Get the Offline ArchiveFree lifetime updates

Construction & Engineering

3 min read

For building and basic infrastructure, salvage a step-by-step residential construction manual, Practical Blacksmithing by M.T. Richardson for forging tools, A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander for laying out a settlement, and field manuals on rural water supply and sanitation. They cover shelter, tools, settlement design, and the clean water and waste disposal that keep a community healthy.

Part of Tier 2: Books That Save Lives This Year

Buildings, forges and water systems are built from procedures that must be followed in order and cannot be worked out by trial and error without cost. Each needs its own reference.

Pick Books That Show The Steps

  • A residential construction manual. For example The Visual Handbook of Building and Remodeling or similar: foundation, framing, roofing, plumbing, electrical and finishing, step by step with illustrations.
  • Practical Blacksmithing (M.T. Richardson). Metalworking with hand tools and a forge: tools, techniques and projects. If you can forge, you can make most tools.
  • A Pattern Language (Christopher Alexander). Not a construction manual but a design philosophy for human-scale buildings and communities, useful for planning a settlement.
  • Water supply engineering. Well-drilling, spring development, gravity-fed systems and pumps, from a rural-water field manual such as those produced by the World Health Organization.
  • Sanitation engineering. Latrine design, greywater systems and composting toilets, from manuals written for developing countries.

Method: Choosing For The Job

Step 1: Match the book to the next build. Shelter first, then water, then waste, then tools.

Step 2: Prefer illustrated procedures. Photographs and diagrams survive being read by someone tired and cold.

Step 3: Check local building conditions. Frost depth, rainfall and available timber vary.

Step 4: Keep the water and sanitation books together. Where latrines go depends on where wells go; read both before building either.

Common Mistakes

  • Building before reading. A badly framed roof fails in the first heavy snow.
  • Locating a latrine uphill of a well. Waste reaches drinking water.
  • Treating A Pattern Language as a manual. It guides design; it does not teach joinery.

Safety

Building, forging and well-digging kill through collapse, burns and contaminated water

Trenches and wells collapse without warning, roofs and ladders cause falls, a forge burns, and a latrine too near a well contaminates the water. Follow the safety guidance in each book, never work alone in a trench or well, and keep waste away from every water source.

What’s Next