House & Home

Learn all about household septic systems—including how to maintain and repair them—whether you’re planning to build or already own a home.

More than 28 million households have septic systems, yet few homeowners know how they operate or how to maintain them. The Septic System Owner’s Manual describes the conventional gravity-fed septic system, how it works, how it should be treated (what should and should not go down the drain), how it should be maintained, and what to do if things go wrong. Written by Lloyd Kahn, with illustrations by Peter Aschwanden, this is your straightforward, easy-to-understand guide to small-scale residential wastewater disposal.

The Septic System Owner’s Manual is perfect for the average homeowner, based on conventional systems, providing practical advice on how to keep these systems up (or should we say down?) and running. You’ll also appreciate information on the evolution in composting toilet systems, designs for simple graywater systems, and some typical alternatives to the standard, gravity-fed septic system. There’s a chapter with advice to any community that’s faced with town-wide septic upgrades and a chapter on the history of waterborne waste disposal.

Homeowners will especially find this book useful in terms of the following:

• Working systems: By understanding septic system principles, you will know how to maximize its useful life.
• Partially failing systems: You may be able to nurse along an ailing system or even bring it back to life.
• Failing systems: You are given a discovery process to search for the problem.
• Alternative systems: You will understand how they work and what purposes they serve.

Get this comprehensive book, and get to know the ins and outs of your septic system. It could save you countless repair bills and countless headaches!

Discover the benefits and joys of simple living in this coffee-table book that presents the homestead of Lloyd Khan and Lesley Creed.

If you’ve ever researched a DIY home-building project, then you’ve probably come across the books of Lloyd Kahn. If you’ve ever been curious about self-sufficient living, The Half-Acre Homestead is for you. Lloyd, the former shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, has published several books—including some of the most definitive titles on owner building, such as Shelter and Tiny Homes. Lloyd has showcased hundreds of builders in his books. Now, for the first time ever, he spotlights the work of himself and his wife, Lesley Creed.

Starting with a vacant half-acre piece of land, back in the 1970s, the couple built their own home, created a garden with vegetables and fruit, and began raising chickens, bees, and goats. This book presents every aspect of their homestead, from the kitchen and dining area to the shed and workshop. It also introduces several fascinating aspects of their lifestyle, such as crafting and small-scale farming. It goes on to cover cooking, foraging, fishing, birds, butterflies, and tools.

Book Features

• Detailed look at a homestead built entirely by hand
• More than 500 full-color photos, illustrating every facet of home life
• Tips about building skylights, greenhouses, living roofs, and more
• Section on unique kitchen tools, as well as useful tools for construction

Lloyd and Lesley have never paid rent and never had a mortgage. This coffee-table book is their story of building and maintaining their own home, over a 46-year period, on a small piece of land in Northern California.

There's a grassroots movement in tiny homes these days. The real estate collapse, the economic downturn, burning out on 12-hour workdays – many people are rethinking their ideas about shelter – seeking an alternative to high rents, or a lifelong mortgage debt to a bank on an overpriced home. Homes on land, homes on wheels, homes on the road, homes on water, even homes in the trees. There are also studios, saunas, garden sheds, and greenhouses.

There are 1,300 photos, showing a rich variety of small homemade shelters, and there are stories (and thoughts and inspirations) of the owner-builders who are on the forefront of this new trend in downsizing and self-sufficiency. You can buy a ready-made tiny home, build your own, get a kit or pre-fab, or live in a bus, houseboat, or other movable shelter. Some cities have special ordinances for building "in-law" or "granny flats" in the back yard. There are innovative solutions in cities, such as the "capsules" in Tokyo.

If you're thinking of scaling back, you'll find plenty of inspiration shown by builders, designers, architects, dreamers, artists, road gypsies, and water dwellers who've achieved a measure of freedom and independence by taking shelter into their own hands.

Tiny Homes on the Move chronicles 21st-century nomads — people who inhabit homes that are compact and mobile, either on wheels or in the water. In photos and stories, this fascinating book explores modern travelers who live in vans, pickup trucks, buses, trailers, sailboats, and houseboats that combine the comforts of home with the convenience of being able to pick up and go at any time. With over 1,000 color photos accompanying the stories and descriptions of these moveable sanctuaries, this is a valuable and inspirational book for anyone thinking outside the box about shelter.

If there’s not a nomadic revolution going on today, there’s certainly a nomadic movement. In the last few years, either for reasons of practicality (high costs of rent or mortgages), change in lifestyle, or the search for adventure, people are customizing all sorts of vehicles for travel.

If you search for “van” on Instagram, you find scores of accounts such as #projectvanlife, with 1.2 million followers; #vanlifecamper; 472,000 followers, or #fosterhunting, 930,000 followers.

This book focuses on DIY vehicles, with most of the 80 or so shown here fitted out for the road by their owners, similar to the way that the homes in all of Shelter’s building books were built by hand, by the owners. There are vans, sedans, trucks, buses, and trailers with a wide array of designs and styles. A number of the units are 4-wheel drive for off-road travel.

The book is not only fun to browse through, but is full of practical information (such as stoves, heaters, battery charging, solar power, refrigerators, and kitchens designed for the road) — for anyone wanting to create their own movable home. These owner builders describe their homes, provide photos and share their secrets. There are dozens of floor plans, all sorts of sleeping arrangements, and some unique “stealth vehicles” — designed to be under the radar, so that passers-by have no idea that someone is sleeping in a parked vehicle.

There is a European minivan outfitted by a young German woman who just graduated from architectural school and took a sabbatical to go surfing. There are a number of camper truck shells, all completely different. There’s a converted school bus that is used in both cold weather for skiing, and in warm climates (such as Baja California) for surfing. A $200,000 Land Rover and a $300 pickup truck camper shell. There’s a converted horse trailer furnished with Victorian antiques that is used at Burning Man. A tiny Geo Metro (3-cylinder sedan) that is ingeniously designed for sleeping, cooking, and eating in the stealth mode.

This is the the latest addition to The Shelter Library of Building Books, which started with Shelter in 1973 and includes Home Work, Builders of the Pacific Coast, Tiny Homes, and more.

This book couldn’t be more timely.

Find inspiration from DIY owner-builders who constructed their own small homes in this coffee-table book filled with photography.

Are tiny homes too little for you? Well, small is bigger than tiny! The average American home is 2,500 square feet—that’s too big. The tiny home averages 200–300 square feet—that’s too little. The small homes featured here are 400–1,200 square feet—just right! American homes are getting bigger and bigger, but small homes are less expensive, use fewer resources, are more efficient to heat and cool, and are less costly to maintain and repair. They are desirable for those who want to avoid a bank mortgage or high rents yet need more room than a tiny house can offer.

Lloyd Kahn has been a leader in the green-building movement for over 40 years. In Small Homes, he presents 120 small homes via more than 1,000 full-color photographs. The homes vary from unique and artistic to simple and low-cost. Some are ordinary buildings that provide shelter at a reasonable cost, and some are inspiring examples of design, carpentry, craftsmanship, imagination, creativity, and homemaking. Some are built with natural materials, such as cob or straw, and some with recycled wood or lumber milled on-site. Some are old homes that have been remodeled, while many were designed and built from scratch. Many are in the country, some in small towns, and some in large cities. Dozens of builders share their knowledge of building and design, with artistic, practical, and/or economical homes in the United States, Canada, England, Scotland, France, Germany, Spain, New Zealand, and Lithuania.

Inside you’ll find

• 120 homes in the range of 400–1,200 square feet
• Owner-builder techniques
• Variety of construction methods
• Inspiration from owner-builders
• Small homes in both rural and urban areas

The underlying theme with Shelter’s books, which span more than 40 years, is that you can create your own home with your own hands, using mostly natural materials. A computer can’t build your home for you. You still need a hammer (or nail gun), a saw—and human hands.