The Complete Guide to Building Affordable Earth-Sheltered Homes Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply (Back to Basics Building)

some useful information

I read this book from cover to cover. It has some good information; if I am ever in the position to build an earth-sheltered home I will use some of the advice in this book.

Recently Amazon's "recommendations" for me came up with a lot of titles in the Earth Sheltered Housing subject line. Most of them were "picture books" from the 70's & 80’s that weren't worth very much even then, let alone now. This was the most recent one I noticed so I bought it on impulse, not expecting much.I don't think the thing is enough for anyone to go out and use as a construction/ design manual but careful reading and note taking should help a person decide if one of these homes is something for them.If you've read Mother Earth News magazine for enough years you'll have come across much of what is presented and may have even seen some of the websites profiled (some of those sites quite badly done- their design/construction work…hopefully better). Most of the limited book list isn't worth very much in my opinion- Amazon's way of showing "people who buy/look at this often b/l these" is bound to turn them up and maybe better books too. If you can find a contractor locally (some of the profiled ones do travel it seems) reading this book will give you enough information to ask the right questions and maybe even determine whether or not your "contractor" knows what he's doing.It's worth adding to your dream home library but you'll need more to actually go out and build.

This is probably the best book on underground house construction in print. Rob Roy boes a good job of telling us the good and bad experiences he had building several earth sheltered houses.

Easy read! This book makes this dream of mine seem very doable!! My husband has been reading it & is excited about the prospect & benefits as well. Great guidelines!

Book was very "incomplete". I picked it up because it was more recent than others, but it was badly put together. Editing was also really bad. There are paragraphs that are repeated or say the opposite of what the author probably intended, etc. Very unimpressed.

Helpful

Great book!!!!

I liked it but thought there would be more pictures and plans.It discussed important issues which was good. I guess another book will have more images for me. Not going to check one out right now.