good reading for the ownerbuilder For the ownerbuilder looking to educate her/himself sifting thru the oceans of books to read is tough. This one is definitely worth the time. Clark takes a nononsense unpretentious approach. The text is easy to read and in plain language that lay people can understand. Focuses mostly on conventional stickbuilding but there are lots of great ideas in the doing it yourself on a budget theme that apply to any building style.
Great Resource I would like to review this book again after I actually use it to build a home. But that is a couple years in the future so I thought I'd go ahead and just review it as a reader.This book is my favorite of the three I've read so far. It gives advice on designing and contracting your own home. Even if you don't plan on designing your own home it's very useful to understand the basics of sound design. It could help you pick out blueprints or even analyze the design of a house that's already built. The layout and design of your home is such a huge part of what makes it pleasant to live in.The book also gives useful advice on how to general contract your own home. A good read.For further information on a welldesigned home the author recommends the books A Pattern Language and The Timeless Way of Building both by Christopher Alexander. A Pattern Language is definitely next on my reading list.
Not a how to GC If you are looking to GC the building of your new house this is absolutely NOT the book for you. It provides a lot of mostly useless and outdated information and ideas to those looking to actually build the house themselves.
Our Housebuilding Course textbook After offering our course in ownerbuilding at Heartwood for over twenty years we've found Sam Clark's book to be the ideal textbook. It's not just a carpentry book not just a design book not just an engineering book. It's the most concise yet comprehensive guide to all the systems and decisions that go into a home and its creation. In this age of a superheated economy and opulent excess in trophy homes it's refreshing to find a resource for building a truly economical and liveable house.
A must buy if designing/building your own house This is the best book I have yet to find that encompasses every step of the home building process from design to finishing out the house. This is the only book I could find that gave good info on building a foundation using concrete footings and columns using the cardboard sonotubes. I have referenced this book many times during the construction of my house. Also How to Design & Build Your Own House by Lupe DiDonno is also a good read but this book is laid out and written in a better style.
Your own way indeed! This tells you how to design a house for you. Not just a house out of a book but one that takes your living patterns into account. Don't want a formal living room? Don't put one in! Also reminds you if you want to live in the house a long time to make room for handicapped access that may be needed later.
Really good book I have been researching owner building for almost a year now and this is the first and only book I've found that both had all the information I needed and presented it in a way that a layman could understand. Five thumbs up.
An ACCURATE subtitle as much about design as about building Sam Clark uses up half the book before he gets into the nittygritty of construction methods. This really IS a book about house DESIGN as well as construction. As such it's an EXCELLENT book for someone who's starting from scratch to create their own house. The approach is extremely methodical treating mindsets and goals as elements of the design process equal in importance to elevation drawings.The illustrations bear particular attention. The black and white photographs are well composed and have high contrast to clearly delineate the features that are supposed to be of interest. The line drawings are rather funky looking in part because Clark appears not to own a ruler but nevertheless do a very good job of illustrating what the text is talking about. This is the case for three reasons 1 they were created by the author who knew EXACTLY what part of the text needed visual aids 2 their rulerless nature means that Clark can emphasize particular features rather than focus on strict scale drawings and 3 each one is sized independently to take up as much space as is required to depict the subject matter without worrying about "wasting" some page area. The end result is that the text and illustrations fit together well to make a unified whole.For more detail on the Building part of creating a house I'd recommend "DoItYourself HOUSEBUILDING" by George Nash. But because Nash's book doesn't come close to Clark's for clarity I'd first read Clark's book covertocover. Then I'd keep Sam Clark's book open to the same subject area so that you can step back and get a clear overview as you get confused in the details of the Nash book.
Our Housebuilding Course textbook After offering our course in ownerbuilding at the Heartwood School for over twenty years we've found Sam Clark's book to be the ideal textbook. It's not just a carpentry book not just a design book not just an engineering book. It's the most concise yet comprehensive guide to all the systems and decisions that go into a home and its creation. In this age of a superheated economy and opulent excess in trophy homes it's refreshing to find a resource for building a truly economical and liveable house.
The best guide to homebuilding on the market. It Rocks! This is the first book I've found that actually addresses living patterns in home design. The book describes the fact that people can be uncomfortable sitting in a huge living space and actually crave the need for smaller spaces like alcoves. Social behaviours and traffic patterns while entertaining are studied and factually explains what makes a room feel comfortable or homey. With traffic patterns and accessibility as the basis for the design half of the book Clark provides a solid foundation for design fundementals and the why behind it.The second half of the book covers home building. A s a complete novice in this area I can't vouch for the accuracy of the information but it does seem quite comprehensive in its description demystifying the building process and empowering owners to monitor their contractors with an informed eye while giving insight to the bigger picture and mindset of contractors. I think this understanding will help communication between owners and contractors and make homebuilding a smoother process. Of particular interest I found the load calculations for foundations fascinating as it wasn't something I had ever considered in home building as it is something the architecht waves his magic pencil to produce.The book is written in a familiar tone the layperson will relate and understand and while it doesn't shirk the industry jargon explainations are forthcoming making it easy to understand and simple to follow.I've read quite a few books on home building and have done extensive research on the internet. This book covers design priciples and the why not found elsewhere. I highly recommend this book as the foundation to anyone planning and building their own home.
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