• Make cordwood homes with debarked wood logs.wood image by globus80 from Fotolia.com
  
  Inexpensive green building methods are eco-friendly in that they primarily use natural resources and reduce your carbon footprint at the same time. For the builder or owner on a budget, implementing these cheap green building methods provides a comfortable and innovative alternative for building structures, while utilizing recycled and energy-efficient materials.
  
  

Rammed Earth Floors

• According to Green Strides, rammed earth floor is a type of floor composed primarily of dirt, but it also may include gravel, sand, straw, clay or crushed limestone. You install these floors by mixing the natural materials until you reach a thick consistency, then spreading the mixture on a sub-surface with a trowel-like tool and sealing the floor with natural drying oil treatments. These floors are ideal for a green-conscious home owner or builder as they are composed of natural ground materials and are inexpensive to purchase, install and maintain. Earthen wood floors do not require expensive framing for finishing or the application of any toxic chemicals during the installation process.
  
  

Cordwood Building

• Cordwood building is a method of construction in which the builder stacks together a number of small debarked logs, seals and binds them together with concrete, reports Life Unplugged. When building a cordwood home, you may use different types of materials depending on the amount of insulation required and the preferred thickness of the walls. This method of building is eco-friendly as the wood that is used is generally available locally. In heavily timbered areas, you may also utilize wood from fallen trees or scrap wood from sawmills. Additional benefits of cordwood building include the low maintenance, cost effectiveness, ease of construction and the innovative architectural design.
  
  

Earthbag Construction

• According to Life Unplugged, earthbag construction is an inexpensive green building method in which the builder uses polypropylene, hemp or burlap bags and fills them with materials such as volcanic rock, rice hulls, pumice, sand and heavy soil clay. The type of filler used is determined by insulation needs. Green builders utilize these bags to create structures by stacking the bags in various ways and holding the bags in place with strips of barbed wire. After the structure is complete, the builder applies modern stucco or natural earth plasters to provide protection from the elements, to prevent bug infestations and keep the structure dry. Earthbag building is a natural building technique that is useful when building temporary emergency shelters, permanent homes or other small- or medium-sized structures such as barns.