Providing self-sufficient and affordable shelter remains a major challenge for humanity worldwide. Decent and healthy living conditions are still required in many parts of the world especially due to migration to over-populated urban areas, man-made and natural disasters.
Many architects and non-government organizations have attempted to provide local communities in these areas with building skills using local building know-how and introducing low-cost construction methods such as sand bags, mud bricks and bamboo structures.
The ‘Simple Solar Homesteading’ e-book was conceived by the author who lives in rural North America where farms and infrastructures are far and in between.
The e-book provides a hands-on self-help guide for building an autonomous off-grid timber cabin including various sustainable features priced at affordable costs totaling some 4,000 USD. Most chapters provide information about the tools, time and costs required for each stage complemented with various useful energy and cost-saving tips such as use of salvaged building components.
The simple timber-frame cabin includes a living area on the bottom floor and a sleeping area in the loft. Once this has been constructed the various sustainable features can be added on.
These include extensive use of solar energy for generating electricity panels, water heating, a compost toilet and a solar oven. Other systems described include rainwater harvesting, gray-water recycling, and garden composting Additional information is provided on storm protection and drilling water wells, though these may require additional professional and financial aid.
Tricky issues such as finding cheap property on which to build the home and complying with building codes are also mentioned. Perhaps local authorities could provide small plots for an affordable price in return for residents reducing their carbon and eco-footprints?
The e-book includes colored pictures of other self sufficient homesteads for inspiration. In future editions adding metric dimensions would be very useful. The guide shows that going back to basics enables building self-sufficient, affordable and eco-friendly DIY housing which could be applied more widely.
‘ Simple Solar Homesteading ‘ by LaMar Alexander 2007 Sun Power Publishing
E-book available at www.freewebs.com/simplesolarhomesteading
Reviewed by Gil Peled, Jerusalem’s premier green architect. Find out more about Gil and his passion for living a sustainable lifestyle here.
Author: James Murray-White
Growing up in a green village outside Cambridge, UK gave me an eye into the natural world, and years later, after being an actor, dramatist, weary traveller and anthropologist, the environment fires me up the most – and the need to save and nurture it… while we live within it. I now live in the UK, with partner Tania and 2 pesky cats – writing and filming the world (slowly making a documentary about the Bedouin situation) take up my creative time. I do this while growing things organically and composting profusely take up the remainder. James can be reached at james (at) greenprophet (dot) com.
You must not have Reade the same e-book as i. the cost was more like $5.000. not $4.000 and that's with his solar panels costing just under $3.000 and it's only 350W if he's getting that much out of them and that's not counting the cost of the porch. Not to be bragging but i made a solar system and a wind system for half the cost of just his solar system.My solar is putting out about 1150W and the wind is putting out about 600W on a 12 MPH windy day. So the moral of this story is if you can build your own house you can most definitely make your own power source by buying solar cell's and putting them together and making your own panels the same way with wind generators.