This is an entertaining program about old houses. Hope you like it. Even if you’re not planning on buying property in Britain, it’s still a good way to learn about buying and renovating properties. Read more from > Britain’s Empty Homes

Ken Kerns: 7 Axioms of the Owner-Built Home
1. Build According to your own Best Judgment: So if we are to be at liberty to build our own home at less cost, we must necessarily be free from all building code jurisdiction. This means we must locate outside of urban control—in the country or small township districts. Read more from > Ken Kerns: 7 Axioms of the Owner-Built Home

Owen,

“We launched our new VelaCreations.com website, with a special focus on our How-To articles, which now number over 50, with another dozen in the works. There’s a lot of shelter-related articles, from our Rapidobe system to ferrocement, to making all sorts of things around the homestead. Read more from > Abe’s Farm, New Website and Book

“A forest planted by humans, then left to nature’s own devices, typically takes at least 100 years to mature. But what if we could make the process happen ten times faster? In this short talk, eco-entrepreneur (and TED Fellow) Shubhendu Sharma explains how to create a mini-forest ecosystem anywhere.” Read more from > How to Grow a Forest Really, Really Fast

Chris Dancey put together a video titled Natural Building Overview that shows many different natural building options. The screenshot above was taken from his video. I like the chart because it shows at a glance the various natural building materials and methods in an organized way. Read more from > Natural Building Materials and Methods

Harvey Lacey’s Ubuntu-Blox block building machine was featured in seventh place in yesterday’s blog post on Top 10 Cottage Industry Products. Today’s blog post shows how his block making process has shifted to using extremely low cost materials – vetiver roots, the waste material from making vetiver oil. The end result is similar to straw bales except the bales are smaller, lighter, more insect resistant and they’re made on site with waste materials. The mini bales are less expensive than ordinary straw bales, take up less space and can be made without an expensive baling machine. His open source plans make it easy for anyone to build his machine quite easily. Read more from > Building Blocks at a Fraction of a Penny Each