Cob is a building material you can make yourself by mixing sand, straw and a clayey sub-soil. When blended with water then allowed to dry out, it forms a surprisingly hard substance that has excellent insulation properties and can last for hundreds of years so long as it rests on a stone foundation. It is one of our dreams - when we have time! - to be able to build a cob hut in our garden. We’d love to be able to sit inside a building that feels so closely connected to the earth. That’s why we fell in love with this book, the first guide to building with this ancient and eco-friendly building material to be published in the UK. Gorgeously illustrated and covering everything from design, planning and siting, to walls, roofs, insulation, floors and fireplaces, this is a book to enjoy, as well as to use.
256pp, 205mm x 254mm, illus. in colour, softback, 2006
We tend to see climate change as an overwhelmingly daunting threat, requiring impossible sacrifices if we want to save ourselves and our planet. But it’s time to rethink. In Do Good Lives Have to Cost... [more]
How to Live Off-Grid by Nick Rosen is a guide to perfecting the skills of a practical, sustainable, freewheeling kind of self-sufficiency, with freedom from the ties that bind.
Are you looking for a hotel or B&B that serves organic food? Would you like to stay on a camp site and have an organic veg box delivered? Do you like to have organic food available in your holiday cottage?... [more]
The New Complete Book Of Self-Sufficiency by John Seymour is the key reference to living without pillaging our planet, for anyone interested in developing a more sustainable lifestyle.
Children & home, 
