We offer a number of books through Amazon.
One of the best magazines available for green self builders is Green Building. While not exclusively about houses it is the best available reading for keeping abreast of new developments. It usually comes out quarterly. They also publish material on the web which can be purchased as individual articles. There is also an excellent Green Building Forum
The sustainable building association, known as the AECB is doing more than anyone in the UK to push forward the development of green building practices. If you join you can get Green Building magazine as a free bonus. There is a very interesting green build forum run by the association
Clean Slate - The Practical Journal of Sustainable Living published by CAT. CAT also do courses on self build
Low Energy House have a very informative web site.
One of the best known self build magazines is BuildIt who do some quite good general articles
General books
There are a few books which are 'standards' on selfbuild in the UK
- All About Selfbuild by Robert Matthews is an excellent book and with well over 500 pages of dense information is excellent value at a little over £20
- The Housebuilder's Bible by Mark Brinkley is also a stalwart. It is aimed at small building companies first and foremost but is excellent for self builders because it goes into costings quite thoroughly.
- Building Your Own Home by David Snell. A very good introductory book to Self build.
- The Green Self-Build Book by Jon Broome. An excellent book for the self builder by an architect who has been involved with green self build for as long as the concept has been around.
- The Self-build Book: How to Enjoy Designing and Building Your Own Home by Jon Broome, and Brian Richardson. It documents the building of a timber frame, Segal method, house and also goes into some community self build initiatives. There is very little written about self build timber frame in the UK (unlike say the US where it is usually the starting point). This book is a little out of date now but the principles in it are good.
Inspirational books
There are lots of books to get your creative juices flowing though many of them may not be entirely appropriate to the UK context.
- Living Spaces: Ecological building and design A good one to find out what is happening with eco-housing on the continent.
- Homework - Handbuilt Shelter This is a beauty in terms of inspiring photos of imaginative, often eccentric self built houses. Rather Californian hippy but no worse for that. By Lloyd Kahn.
- A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander et al. This book explains in depth what makes for long lasting, effective and creative design in buildings.
- The New Natural House Book which manages to combine being pretty in a 'coffee table' sort of way with also being very informative and ethical.
Magazines