A Good House: Building a Life on the Land [Paperback]

Richard Manning (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 1994

"It is a measure of the confusion of our times that the simplest words tease out the most complicated questions. Words like 'good' and 'house.' What do we mean by these? A year of my life turned on this question, a year in which I built my own house." These thoughts launch us into Richard Manning's powerful and compelling account of his building an environmentally conscious house on a thirty-eight acre piece of land in the wilds of western Montana. Concerned about our culture's disregard for the environment, and facing his own mid-life crisis, Richard Manning decided to rebuild what he could. First he remarried, and then, determined to adopt fully the values of conservation, he decided to build "a life on the land." We follow as Richard and his wife, Tracy, with the aid of some fascinating characters - Bruce the water dowser; Banker McKee; Trusty Dave the digger; Skinny Jim and his partner Big Jim of the concrete crew; the lumbermen, the Finlays; the carpenters Bruce and Mike; Karl the mason; Gallacher as gofer; the rockers Larry, Rick, and Steve; and numerous others - conceive, finance, and build their house. Combining lessons from the history of house construction with contemporary technologies, the Mannings immerse themselves, body and soul, into the project: from devising the exact layout of the timber-framed structure and determining the minimum amount of water they will have to draw from the arid region, to calculating the superinsulation needed for successful passive-solar heating and installing a composting toilet, they strive to match beauty with efficiency, integration with practicality. Painfully aware that his earth-sheltered dwelling requires him to cut down trees and digup the earth, among other destructive acts, Manning compromises when necessary but holds on to an idea that seems antithetical to modern ways: "Less is better." With the first warnings of winter, the months of working around the clock begin to take their toll, and the couple near

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Newly remarried after a bitter divorce, Manning at age 40 determined to build an environmentally sensitive house with his own hands. Having found land on the edge of the Missoula Valley in Montana, his first step was to drill for water. Manning had help from friends, professionals in the building trade and casual laborers--all of them, as depicted here, distinctive characters. He leads readers on a circuitous path: topics such as tools, concrete, wood and power serve as measures of progress. In the chapter on "Filth," Manning details his problems with a chemical toilet, concluding that the manufacturer's manual was too fastidious. Though he had to make compromises, Manning was satisfied with the house. Readers will be too. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Man reaches midlife, gets divorce, finds a new wife, and decides to build a house in the country. While the plot is familiar, the writing raises this above the level of most other "country home" chronicles. Manning, a freelance writer whose expose of timber industry practices ( Last Stand , LJ 10/1/91) cost him his newspaper job, put extensive research into his effort to produce a home in Montana that was both comfortable and relatively uninvasive to nature. Throughout the book, the reader is treated to Manning's inner musings: observations about how social pressures and material availability have affected construction methods throughout history, plumbing as a micromodel of the earth's water cycle, and cabinetwork as the neurosurgery of carpentry. The final chapter on sources contains a short, annotated list of current materials useful in planning a comfortable and environmentally friendly home. More about homebuilding than country life, this is good information for the "planning-your-dream-home" crowd.
- Cheryl Childress, Collegiate Sch., Richmond, Va.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (April 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140234071
• ISBN-13: 978-0140234077
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #949,981 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A good template for defining the good life, January 31, 2004

By 

DAVID-LEONARD WILLIS (Thessaloniki Greece) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Good House: Building a Life on the Land (Paperback)

A thoughtful couple, knowing that we were planning to build our own house gave this book; it was a pleasure to read because the question "What is a good house?" leads to the question "What is a good life?" For the author this led to more searching questions - a house takes forests from mountains, coal from hills, life from the planet. As these are all major contradictions for those who value nature, the author set out to build his house in such a way as to ensure his happiness with minimum damage to the earth. Building a house is an environmentally destructive act which, multiplied millions of times, is responsible for the degradation of some of our best land. The threat is that unless we are careful we may live our lives in an unsustainable manner. On a fairly superficial level Manning set out to build an environmentally sensitive, energy efficient house but at a deeper level he wanted a house that would rebuild his life from a failed marriage. He did not want frugality to preclude beauty nor asceticism to preclude art. This meant that the land and the author had to cut a deal which is really what this book is all about - the factors that we have to consider, the trade-offs that we have to make and the process of reaching our decisions.

The first lesson that we can learn from Manning is that the land is our first teacher, something that really came home to him in his search for water. The second lesson we learn is about money and how the house loan business works. Because he and the owner of the adjacent property needed a bank loan to build, they planned only basic environmental goals such as a 30% reduction in water consumption compared with national averages, superefficient lights and appliances, recycling of gray water, joint ownership of some facilities, and granting open-space easements for wildlife. With a loan secured he was ready for the third lesson - locating the house. In his case "feel" played a major consideration, once he had settled on a south facing slope and the house footprint. He established a rule that the house would be no bigger than his city apartment, although it was small by national standards, so that he could do without an architect. His golden rule was "If I don't understand it, I don't do it."

Manning tells us how he started digging and his plans for earth sheltering - burying the lower part of the house to reduce heat loss and take advantage of the earth's insulation - a special advantage on a south facing slope with the house buried on three sides. This is another way of saying you live in the basement and take advantage of a large area of the house. He decided on concrete rather than wood because of the concept of thermal mass. But concrete is a gamble; when it's done its either right for all time or its wrong. There's no middle ground. When it goes wrong, it goes dreadfully, terribly wrong and all hell breaks loose.

If you have ever toyed with the idea of building a house in the country and starting the good life, read this book with its template for defining the good life, defining the good house, proceeding with minimal resources and all its lessons for the unwary.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for house building..., February 29, 2004

By 

John Clements (Hillsboro, OR) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Good House: Building a Life on the Land (Paperback)

.. Or buying. Everyone who lives in modern America should read this, to understand the complexity of living in a household with on-demand conveniences. Where does water come from? Where do our feces go? Where does electricity come from? Manning considers the source of all of these, plus the material- lumber, chemicals, etc.- that go into building and living in a house. He has actually worked with his own hands to build his own house, and so he understands the craft and care necessary to build a good house. He has worked for too long as an environmental journalist to overlook the consequences of building and living in a new house. This book and his craft-activism are anathema to the cookie-cutter profit-fueled home building that has generated sprawl and leaves dull houses standing empty in the suburbs, where the greatest asset to a home is its resale value.
Manning's poetics get a bit trying sometimes, when he philosophizes overly much on some task or detail of homebuilding, but overall the information and story are instructive and enlightening.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thoughtful, honest and important, June 3, 2001

By 

Puncturevine (Great American Desert, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Good House: Building a Life on the Land (Paperback)

Richard Manning is an environmentalist writer who can write. He has a voice—an open, honest and emotionally engaging one—one that makes this book a pleasure to read. Manning puts his cards right out on the table, addressing the contradiction of trying to act in an environmentally sensitive way while embarking on a building project that from the start appears less than environmentally sound (building where there was no building before in “ranchette” fashion). Like most of life the resolution is in gray rather than black or white. But Manning succeeds in getting the reader to intimately understand the environmental impact of all facets of modern housing. Whether you build a new home like his or not this is worthwhile information. In my case it prompted me to give my 100 year-old home an “eco-overhaul,” a process which has to date reduced its energy consumption over 60%. And now my family, friends and students occasionally get an uninvited lecture on the virtues of compact fluorescent lighting, on-demand water heating, shutting off “ghost loads” and the like… And you can’t avoid Manning’s contagious love of the art of building and tools. There are all sorts of small gems hiding within this relatively straightforward work, and all of them are worth digging out and mulling over for a moment. ....