Earthen Floors: A Modern Approach to an Ancient Practice

This book is very complete. It has an interesting perspective about natural buildings in general, with consistent data (though the book was written in 2014). The technical information about how to make an earthen floor is very precise and detailed. It's my best guide when making, repairing and/or maintaining earthen floors, specially because it's a knowledge that's is not yet widely spread.

This is exactly what we were looking for. It tells us everything we need to know about how to install our earthen floor in the strawbale/cob building we are making. Our floor will be installed on the ground not o we subflooring, so this is perfect. :-DWe are excited to put the knowledge in this book to use and get down and dirty to creat a beautiful floor for the life of our home.

So far I haven't found anything to dislike about it, seems like it could be the best or at least one of the best books on the subject. Has a great color photo gallery of examples.

I am giving it 4 stars for lack of detail. Basically this book will sell you on the idea, teach you how to confirm you have the correct materials on site, help you figure out how to get the right materials if you don't have them, teach you how to place, teach you how to finish, and teach you how to care for your aging floor. Really in that respect it is a great book. It did a great job on selling me; I will have a couple of rooms in my house when I finally build that have this.There are some details on how to finish edges and such but much more could be added in this respect. How do you finish against drywall (is there issues with moisture wicking), if you do decide to go without a concrete sub floor how does the interface with the footing look, and there were a couple that I just cant think of right now.I would still recommend this book to anyone considering doing a earthen floor it is good information.

This book gives solid details for building an earthen floor. I just finished reading it yesterday and am confident that I could follow the directions and use their method to produce a good looking earthen floor. The book gives details on what to do differently if installing the floor over a wood floor, concrete slab, or crushed rock. The methods and materials given look to meet building codes.

Finally a comprehensive book on how to do this flooring it's really hard to find this information out that offers constructive detail, it's like trying to find something mystical, if information easy to access it removes it from the world of "too hard" and that's just alternative crap when it should be something we should all being doing.

Me agrado

I have built several earthen floors. Sukita provides all the basic information if this is your first floor. It's essential reading. I especially liked the information about color washes and sanding the floor, I had never heard of either of these techniques and I will try them on my next floor.