5 comments about The Natural House: A Complete Guide to Healthy, Energy-Efficient, Environmental Homes.

1. My husband and I are building a new house and we were looking for a good resource for information about eco-friendly options for our home. This turned out to be an excellent resource, but a little outdated. There have been so many advances in various eco-friendly technology since this book was written and it would be great it Daniel Chiras would update this book to show that. However, this book did provide us with the basic information we needed to make most of the decisions for our house. I would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to build green or do a green remodel to their house. In addition to this, I would recommend getting a subscription to Smart Homeowner Magazine and/or Mother Earth, both of which will provide you with the latest in green products and technology, along with a lot of other valuable information. They make a great update to The Natural House.



2. I've recently become interested in green building. My local library system provided a lot of interesting books, most of which weren't really worth buying.
   
   Daniel Chiras' book is different: comprehensive, well-organized, and sincere. I purchased a copy as this is a definite keeper.



3. Being an architect already, I found that the book was an excellent introduction, even for me, to the various alternative building techniques emerging. It gave the author's honest opinion about many of the techniques, which was very appreciated. Don't expect it to be a precise how-to guide for any of the methods. It is an excellent overview, though, that can help you evaluate which building techniques you would like to explore further. The references at the end are vast and helpful.

   However, I found that for a book about the "Natural House", it often suggested many un-green building materials (OSB, polypropylene bags). Sometimes their "ungreeness" was mentioned, sometimes not.




4. If you're interested in building a natural home (cob, rammed earth, straw-bale, earthship, whatever), this is your primer. The author has done his homework and presents the description, pros/cons and pitfalls of each type of construction. He is very honest about just how "do-it-yourself" each type can be, and how much it will cost you. He also covers passive and active solar design, natural water capture and other alternative technologies to go with your natural home. This is an excellent overview on all these subjects.

   The best thing about this book is that he refers you to other sources for more detail - books, videos, newsletters and organizations that will support you, give you a workshop or just give you more detailed information than belonged in this primer book.

   I highly recommend this as the first book you read on the subject. Once you know which type of house you are interested in, you can pick up some of the other books he suggests on that building type.




5. Dan Chiras has done a number of things I really like in this book.

   The first part of his book provides a chapter on each of several natural building technologies with enough information to help novice readers understand what is involved. Moreover, he adds a pro and con table at the end of each to help readers compare and contrast them - and to make a decision about which is best for their particular situation.

   Chiras also provides an ample helping of "food for thought" material to help potential natural builders understand the "why" of their prospective natural building projects, an essential process for anyone who is contemplating an out of the ordinary building project.

   Chiras serves his readers well by acting as a "fair broker" of natural building as a concept as well as each of the technologies he presents. This allowing his readers to make their own informed judgements about which natural building method, if any, they will use. Chiras additionally provides numerous references so that readers can find more detailed material for further research and project planning.

   I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who is in the process of considering or planning construction of a natural home, especially to those who are not already familiar with conventional construction materials and methods and at least reasonably familiar with natural construction alternatives.

   It's easily worth the price.

3 comments about Principles and Practices of Commercial Construction (8th Edition).

1. I bought this book for the General Contractor exam. It is also an excellent reference book for people working in the construction business.



2. The book gives narrative descriptions of the different possiblities for building componets used in commercial construction. It basically says " here are the choices." But, it does not provide the constructability, cost, and site management information necessary to evaluate which of these choices would be best for a particular project. Nor does it provide the information to best approach the execution of the project once a collection of project components is selected.
   
   Although this is intended primarily as a technical book, a little managerial information would have been helpful to evaluate these techical components.
   
   Choosing Project Success - A Guide for Building Professionals



3. This book was necessary for the WV general contractors exam. It still remains a good resource to hold on to in the future.

No comments about Core Curriculum Introductory Craft Skills: Trainee Guide (Contren Curricula).

4 comments about Super Potato Design: The Complete Works of Takashi Sugimoto: Japan's Leading Interior Designer.

1. This is the most interesting and valuable book to our design office that we've received in a long time. It's very avante guard and has encouraged us to be more creative in our design.



2. I got this purely based upon the caption that he was Japan's best interior designer. I think for material usage in traditional design sense he is, and this book shows it. Althought it doesnt cover his most interesting interiors( at the back there is a list of his complete works and some seem neglected not to be included in the main part). Restaurants are his main station and in the book it it shows a willingness to experiment and push the boundries as to what or bar, partition or ceiling can be made from. It contains text explaining materiality, overall space photos, detail photos and floor plans. His interiors are a good representation of how modern japanese interiors have developed from the traditonal approach. I would recommend this book to fans of japanese design, desingers looking to use manmade / natural / recycled materials and desingers trying to get their brains past the its all plasterboard dilema



3. Super Potato design work is amazing, exquisitely beautiful, original, inventive and very Japanese. Top photography, excellent text and unusually incisive captions here are icing on the cake. I strongly recommend this wonderful book to anybody interested in beauty and creativity, the level of genius on display transcends the architecture/design field. You will be drawn back to it again and again.



4. Incredible design work. Every interior and industrial design student should own this. Very inspering work

No comments about Simplified Site Engineering (Parker/Ambrose Series of Simplified Design Guides).

5 comments about Sheds and Garages.

1. This book gives good step-by-step instructions that are useful for building a shed, as well as for any framing or repair work. Amazon's price is well below Home Depot's.



2. I loved this book!!! Not only did you see ideas on how to decorate but if you wanted to, "bulid it yourself", then it gave you step by step and tools as well as land lay out you needed.
   
   Also gave you garage/loft plans to choose from. Again loved it!!



3. This book has an abundance of helpful information for the novice carpenter. Lots of good building designs also. Very good reference and learning book.



4. If you do not know what a plumb bob is, or how to mark a chalk line, this book will be of great value. If you are looking for plans to build a shed, buying this book is similar to paying for an order form.

   This will show you from the ground up how to build a shed, yes. However, one must pay another 15-30 dollars for the actual plans, despite the covers boast of "special section: 33 Great New Plans!". Reason #298 why to look at the book at a real bookstore before buying, too.

   If you know how to build anything, you may see this as a waste of time/money.




5. We have found this book to be extremely helpful so far. Has easy to read instructions with pictures to show exactly how to do things. My husband stated that this was the best book he has seen so far.

1 comments about The Black & Decker Complete Guide to Masonry & Stonework: Includes Decorative Concrete Treatments (Black & Decker Complete Guide).

1. This book is great because it has pictures for each step of the projects and includes a few fun concrete projects if you're up for it.

1 comments about Fireplace Design & Decorating Ideas.

1. I do custom carpentry in the Metro Detroit area, and updating fireplace surrounds and mantles seems to be the new hot trend here, so I wanted to get a new book for ideas. I thumbed through this book at lowes before buying it for less on amazon. I have been very pleased with this book because it has a lot of quality photos of a wide variety of fireplace styles. Some books of this nature have too many designs that, while striking, just are not practical for most homes. This book did not have that problem. In fact, I will likely need to buy a second copy because my customers spend so much time looking through the first copy over and over again, that it is getting prematurely worn. My only complaint about the book is that several of the designs do not meet current code requirements. In our area, as it is in most of the country, code requires 12" of non combustible material from the opening of the firebox to any combustible material such as a wooden mantle. Many of these photos appear to be lucky if they have 6", requiring me to alter the design, and therefor the appearance in order to meet code. This is a minor issue in comparison to the great ideas in this book, but I wanted to at least mention it. I would definately recommend buying it.

2 comments about Robert A. M. Stern: Houses and Gardens.

1. I thoroughly loved his first residential book "Houses." With the amount of work he has done I expected this book to focus on new work but many of the same projects and pictures from the first book were used in this one.



2. This book on Robert Stern, the latest in a series, is very well executed. Mr. Stern really has a knack for anachronistic grand homes, they are a throw back to another time, but with all the modern luxuries money can buy. Stern has a real feel for the kind of gardens that complement each type of home, and the interaction between the two is often quite breathtaking. The images in this book are first rate and the homes are amazing. If you appreciate excellent photography, elegant architecture, and spectacular homes and gardens then you will love this book

No comments about HVAC Equations, Data, and Rules of Thumb, 2nd Ed..