FOURTH EDITION
Released 2nd May, 2005

   We have spent a great deal of effort in preparing the FOURTH edition of the Earth Garden Building Book, and at last, here it is.

   It finally ran out of print in February, 2018. Sorry, it's no longer available. Occasionally, someone flogs a copy at ebay or a similar venue. If you know of one for sale, please visit this special page on my blog where I do my best to put buyers in touch with sellers.

Read the reviews of the new edition
Read the best review of many of the previous edition

   Do you dream of building your own house, with your own hands? The benefits are enormous, but the pitfalls are many. You need a guide.

   This book has guided many thousands of people through successful building. It is written in an easy to follow, lively style and is full of inspiring first-person examples of others who have done it.

   Bob Rich's story is one of them. He was an 'impractical' person when he started, and yet he was teaching how to build before his first house was finished. Not having been born with a silver hammer in his hands, he knows what it is like to be lost and overwhelmed while learning a new skill.

   Everything in the book was first tried out in real life. For example, Bob helped a friend to put down a timber floor. Then he floored a school building as a volunteer job, and wrote up the experience in Earth Garden magazine. The section in the book on timber floors is an adaptation of this article.

   A happy buyer of the third edition had this to say:

Hi Bob,    I have received your book -- many thanks. It is very informative and a great confidence builder for someone like me who has never built before. I feel that, armed with your book, no problem will be insurmountable.    I am particularly interested in the stone building section as the place where I want to build has a lot of granite (northwest of Canberra, near Hall). My idea is to build a farm shed on a slab and infill the external walls with rendered straw bales. I want to build all the internal walls from stone for aesthetics and thermal mass. Has anyone you know done this before? It would be great to talk to someone who has had the experience.    Yes, it is great making friends like this and I hope to visit you one day to meet you face to face and to see the 'hand-made' homes in your area. Take care. Mike     mikechampion@optushome.com.au

You may skim the Table of Contents, read a sample from the book or have a look at the reviews.