Average customer rating:
- undergound home
- Revolutionary, but Problematic too
- What a great book!
- Who Wants to Look at Houses?
- The book is good but the author is nasty.
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The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book
Mike Oehler
Manufacturer: Mole Publishing Company
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Binding: Paperback
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Similar Items:
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Earth-Sheltered Houses: How to Build an Affordable Underground Home
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Underground Homes
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Earth Sheltered Housing Design: Guidelines, Examples, and References
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Earth Shelter Technology
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Underground Buildings: More Than Meets the Eye
ASIN: 0442273118 |
Customer Reviews:
undergound home.......2007-09-02
pretty good book. Lots of good illustrations,ideas, even if the home you decide to build is not underground. Interestingly written, worth the money.
Revolutionary, but Problematic too.......2007-01-06
I read through the first chapter on Amazon and was absolutely sold on the idea. Subterranean housing is vastly more ecologically compatible than surface dwellings; it can even be environmentally regenerative. But the book's last chapter was a crushing blow; the designs and methods Oehler suggests are not compliant with the Uniform Building Codes.
If you do your best to play by the rules in life, this book will have to be set aside. It's thought-provoking reading, to be sure -- not to be missed. But before you can set out into the wilderness and build yourself an inexpensive answer to today's housing problems, you'll need to socially-engineer a way around civilization's permit/inspector traps. The author proposes a few far-fetched possibilities, e.g. getting a code variance, getting an underground code amendment. Basically, the only real options are: either move to an area with NO building codes (Oehler himself admits there are almost none left), or hide your construction -- and this entails forgoing utility hook-ups, since meter readers apparently double as spies for the housing board, looking for unauthorized renovation/building projects.
Being an outlaw is not my cup of tea. Nor does it suit the mainstream. So perhaps this book's main function, after showing us how inexpensive housing can be, is to wake us up to a harsh reality. Housing boards, composed largely of members of the building professions, "have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. In other words they are not likely to take a cheerful view of any system which cuts the cost of building from 70% to 90%." The reason houses are so expensive is: the law REQUIRES them to be, and the law is assiduously enforced by the very contractors building those houses. What we need is a uniform building code flexibly oriented around safety and good construction standards, NOT the maximization of revenue to entrenched special interests.
What a great book!.......2006-08-18
I was amazed by this book. Not only does it provide plenty of details, but it is easy for anyone to understand.
Some other reviews comment on some of Mike's opinions. You have to remember, the world of the 70's was a lot different from today. No Political Correct bull! It was common for national magazines to get off on the ranting of the turbulent times. This doesn't distract from the book though, and I personally think it adds a bit of character to the book.
If you have ever thought of building an underground house, or getting away from the commercialism in modern society, this is the book for you. This is a must for the homesteader's library.
If I could ask for other things in this book, it would be a bigger description of the newer building methods in the update section. Also, some more three dement ional drawings of the inside of the houses. You can figure out what's going on but sometimes you have to study the perspective drawings and pictures a bit. I agree with another reviewer, a biography would be nice.
Great book, you will not be disappointed!
Who Wants to Look at Houses?.......2004-02-04
I first purchased this book about twenty years ago, then lent out my copy and have been without it for five years or more. Having recently bought a new copy, I have just finished re-reading it once again. I find the author's ideas to be intelligent, logical, and revolutionary.
His personality comes through strongly as he is a man who is not afraid to state his opinions. I find this book to be an interesting read for this reason alone, but strongly recommend it on the basis of the building system he outlines. He explains to the reader, in simple, easily comprehensible language, just how to go about building a warm in winter, cool in summer, low cost home, that is easy on both the eye and the environment.
A huge advantage is that a person living in such a home doesn't have to look at neighbor's homes, and, for their own part, is residing in a home that blends in with the surrounding countryside. If, by good fortune or good planning, one lives on enough acreage that viewing a neighbor's house is not an issue, there is still the benefit of having the home tucked away out of sight, part of the earth around it.
Having never been the type to build a "impressive" home, I am more intersted in staying out of sight and being left alone. I enjoy the woods and wildlife. Mike Oehler shows us how to build a home that lets me do just that.
The book is good but the author is nasty........2003-09-16
I too bought mikes book and tapes. The concepts in the book
can be distilled down to a very few things. The most important
is the use of PE film used for a living roof and using sand
to separate the layers. Thus a tiny leak in one film layer will
disperse into the sand and making a second pin hole leak less
of a problem. The videos are poor quality and most of it
is a waste of time. You watch Mike out of respect and put
up with their poor quality . The fact is , as a customer
when you e-mail mike on using tarps vs. PE film at mole@sandpoint.net you may be
shocked at his nasty response.
Apparently he is bitter and broken man lashing out even
at those who supported him.
Customer Reviews:
Great for beginners.......2007-01-04
Great for those looking for a way to sharpen odd shaped tools.
Book Description
The work of Douglas Harper has for two decades documented worlds in eclipse. A glimpse into the life of dairy farmers in upstate New York on the cusp of technological change, Changing Works is no exception. With photographs and interviews with farmers, Harper brings into view a social world altered by machines and stuns us with gorgeous visions of rural times past. As a member of this community, Harper relates compelling stories about families and their dairies that reveal how the advent of industrialized labor changed the way farmers structure their work and organize their lives. His new book charts the transformation of American farming from small dairies based on animal power and cooperative work to industrialized agriculture.
Changing Works combines Harper's pictures with classic images by photographers such as Gordon Parks, Sol Libsohn, and Charlotte Brooks-men and women whose work during the 1940s documented the mechanization and automation of agricultural practices. Part social history and part analysis of the drive to mass production, Changing Works examines how we farmed a half century ago versus how we do today through pictures new and old and through discussions with elderly farmers who witnessed the makeover. Ultimately, Harper challenges timely ecological and social questions about contemporary agriculture. He shows us how the dissolution of cooperative dairy farming has diminished the safety of the practice, degraded the way we relate to our natural environment, and splintered the once tight-knit communities of rural farmers. Mindful, then, of the advantages of preindustrial agriculture, and heeding the alarming spread of mad cow and foot-and-mouth disease, Changing Works harks back to the benefits of an older system.
Customer Reviews:
Review of Changing Works .......2005-11-05
I found "Changing Works" to be a very informative text in the area of technological advances in the dairy industry. Harper uses SONJ pictures to highlight wonderful interviews with various dairy farmers that farmed in the generations before World War II. These interviews bring the past back to life as the reader goes through the mechanization introductions such as replacement of horses and the reconstruction of the milking process. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the dairy industry and to future dairymen. As an agricultural student, I was enthralled throughout the entire book. Harper tends to be less descriptive when it comes to the actual workings of the machinery, but it does not take much away from the rich narrative he weaves with the farmers' interviews. The reader gets a feeling of loss for the traditional ways that Harper projects throughout the book and it only enhances the content.
Book Description
This digital document is an article from The Oral History Review, published by Oral History Association on June 22, 2003. The length of the article is 1133 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Changing Works: Visions of a Lost Agriculture.(Book Review)
Author: Alex T. Primm
Publication:
The Oral History Review (Refereed)
Date: June 22, 2003
Publisher: Oral History Association
Volume: 30
Issue: 2
Page: 161(4)
Article Type: Book Review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
Book Description
The preeminent work by one of France's most celebrated comic artists, this book tells the unique story of a rabbi, his daughter, and their talking cat - a philosopher brimming with scathing humor and surprising tenderness. Rich with the colors, textures, and flavors of Algeria's Jewish community, it brings a lost world vibrantly to life - a time and place where Jews and Arabs coexisted - and fills it with endearing, thoroughly human characters, and one truly unforgettable cat.
Average customer rating:
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On Thin Ice: A Religion Reporter's Memoir
Roy Howard Beck
Manufacturer: Good News Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Methodist
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ASIN: 0917851129 |
Average customer rating:
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The Rabbi on 47th Street
Ann Birstein
Manufacturer: Backinprint.com
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Biographies & Memoirs
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| Leaders & Notable People
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ASIN: 0595089100 |
Book Description
The rabbi came from the Slobodka Yeshiva; his congregation came from Broadway. The synagogue was a modest brick building a block from Broadway in the middle of that colorful New York neighborhood known fifty years ago as Hell's Kitchen. Between prayers on Yom Kippur you could hear a chorus of would-be Ruby Keelers tap-dancing in the rehearsal hall next door.
This is the exuberant story of Bernard Birstein—his immigrant travels and travails in America, his ever-increasing family of five children and countless poor relations, and his adventurous rabbinical life. The narrator is his youngest daughter, Ann, the blond-haired enfant terrible who grew up to write six novels and now this captivating book.
Customer Reviews:
Dear Ann.......2007-07-14
Dear Ann July 14, 2007
One day I came home late and tired. My wife shared with me a book. I read a page, then another and now I can't wait to get home from work, no matter how late and tired, and read it.
The other day I went to work with subway (ugh!). The only consolation that I could read your book that I can't when I use my usual mean of transportation - my car.
Do you want more compliments! In our weekend house I was re-reading Hemingway (Snows of Kilimandjaro) and Fitzgerald (Rich Boy) and I put them away, so much is captivating and engaging is your book.
Another compliment?! I am about to order few copies of your book from Amazon. Com for my shwester and some other friends.
We all have relatives like the Atlanta uncle, Esther Fenstermacher in Chicago. We all have expectations from our superiors that they will recognize us, like rabbi Lekhem or from America (the Golden Medina) and its disappointments. But that is not why I love the book. The way it is written it expresses and captures the quintessential Jewish humor, reminiscent of my esteemed Shalom Aleichem, the tragedies we have lived and endured and yet found a way to laugh about it. We then say a prayer, bless the bread and salt, add "Let us not know any worse", "Lets meet nur af simchas".
Yesterday I took a bus to go to our weekend house. I had an iPod with me (that modern tchachkala you can listen to recorded music with). I said : " Let me read the book and listen to Yiddish songs!". I'll tell you, between the two I thought of my self to be King David listening to the Song of Songs and reading Psalms.
Ramy, Debby and Misha.
Book Description
American families are sick of rudeness, aggression, and unruly behavior. They are searching for ways to cool down society -- and bring up kids who win at life by peaceful, compassionate, and rational means, rather than the opposite. This is the book that casts out a new lifeline to them and speaks positively to their deepest needs and yearnings.
Explaining that kindness is the heart and core of civility and manners in any society, Letitia Baldrige, America's number one best-selling authority on manners, has finally written the book that millions have been waiting for: a road map to raising and guiding kids who succeed in life through decency and honor.
"It all starts in the home," says Baldrige, as she shows parents and other concerned adults how to teach kids to:
Gain respect and become leaders -- at home, at school, and in the larger world -- without becoming wimps or bullies.
Defuse explosive situations with words and actions that turn hostility into harmony.
Use conciliation instead of confrontation with peers, authority figures, and others.
Be courteous and compassionate with family and friends and out in public while still standing up for themselves.
Learn behaviors that will make them liked and respected and will make the world around them a better place as they grow up. And much more...
Baldrige accomplishes this using real-life examples of encounters between adults and young people and the day-to-day interactions between young peers -- at home, at school, and out in the world -- plus the compelling and often personal true stories and anecdotes that have made her other books so warm and conversational and loved by millions.
In his longtime best-selling Book of Virtues, William Bennett showed us the values we should strive for to get life back on track again. In her book, Letitia Baldrige shows us how to apply those principles in everyday life, twenty-four hours a day -- and get results!
Customer Reviews:
Parents Must Be Involved!.......2000-02-06
Excellent book. The best part of the book is her emphasis on parental involvement and "monkey see, monkey do". For instance, adults don't realize it but they often engage in "bad-mouthing" others (even others' children!) in front of their own children. Of course children hear this and believe another child or adult is "bad", but worse yet, begin to bad-mouth others as a way to act "more adult" and gain power in situations with their peers. It's a problem we as society have in general and the book brings up these and other rarely-thought-of topics. Highly recommended.
A Must have for parents........1999-08-16
This is a great resource for parents trying to rear well rounded, thoughtful children. This is one all parents need to have on the resource shelf of the home library, and it needs to be re-read every couple of years. Ms. Baldrige writes in short sections and gets the point across in a few paragraphs. It certainly gives the mind food for chewing. Thanks Ms. Baldrige for reminding us what really matters.
Book Description
From the earliest English settlements the survival of the infant colonies in North America depended upon local militias. Before the mid-18th century royal troops were seldom shipped out from Britain, and the main burden of successive wars with the American Indians, and with Britain's colonial rivals France and Spain, fell upon locally raised units, which also fought alongside the Crown forces during the major operations of the French-Indian War of the 1750s. This final book of a fascinating three-part study covers the militias and provincial troops raised in the Carolinas, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Georgia, Nova Scotia, Hudson's Bay and Quebec Province; and also Rangers, and colors and standards.
Customer Reviews:
Great Books.......2003-03-02
Reading the works of Rene Chartrand is like eating a full course meal. Well served. Well formed. No Bad Taste. The information within is well served and in good quality. And quite filling for the mind.
In the five books of King Louis XV's army, the entire french military of the time period was well well served up like a Five Course Meal.
In the three books of Colonial American Troops we have a similar feast of accurate well served information on the pre-revolution american soldier. Which can also be served with the revised edition of Wolf's Army by Robin May and Gerry Embleton and the two books of General Washington's Army by Marko Zlatich and Peter Copeland.
For those who enjoy early american history, these three books are are an excellent find.
Good.......2002-11-08
Although there is no way to be totally accurate on these questions of uniforms, the folks here make very good educated guesses and the quality of the plates is great.
Colonial American Troops 1610 - 1774 (1).......2002-07-30
Colonial American Troops 1610 - 1774 (1), is a recent Osprey Men-at-Arms (#366) by Rene Chartrand, with illustrations by David Rickman. In this book Mr. Chartrand attempts to give a brief history of the military forces within the American colonies. This first of a three-volume set focuses on Virginia, New Sweden, and the New Netherlands. Not only does Chartrand investigate the colonial militias, he is also careful to highlight the presence of Royal troops within the colonies.
I found the book to very entertaining and informative, and thoroughly researched (despite the fact that he misspells my name as Tinsdale in the citations for his colour plates). It is highly appealing to see a work that touches on the seventeenth-century militias of the colonies, as these are often forgotten in the wake of works dealing with the French and Indian War, or the American War for Independence. Mr. Chartrand is obviously shrewd enough to realise that the provincial militias of the eighteenth-century cannot be fully understood without looking to their seventeenth-century origins.
The colour plates show a great amount of detail, and are careful to illustrate some of the more unusual (i.e. archaic) aspects of the early military forces within Virginia, and the New Netherlands. The pictures, too, lend themselves well to the text, though I did find that those concerning the eighteenth century did outnumber those dealing with the seventeenth. However, that is forgivable, as seventeenth-century colonial America has been ignored somewhat by the public interests.
Book Description
The Cold War, which started in 1947, resulted from the United States' gradual discovery that the Soviets, allies during World War II, were enemies, hostile to non-Communist nations and determined to spread Communism wherever they could. The Soviets feared another revival of German nationalism and sought to defend themselves against another German invasion. The U.S. and its allies created NATO to balance a Soviet military buildup, including the nuclear arms race. The first confrontation with Communist guerrilla action in Greece and Soviet threats against Turkey were followed by Communist party threats to overthrow democratic governments in France and Italy and later all around the world. The U.S. supplied vast military and economic assistance to thwart their efforts. The Soviet government, consequently, felt obliged to assist governments whom they considered threatened by the "imperialists," principally the United States.
Average customer rating:
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Practical Work in School Science: Which way now?
J. Wellington
Manufacturer: Routledge
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0415174937 |
Book Description
Laboratory work has been part of science education for just over 100 years and is accepted as an essential and exciting element of the discipline. This book attempts to reflect on the value and purpose of practical laboratory work for the scientific curriculum. The chapters aim to examine how practical work is perceived by students and teachers; whether we will move on to the "virtual lab"; and what role experimentation plays in current educational practice.
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- The Owner-Built Log House: Living in Harmony With Your Environment
- The Preservation of Historic Architecture: The U.S. Government's Official Guidelines for Preserving Historic Homes
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- Treehouses: The Art and Craft of Living Out on a Limb
- Ultimate Hotel Design
Books Index
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