconsin Focus on Energy Program. The owner of a renewable energy company, he has over 30 years experience with solar energy systems and is a founder and director of the Midwest Renewable Energy Association (MREA).

Benjamin Nusz currently works as a solar water heating consultant and site assessor in Wisconsin.

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $17.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

More and more homeowners today want houses that are healthy to live in and cause minimal damage to the environment. That's what green building is all about.

Your Green Home, a Mother Earth News Book for Wiser Living is written for homeowners planning a new home — whether you are working with an architect or builder, or serving as your own general contractor. Intended to improve the overall environmental performance of new houses being built, the book sets out to answer some of the big-picture questions relating to having a home designed and built — and getting what you want.

Your Green Home covers:

• Home location and its relationship to the community
• Site design
• Construction systems
• Building design to optimize energy performance
• Renewable energy systems
• Material selection
• Indoor environmental quality
• Water efficiency
• Material selection

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CLEARANCE ITEM. PREVIOUS RETAIL PRICE WAS $24.95 AVAILABLE ONLY WHILE SUPPLIES LAST!

Yurts are one of the oldest forms of indigenous shelter still in use today. This 150-page book shows you how to build, insulate, ventilate and transport a yurt, plus shares invaluable information on everything from foundations and heating to building codes and floor plans.