DIY Projects for the Self-Sufficient Homeowner (gnv64)

DIY Projects for the Self-Sufficient Homeowner: 25 Ways to Build a Self-Reliant Lifestyle
By Betsy Matheson
Creative Publishing | February 2011 | ISBN10: 1589235673 | PDF | 440 pages | 38.3 mb 
http://www.amazon.com/DIY-Projects-Self-Sufficient-Homeowner-Self-Reliant/dp/1589235673
Converted by me from MOBI to PDF

Build your way to a more self-sufficient lifestyle with step-by-step projects for backup and supplementary utilities including independent water, heat, and electricity growing and storing food, raising small livestock, beekeeping, and more. Many of the projects require basic materials available at your everyday home center, but this book also provides valuable DIY resources for solar, hydro, greenhouse, and gardening needs.
This book will help you build security with utility backup systems and become more sustainable, resulting in less dependence on city systems for basic needs. Whether you have a city plot or simply pots, this book includes all of the information needed to plan, build, and succeed with greater self-sufficiency.
For all those who have started growing their own, here are 25 ways to help you on your way to the good life. Being self-sufficient is a lifestyle choice that helps the environment and keeps you healthy and fit. Learn how to save water, make compost, build a compost bin, planters, raised beds, a greenhouse or hoop frame and a cold frame. On the gardening front learn how to grow and transplant seedlings. Discover how to preserve what you have grown, set up a root cellar. Find out about raising animals. Build a chicken run and beehive. See the benefits of going solar to provide heat and light for the house.
This book covers many things, it is particularly good on the building side - the instructions for making frames etc are very good. Then it dabbles in raising animals and solar power and I think these things are not as well covered a they could have been. I see this as a book about making objects that facilitate growing, a subject it covers admirably.

CONTENTS
Introduction
DIY Projects
1 Collecting Rainwater
2 Collecting Gray Water
3 Composting
4 Raised Beds
5 Container Gardening
6 Building a Cold Frame
7 Starting & Transplanting Seedlings
8 Building a Greenhouse
9 Building a Hoophouse
10 Preserving Your Bounty
11 Setting Up a Root Cellar
12 Raising Animals
13 Building a Chicken Ark
14 Building a Beehive
15 Solar Electricity
16 Solar Security Light Circuit
17 Solar Heat
Index