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Taylor Publishing

Ken Kern

Books by Ken Kern

Phasing out Kern books

Due to lack of availabilty of books, both used and reproduced, only a few books remain. Please visit the Ken Kern page at http://www.dirtcheapbuilder.com to see remaining inventory

In The Owner Built Home he covers many building methods from stone and wood to slipform rammed earth and ferrocement /concrete. He introduces new concepts, such as describing composite materials (one is the fore-runner of Papercrete! a paper-asphalt-clay combination), and the old cinva ram earth brick method. Personally, I think his manually tamped walls, combining insulative, natural materials are way ahead of the game, and easy for owner builders to attempt.
Curved slipform wall units, for single or double wall construction. (shown in OB Home)

The Owner Builder & The CODE.
The Politics of Building Your Home Backcover quote "Ken Kern is an anarcho-decentralist; a confirmed believer in the non-professional, self-actualizing approach to problem solving." 192 pages, photos and drawings. (original book)--#KKOB-10...$31.00

This book interviews folks who took on local regulators and won, and it will both inspire you and validate your right to build without undue, unreasonable obstacles.

The Healthy House- 130 pages, photos and drawings, covers light, sound, air ventilation, magnetic fields, materials, gardens, siting and much more.-#KKOB-X ... $15.00, xerographic, clip bound

Ken Kern's Homestead Workshop-166 pages, glossary, index, photos and drawings. Describes and shows all the hand tools, details welding for gas, arc and solder, covers metalworking. Shows how to build a workshop (with a stabilized lime-clay-asphalt -straw walls and roof, also double wall slipforms are covered) #KKOB-8...$27.00

The Owner Built Home -40 Chapters: Building site, climatology, Ventilation,Summer Cooling,Light & Shade, Space heat, Central heat, Fireplace heat, Landscape design, The Plan, Free form house, Court garden house, Group living space, Individual living space, Cooking and dining, Inside your Home, Adobe block, Pressed block (cinva ram) Rammed Earth, Stone Masonry, Masonry Block and brick, Concrete, Precast concrete panels, Wood, Wood frame, Pole frame, Composite materials (early papercrete ideas), Plastics (shell & foam houses), Salvage materials(includes "zome "car tops design), Tools, Foundations, Floors, Walls, Wood floors, Masonry roofs, Stairs, Plumbing, Wiring and lighting, Light and color, DIY painting, Conclusion, 374 pages, index, B&W photos and diagrams. original book $33.00 spiral

Spiral house design from OB Home

Ken Kern Fireplaces-Original book
Ken Kern and Steve Magers put together a wealth of information on building many types of fireplces. Base designs, air-circulating, compound fireplaces, & water circulating; using fire brick/ceramics, tools and mortar, pipe grates, wood boxes, doors, and much more. 192 pages, B&W photos and illustrations. Excellent condition, softcover, published 1978. (Original book) #KKOB-FP...$35.00

Other Alternative Building Books

Rub-R-Slate Lessons--
Rub-r-slate is a home made surfacing product developed by Jack Bays in the 1930s. Essentially Jack discovered that using asphalt (hot mix), OR Asphalt Emulsion (AE) mixed with clay, shredded cardboard and/or sawdust and other dry materials like sand, plus some other additives, gave a hard wearing but extremely foot comfortable substance good for floors and roofing. It can be poured, troweled, rolled, sprayed, tamped, stamped and molded while still drying.
Jack even describes coating sheets of paper/cardboard with it to premake panels for laying as floor tiles, or wall surface.It can also be used for a damp proof course. Names Jack gave to his recipes are: "Liquid Marble, MarbleWood, Insuldown, Insulrock, Lithocrete, Hornite, and Terralithic". Mr. Bays had a series of "lessons" numbered 1-10 with recipes and formulas for many uses of this product. Alternative builder Ken Kern wrote about Rub-R-Slate in his book "The Owner Built Home" but details on making the product were scarce. And John Shuttleworth, founder of The Mother Earth News, knew Jack and worked with some of his formulas back in the 1970s
This collection of the original lessons are now available. Rub-R-Slate Lesson Plan is a series of 20+ pages of typwriter typed information with details on how to make a wide variety of finished products, and a MIXER to blend the recipes. $12.00... #RUBR

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This is the OLD website for The Dirt Cheap Builder. To order books fast and easy online please click on this Webstore link. It will take you to the same books shown here, and more!