Adobe: Build it Yourself (SOLD)

From the Introduction:

Adobe is the ideal material for the beginner. It is a warm, kind material that is forgiving of mistakes, and amenable to change. If you don't like what you have wrought, it is a simple matter to take it down and try again. The adobe bricks may get a little battered in the process, but it won't matter a bit. Adobe is a tough plastic material that will stand almost any sort of misuse. Most other materials are not this way. Lumber, when cut, can't be lengthened, although the too-short piece may possibly be used somewhere else later in the job. An adobe wall offers a place for nearly all the bits and pieces that might normally be thrown away.

The purpose of this book is to enable you to plan and build your own home intelligently and realistically. Primary emphasis is placed on adobe construction, but as you will find in pursuing the project, there are many other materials and problems with which you must deal, and many principles are discussed at length which would apply to building a home from many materials. This book cannot make you a skilled architect, contractor, or craftsman, and it cannot possibly answer all the myriad problems and questions that will arise during the job. I do hope, however, that it will give you a clue as to where to seek the answers, and perhaps even more importantly, to know what questions to ask. It should help you evaluate the problems and work of all the material suppliers and craftsmen with whom you must deal.

The prospective builder must be prepared for a long period of frustration, doubt, worry, and plain hard work. You must be willing to devote a great deal of time. If you are not able to do this, it is still possible to participate in the role of contractor, hiring skilled people to do most of the actual work, and thus effect a sizeable savings in money, while gaining a lot of personal satisfaction. Planning your home is one of the fun parts, and one on which you can really make your ideas influential. You should, because this is your home, and it should be designed and built the way you want it.

As an amateur architect you may be prone to overlook certain necessary portions of the plan, or omit things that are important. It is a tremendous puzzle, for which you must create and arrange all the pieces, and then live with the result. This portion of the project and all subsequent portions will offer you a choice of the amount of participation which you may want to do. It takes perhaps two to three thousand skilled man hours to build a home, more if unskilled. How many hours can you devote to this each week? The overall prospect is staggering, but actually is only a large number of very small tasks. If you break this down into small enough pieces, it becomes quite simple. The tasks must then be arranged in their proper order.

Looking back over the creation of this manuscript, I can't help but wonder whether enough information has been included. It does not pretend to be a complete work, since volumes have been written, and lifetimes devoted to the study of each phase of the subjects covered. Those of you who may be more expert than I am, please understand my purpose. The average layman is either bored or intimidated by most technical works, or lacks the patience to extract the useful information from the more formal presentation. It is hoped that this book will help bridge the gap between architects, builders, craftsmen, and the unskilled but determined individual who wants to build his own home. The book is the result of many years experience in what will work.

It would be impossible here to acknowledge all the help that I have received during more than twenty years in learning the basics of many phases of construction. Many architects, plumbers, brickmasons, craftsmen, and other contractors have patiently answered the questions I've asked, and taken pride in showing me the right way to do a given job. Pride of craftsmanship, in spite of many cries to the contrary, is very much alive