Living Homes: Integrated Design & Construction

Integrated Design and Construction

The house of your Dreams does not have to be expensive. The key is all in the planning. How much a house costs, how it looks, how comfortable it is, how energy-efficient it is—all these things occur on paper before you pick up even one tool. A little extra time spent in the planning process can save tens of thousands of dollars in construction and maintenance. That is time well spent!

Living Homes takes you through the planning process to design an energy- and resource-efficient home that won’t break the bank. Then, from the footings on up to the roof, author Thomas J. Elpel guides you through the nuts and bolts of footings and foundations, slipform stone masonry, tilt-up stone walls, log home construction, building with strawbales, windows and doors, concrete and fly ash countertops, masonry heaters, terra tile floors, wood framing, solar hot water, plus plumbing, painting, and more!

Thomas J. Elpel met the love of his life, Renee Nansel, in high school in Bozeman, Montana. They were drawing house plans by the time they graduated in 1986. Two years later they did a two-month, 500-mile walk across Montana, and with that experience they decided they could do anything together.

They saved up a small nest egg working with troubled teens in wilderness programs. Tom and Renee were married in June of 1989 and bought a five-acre building site in Pony, Montana, one block away from Tom’s grandmother. One of their wedding presents was a wheelbarrow for building.

They moved into a tent and started building the house of their dreams, although they had little construction experience and less money. But they read books and learned through experience, building a passive solar stone and log home for approximately what most people would spend on a new car.

Tom was inspired to write this book in part to show that it is still possible to live the American Dream—to own a great home without a mortgage. Today he is researching ways to mass-produce and market low-cost, high-efficiency homes.