The classic back-to-the-land, build your own house book. This is a review of traditional building techniques froma ll over the world, a treasure trove of ideas and photographs.

Helps you avoid that ball and chain, and gives lots of creative ideas to find low-cost materials and finance construction.

The Earthship books are a good start towards integrating all the house’s “systems” - heating, water collection, food production - in one unit. They are buildings made with tires rammed full of earth to give the house an enormous thermal battery (don’t worry, you don’t see the tires when the house is done).

See above.

My personal favorite book about cob, a building material made of a mixture of clay, straw, and sand, is another fascinating possibility. Cob is an inexpensive, forgiving, and thermally-superior technique.

You won’t always have a partner to help you put up trusses. Here’s how to do that and a wide range of other four-handed manoeuvres on your own

Timber framing is a durable technique, useful in the US where we have an abundance of trees.

Another interesting technique that uses cement-stabilized dirt for house-construction. Well-illustrated and applicable everywhere.

Another very different and ultimately inexpensive approach to solving your housing problem.

A good, updated, general book on passive solar.

The definitive book on rocket stoves by expert Ianto Evans, these inepsensively-built stoves obviate the need for large, expensive “Finnish” stoves. Highly recommended.