Earth Sheltered Homes

I really like this idea for homes that significantly reduce your power consumption requirements (and which make comfortable off-grid living more practical):


DIY construction with tires and dirt:
http://earthship.com/

Monolithically poured concrete shell construction:
http://www.earthshelteredhome.com/

That is really awesome!! I wonder if there are geographic restrictions in building one of these. All the ones they show on the website are in the desert. You can also rent one of these per night. It may be worth it if you are in the area.

I ordered the first book on the earthship and they claim it's possible to build one anywhere. In humid/wet climates, you have to seal the structure better than in dry climates.

The ESH (concrete) are sealed, so moisture isn't an issue. You do need soil conditions that can support the weight of the domes though.

The desert is a great place for these. I looked hard into this idea when building here (SW VA mountains). The word is, if it's damp at all - don't do it, you'll be fighting seep and walls creeping in all the time - I checked with a couple people around here who have done it. Rats - where I am is almost perfect, otherwise.

Vernacular buildings

This one in Wales has caught a lot of peoples attention -

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2039719/Simon-Dale-How-I-built-hobbit-house-Wales-just-3-000.html

and I would build one tomorrow if I didnt already have my bugouts.

For most of us the major problem with earthships, hobbit homes and anything a bit 'hippie' is that the system gets in the way.
If you can find a legal site and want to do it with all the necessary permits and approvals, you end up being forced into 'alignment' by commercial reality.

Our only real alternative is to do it 'below the radar' and hope to not get caught for whatever qualifying period of limitations is relevant.

Ive done two normal self builds and was happy to sell em ( and turn the proceds into PMs ) but the cob barn I built ( below the radar) on a piled foundation in a swampy bit of ground in some woodland remains my baby.

Several years ago, whilst building one of the houses, I was sat down chilling under one of my favourite trees and sort of running a video of the build process to share with the tree ..... imagine my amazement when the tree 'answered' by saying why dont you let us create a shelter for you without cutting us down .... and gave me a powerful picture of a circle of trees ( more like a hedge really ) trained onto a domed frame to form an enclosure.
This image has been bugging me ever since.

Yet the digger in me says, build a cave into the side of a hill. Quarry shaped hole, tyrewalls and dome structure, then backfill to hide everything except the entrance and the eye to the sky .....

whoa, stop me before I do something really stupid

rbl

oh yeah DCF

if you want to build underground in damp / wet conditions its not technically difficult.

You have to create an outer structure that remains damp/wet and an inner one that will be dry. You need to consider a default route for any incoming water that does not allow it into or to soak into the materials you will be in contact with in the living accomodation.

A bigger challenge is the balance of heat retention vs ventilation and humidity especially if you want it to be passive.

Rammed earth tyrewalls for the outer structure, using a digger to fill and compact would be my way.

Take the first step ........ buy a digger (-:

I found another resource that has information and ideas about building green structures:

http://www.greenhomebuilding.com/

bollix

posted a reply

thought I was using a smiley in the message but it turned up by the title, so I deleted it ...... along with everything else )-:

all your empty boxes ........

The two layer idea has also been used to good effect in all above-ground homes I've seen and if anything I like that better. In any case, it's a good idea to make the inter-wall space big enough to get into to do maintenance and for storage - room to fix or reinforce any creepage/seepage. The problem with the outer wall deciding to creep inwards is no joke - I've seen these hippie-built (tire-rammed earth - even some re-barred concrete - but too thin) have to be abandoned. This is maybe a peculiar area, up in the mountains, where there are also large rocks, but I'd bet the main issue is that half the year the soil is dry as a bone, the other half it's trying to be soupy mud.

The rocks are perhaps the larger problem here, unless you like to blast(it's one of my more-fun hobbies). You can't know if they're there till it's kind of too late and you hit one that says anihC on it (China from the other side). The question then becomes did you use more energy to build it than you're going to save. You might not even care about that though - if you've got it now, it's a nice way to lock it up forever...stacking applied to housing, as it were.

A local town (Christiansburg) was building an underground jail when they ran into the big rock, and decided not to blast and finish it - payout time too long - did they think the government wasn't going to be around to collect? For them it would have had all the advantages we think of, plus it would have been a real bear to break out of.

Yeah PMB,
that resource for vernacular / green building is impressive.
Glad I didnt have any of it when I build a ( still standing) cob barn back in the early 90's, otherwise I would still be studying and planning ......


DCF

Yup, that big lump always shows up when a lot of other work has been done.

So ........ take a somewhat more flexible approach.

Strip back and store any topsoil well away from the proposed build area.

Then just rummage into the hill, creating mounds of loose material and exposing the big lumps but not spending any time trying to remove them.
Then when you have uncovered the underlying rock profile, choose the biggest or most suitable dent between outcrops and build the walls.

The loose material can then be used to hide the structure. and some of the exposed outcrops imaginatively landscaped or dressed to look like dolmens.

It might seem a bit like overkill but a decent 360deg tracked machine will do a lot of digging in a short time so it will be much more cost effective than impact hammer or drill n blast on the rock.

As for dust in summer and slurry in winter, this only happens if the ground water or rain run off is not given somewhere to go and the surface has not had a chance to consolidate, either due to bad timing with the work, or traffic travelling on the recently placed ground when its wet.


And I agree, a walkway between the inner warm wall and outer structural wall is the way to go. It does mean a much larger outer wall though.
It could be a life saver too, as it could be a good hiding place for people / food / guns etc.

Im not sure how effective a tyre wall is as a retaining wall but for a mass concrete or block wall we work on x3. In other words a 1m thick wall will hold back 3m height of dirt. ( you can step in as you come up ) However we must have free draining behind the wall so its not getting a hydrostatic load otherwise it has to be designed a lot stronger, like a dam.
There are some good geotextiles for this situation that are porous one side and water proof the other, with a gap between the skins created by plastic grillage / spacers, that allows the groundwater to enter the geotex and migrate down or along the structure, usually with a perforated plastic land drain at the bottom to collect and remove the water.

http://www.terram.com/downloads/
This is neither difficult or expensive, yet it is probably the most important component of any underground structure. And it will keep any rammed earth tyrewall dry/damp.

I would be happy to try but I already have a bunker planned that utilises some existing old walls and is not overlooked nor visible to satellites (-;

Just gotta get in there with the 6 tonner and clean back the bottom which appears to be concrete under 50 years of tree and leaf accumulation ....

when no one is about .......

I found another ESH option:

https://greenmagichomes.com/building-process/

Lots of good ideas coming through for alternative ways to use existing materials.

At some point I am up for creating some aircrete domes.


The raw ingredients are - portland cement, washing up liquid, water and air.

Creates an air entrained material or put another way, bubbles coated with cement joined together to form a structure.

Waterproof, insulating and can be formed into any shape.
I reckon inflatable domes and spray the aircrete over the dome.
Several layers to create the appropriate thickness and some 'colourmix' in the topcoat.

That's pretty cool. I wonder how much weight those bricks (or brick structures) can support.

esay enough to find out .......... just gotta make some (-:

Probably compare with those lightweight blocks ( we call em thermalite or Celcon ) that have been used for years to build load bearing walls.

The real problem for us dreamers is compliance with building codes, insurability and the potential resale value.
If you pay market price for a building plot and you comply with building codes cos you are borrowing money from the banking system, you end up with the same crap that everyone else is building, otherwise they dont lend.

All the really cool alternative builds that I would love to copy were done where there were no planning restrictions ( or below the radar) without borrowed money and probably not insured.

He saved stone barn. Also built unreal villa under hillsidehttps://www.youtube.com/@kirstendirksen​

Kirsten Dirksen
Jun 19, 2022

Gorka Ibargoyen bought an abandoned stone housebarn in the Bera Valley of Navarra and wanted to expand it to fit large gatherings without destroying the original character. With the help of architect friend Jordi Hidalgo Tané he went underground, building an annex to the primary home inside the adjacent hillside. Accessible via an all-glass corridor the addition is nearly invisible.

The cave-like addition resembles a fissure in a mountain, and that is what inspired Tané’s design, and is nearly invisible from the outside: it is accessible via a transparent, all-glass corridor. When looking at the model, Ibargoyen feared the hidden home might resemble a bunker, but the glass skylight in the green roof light combined with the long window running down the entire length of the structure brings in plenty of daylight to the subterranean shelter.

To unify the two structures, the used only glass, concrete, and wood for the interior, resulting in a concrete sink and a wooden shower. While the result is modern elegance, Ibargoyen insists it’s not a fussy home “Things are made to be used, and to show wear over time”, he explains and pointing to a wine stain on the cement countertop, he adds, “That is happiness”. 18:36

https://www.landaburuborda.com/

Damp and dark.

I lived, one winter, in a basement apartment, in a resort area...summer resort; the town stood mostly empty in winter. For $100 a month (1977) I had a basement apartment with rec-room paneling, no window in the bedroom, indoor-outdoor carpeting, and Goodwill furniture.

It was cheap and warm and functional; but it was also damp and it smelled a bit at times.

A lot would depend on the environment in there. Moist areas, no. Prone to heavy rains, no.

I like the homes in Dubai where they have one room under the ocean.

Turns neglected housebarn into light-filled rammed-earth home​

Jul 3, 2023

16:02

Up until recently, Jordi Salvia's hometown in rural Catalonia used rammed earth bricks as an ancient and effective method to keep barns and houses cool and affordable.

Despite working in Barcelona, Salvia decided to turn a dilapidated barnhouse built by his grandfather in their village outside Lleida into a modern, efficient house for his family — at a fraction of the cost of renovations relying on modern materials (with weaker climatic performance).

Inserted into a narrow rectangular plot with no possible openings to the sides, the renovation removed floors and inserted lofty voids to create mezzanines designed to allow natural light into the house's several courtyard-like spaces.


The house includes a double-height living room with a custom cast-iron fireplace for the winter and access to a terrace, a vaulted living area for hosting big gatherings for family and friends, and an indoor courtyard on the first floor that stays cool in summertime and warm in winter.

Got abandoned bunker network. He’s starting underground village​

Oct 15, 2023

38:28

In Paradise Valley (Montana) there are 52 underground bunkers, capable of housing hundreds of people. They were built in the 1980s to prepare for nuclear fallout. When Dean Anderson found one for sale by owner, he snapped it up for a good price since it was filled with 45,000 pounds of dried food.

“Basically, to me it was like a million to a million and a half dollars' worth of cement stuck underground,” explains Anderson. “I was thinking all this leftover stuff, gone, they’re going to bury it, so I could buy it for next to nothing and turn it into something cool."

He’s now in the process of converting it into a series of apartments. The decontamination chamber alone is now a two bedroom apartment. The giant cement dome goes three stories deep. He has already created an apartment and huge communal living space on the top floor, after cutting holes in the sides to open it up to the views (they are 7 miles from Yellowstone).

There are still two floors of building to complete, but Anderson has not just created more living space, he has also turned food storage space into a source for geothermal heating and cooling, or what he calls “redneck geothermal”.

Anderson has done all the work with a crew of young men in recovery. He believes in physical labor as therapy and years ago “an old man” helped him in the same way. Now 30-years-sober, Anderson has spent years replicating this work-therapy on his construction projects. He trains and pays the men who are often just off the street or out of prison in hopes that they will follow his path. “We’ve had 40 kids through here. The bulk of whom are clean and healthy and doing well.

”After five summers on this project two apartments already but there’s still more work to be done. Dean and his crew have been filming their experiences for a TV series. The Montana Society season two launches on October 20.

Paradise Valley? That's just fifty miles from me.

I'd love to know the specifics on that purchase - how much, whether and where the land was advertised for sale, etc.

Veteran coder builds stone-covered Dome Home into Texas hill​

Nov 5, 2023

24:48

Al Schwarz wanted a home with low energy bills and protection from extreme weather so he dug into a hillside, inserted cement domes and buried them again with enough earth and rock to guarantee protection.

He spent 10 years stacking 50 tons of rock as a retaining wall and planting grass and trees atop the home. The final home is heavy enough to guarantee a steady temperature. “A normal house weighs about 46 tons,” explains Schwarz. “This one weighs between 600 and 700 tons, so it cannot change temperature rapidly – only about a degree in 24 hours. Therefore, it’s very easy to keep the inside comfortable.”

His 7 acres cost $49,000, though he took out a loan to build the domes which was not easy to find for such a non-conforming property. He finally found one that had financed other dome homes in the past.

With a greenhouse of vegetables and potatoes, and a lake in his backyard for fishing he is nearly entirely self-sufficient. The home is powered by solar and often feeds back into the grid.

His earth-sheltered home has also become a refuge for neighbors during extreme weather. One neighbor was so impressed they have installed their own prefab dome for private protection from storms.

Al's channel https://www.youtube.com/@alschwarz9024/

On *faircompanies https://faircompanies.com/videos/vete...

Looking for the ultimate in an underground home? Look no farther................

Cold War-Era Missile Silo Dubbed the ‘Safest Home on Earth’ On the Market for $1.3 Million​

An unusual property is currently on the market and it could be yours for a cool $1.3 million USD. The Rolling Hills Missile Silo – dubbed the “safest home on Earth” – in Westfall, Kansas dates back to the height of the Cold War, and is a DIYer’s dream, given how many possibilities there are for reimagining the underground (and aboveground) space.

So. Survive the blast, cooped up without sunlight or exercise for six months. Then emerge, sloppily fat from all the crap in the stored-food buckets...and watch the survivors go apeschitt on you.

I remember the dust jacket on Lucifer's Hammer : "The lucky ones died first."

Casey Jones said:

So. Survive the blast, cooped up without sunlight or exercise for six months. Then emerge, sloppily fat from all the crap in the stored-food buckets...and watch the survivors go apeschitt on you.

I remember the dust jacket on Lucifer's Hammer : "The lucky ones died first."

Click to expand...

Excellent book.

"give them the lightning"

searcher said:

Excellent book.

"give them the lightning"

Click to expand...

That was a sort of deuce ex machina. I really doubt the motivation would carry through, with eighteen months of religious Luddite attacks, while fighting rising sea levels. The authors, writing a panoramic sci-fi book, wanted to tidy it all up with a bow for the close.

Far more believable is the end of Earth Abides - with literacy dead, with the chosen son and the most-intellectual of the leader's children, dead of an epidemic...with literacy lost. Necessary skills survived, but the world makes the man, and that world had no room for readers or philosophers.

14 Years Living Off-Grid in a Self-Built Cabin & Farming Tons of Food on the Land​

Oct 22, 2022
10:36

Stephanie and Joel share their 14-year journey of building a home from reclaimed materials, living off-grid with solar power, and growing a lot of their own food, from fruits and veggies to milk, meat, and honey.

They built their home on shared land using materials they salvaged from the dump, wood from a building they took apart themselves, and whatever free stuff they could get their hands on. They had no electricity in the beginning so they only had candles. Eventually, they got a solar panel and a battery to run lights, and the systems have evolved from there.

They now have a wood cookstove for heat and cooking in the winter, 5 solar panels and 4 lithium batteries for electricity (plus a generator to supplement on cloudy days), a washing machine, a propane fridge and stove for summertime cooking, and a thermostat controlled propane stove so they don't have to get up in the middle of the night to stoke the fire. For water they have a quarry on the land which they draw from to fill a reservoir in their loft. From there, the water is gravity fed into the kitchen and bathroom. Their drinking water comes from a well on the property. The toilet is an Airhead urine diverting toilet.

The cabin has a master bedroom in the loft and a main-floor bedroom that's split into two sleeping spaces for their kids. They have an open-concept kitchen, dining and living room area, and the bathroom is closed in with a beautiful bottle wall. There's also a sunroom they recently added to the front of the house to bring in natural light, passive solar heating, and to grow food in the winter (with the help of LED grow lights).

For work, Joel owns a tree service business, and Stephanie runs an off-grid Airbnb business. You can check out the awesome Pickalotta off-grid cabin here:https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/53201098

Siberian Homestead: winterizing vaulted turf dugout for -30F/-35C​

Nov 19, 2023

16:02

Bio-architect Alosha Lynov has experienced his own Tolstoyan Odyssey: interested in natural building, he taught himself to design and build shelters with materials and shapes inspired by Nature that resemble an Arctic version of Antoni Gaudí's designs.
Alosha pushes his version of eco-construction to the limits so his "buriable" shelters "can handle the harshest and most erratic weather patterns as well as strong wind and snow loads."
In the first chapter of our series with Alosha, we follow him to Siberia, where he learns from a local how to adapt his curvilinear designs to build a vaulted turf home capable of bringing beauty and comfort to one of the harshest environments, showing "what anybody is capable of."
Alosha's longterm plan is to redesign the Earthship Subzero temperatures without sun, what he calls his Wautillarium Autonomous Eco Home.
Alosha teach others how to build his homes and permaculture gardens on his online Bio-Veda Academy https://www.bioveda.co/

No bank loaned them money. They built dream Hobbit Home themselves​

Dec 10, 2023

When no bank would give them a loan for a buried dome home, Steve Travis and Jeff Ingram began to build the earth-sheltered hobbit villa on their own, financing each step paycheck to paycheck and getting creative. They used recycled highway signs to lay the forms for the concrete foundation. They held a "dome-raising" party to erect the I-Beams (purchased as a dome kit). They tied their own rebar for a full year. They lived in a fifth-wheel trailer for 6 years before finally moving in to a half-built house.

Their commitment paid off. Today the couple have spent a decade living mortgage free in a home that is built to "withstand a nuclear blast", as well as hurricanes and earthquakes (they are in a fault zone). They have no heating or cooling bills, since the home is hyper-insulated. “There are 1000 tons of earth on top of the house,” explains Steve. “The weight adds strength to the structure – like an egg, because of the barrel-hauled structure the weight of the earth compresses it and makes it stronger –, but the main aspect is the thermal mass insulation value.” Per code, the county made them put in two bedroom wall heaters, but they have never needed them.

The home is maintenance-free accept for having to mow the roof which now bathes the entire home in green. “We've had people say it must be like living in a cave, but there's light everywhere in this house.” Because the walls aren’t load-bearing (the barrel-vaults hold the home in compression) they were able to create huge windows on three sides of the home allowing in plenty of southern light: “more than any home we’ve ever lived in”.

32:48

The Ultimate Self-Sufficient Urban Home: South Australian Earthship​

Dec 15, 2023

When it comes to radically revolutionary architecture, it’s hard to look past the Earthship. Constructed from a mixture of old car tires and rammed earth, these homes are designed to be completely self-sufficient. They are a fantastic example of regenerative home design in practice.
Beyond the home's immensely clever function, Amy’s Earthship is amazingly beautiful. From the stunning greenhouse garden, to the sunflower bottle wall or the extraordinary interior earthen renders, this home is a joy to behold.
I’m in love with all forms of architecture that push the boundaries, challenge convention and strive to make a positive impact on people's lives and the planet. When it comes to architecture that actually achieves this, the Earthship is exemplary.
We hope you enjoy the tour of this amazing home! You can find out more about Amy's Earthship here: https://www.facebook.com/100066417016958

21:32

Modern home hideout sits on forsaken volcano like Star Wars rebel ship​

Dec 24, 2023

28:42

Perched on a slope of what is arguably the tallest mountain in the world (Mauna Kea), and accessible only by 4 wheel drive, Musubi House doesn't rely on city grids, but instead is powered by the sun and captures all of its water from a huge trapezoid sloped roof.

Deep in the heart of paniolo (cowboy) country and surrounded by cattle ranches, this glass, steel and concrete home (designed by innovative architect Craig Steely), it was built to protect against strong winds, but opens up completely to an interior courtyard for sheltered outdoor living.

“You are like being on a ship here right because you're dependent on yourself, the electricity, the water”, explains contractor and off-grid designer Scott Dale” It's the same as a sailboat in the middle of the ocean”.

The base of the home is a giant triangle with one angle a sunken living room and rest of the home blurs the line between indoor and outdoor with floor to ceiling glass doors that open onto an open-sky courtyard. Even the bedroom and bathroom are translucent and the shower is completely outdoors with lava-rock tile. Since normally the owners, Stacy and Guy Brand, are here alone there’s no need for privacy, though the guest bathroom does have an opaque door (though only a macrame barrier wall).

The kitchen is off-grid, but doesn’t make sacrifices. There’s an induction cooktop and full-sized electric stove and dishwasher. They used high-efficient drawers for refrigerator and freezer.

The entire home is crafted, from the barrel-shaped skylights to a whitewashed pine ceiling that extends outdoors. “It's all skinned in this beautiful pine that we've whitewashed. This is a boat-builder's dream because all the lines line up from the outside to the inside. The same craftsmanship that goes into building a ship is the same craftsmanship that went into building the ceiling.

”Special thanks to architect Craig Steely https://www.craigsteely.com/project/m...

Scott Dale (featured in video) – contractor, and off grid designer (JSD Group, LLC)

Land was barren. He dug 10-acre underground village & orchard​

During the California heat wave of 1906, Baldassare Forestiere dug a home underground with just a pickax and shovel. He spent 40 years excavating 10 acres of rooms, tunnels, a chapel, an underground aquarium, and courtyards to experiment with underground farming.

With no budget, he mixed mortar from the dirt he dug out, creating his own concrete and bricks. Despite continuing to work as a day laborer during the day (mostly digging irrigation ditches), by the 1920s, he had completed about 50 subterranean rooms.

A Sicilian immigrant to Fresno, California, Forestiere had planned to farm citrus until discovering that his 80 acres of “hardpan” soil were unusable for planting. Digging as far as 20 feet below the surface, Forestiere reached depths where the soil was good, and his trees were protected from Fresno’s extreme summer heat and winter frosts. After about 20 years of digging and underground farming, he could quit his day job and live off the fruits of his subterranean orchards.

Despite having just a fourth-grade education and no architectural training, Forestiere - inspired by the catacombs of Rome - built arches for support, and to this day, none of his underground construction has collapsed. In areas where he wanted more natural cooling (like near stoves), he created cone-shaped openings to encourage the venturi effect, pushing the hot air out and sucking the cooler air down.

His underground home had a kitchen with a wood-burning stove, an ice box and a dining room, winter and summer bedrooms, many skylights, a subterranean fish pond, a car garage for guests, and a three-floor aquarium with an underground glass viewing area. He had plans to open an underground resort to the public as a place to cool off in the summer, but he died before it was completed. His brother and family took over the site, and today it’s open to the public.

45:52

Forestiere Underground Gardens: https://undergroundgardens.com/

Not earth sheltered, but owner built natural home.

Young couple self-builds dream natural home, learning by doing​

When Nil and Olivia found an affordable plot in picturesque Garrotxa, Catalonia, they quickly bought it and began to build themselves a home to fit the property.

With no building experience and wanting something light on the land, they installed screw piles and an insulated prefab panel for a foundation and subfloor. For the walls they mixed hemp, lime and water to create a hempcrete mortar. With the help of family and friends, they finished building and drying the walls in three months.

Hempcrete serves as a good insulator, so even though temperatures often drop below freezing during winters here in the foothills of the Pyrenees, the couple don’t need any heating system. The home takes advantage of the sun's heat by being oriented toward the south for maximum solar gain during the day and the concrete floors trap that heat to be released throughout the evening. If there is ever a particularly cold night or days without sun, the couple installed a wood-burning stove to bring up the indoor temperature by a few degrees, but not much is needed, even in those circumstances.

Given the chronic drought in the region, Olivia and Nil installed a worm composting toilet. Other than the urine-separating element, it looks like a standard toilet, and only needs to be emptied of finished compost every two years.

An avid cyclist, for Nil this area is a dream come true. Olivia relishes the space for a huge vegetable garden, including a greenhouse that the couple erected from a kit.

23:29

Living Off-grid: Are Earthships The Ultimate Solution? | ONsite​

Feb 26, 2024

Connie and Craig Cook have been living in their Earthship in southwestern Ontario for more than a decade. An Earthship is a type of sustainable home designed to be completely off the grid and in harmony with nature. Host Jeyan Jeganathan visits their home and explores the viability and interest in these terrestrial structures.

9:42

Not earth sheltered but pretty cool none-the-less.

Oldtimer builds rustic ecovillage in US' southern-most point​

Apr 14, 2024

About 40 years ago, William bought 1.25 acres for $6000 on the Big Island of Hawaii and began growing his own food and building his own shelters. He was inspired to leave his native Wisconsin for a place where it would be easier to live off the land.

Today he lives with only solar power (with an array built from recycled panels), without a car (he uses an electric trike or carpools), without a job (except for rent from his self-built shelters) and he grows much of his own food, including coconuts, mangos, citrus, macadamia nuts, pumpkins and a huge vegetable garden.

He has built a dozen structures on his property, using recycled materials and spending next to nothing to build by hand. His wooden main house is half greenhouse with windows of an ocean view that he built for $500 to $1000. Most of his shelters are topped with green roofs, including a 2-story stone yurt with a lush green roof, an underground music studio lined with local rock and topped with vegetation, a bamboo quonset hut, and two green-roofed converted truck homes.

"Nature does a pretty good job," explains William. "These living roofs... you know, I wanted everything like that, 'cause it makes everything invisible, and blended with it."

The impetus to begin this project, which he had hoped to turn into an eco-village and invite others to join him, was inspired by the book "Survival in the 21st Century" by Viktoras Kulvinskas (1976) and thinkers like Buckminster Fuller (William has a geodesic dome sweat lodge.

21:43

Earth-cooled, shipping container underground CA home for 30K​

Apr 18, 2016

As a kid Steve Rees played in caves and learned how the earth could cool. As an adult, he buried two shipping containers and created an off-grid retirement home for himself and his wife Shirley.

After a few years of camping on their 10 acre plot in Northern California, they bought two shipping containers, hired an excavator and got to work. Doing most of the work themselves, their finished home cost them $30,000 (solar included). Their 640-square-foot space cost them less than $50 per square foot.

Rees explains that while this is less than conventional construction costs, the savings only begin with construction. With a solar-powered well, a bit of propane and solar tubes for most of their light, they haven’t had any city water or electric bills since 2002. Winter temperatures in their home (even during 20 degrees outside) never fall below 62 degrees (an RV catalytic heater is sufficient for heating). Even when the temperature rises to 110 outside in the summer, their home has never risen above 82 degrees.

When they asked the county about permitting they were told they “didn’t have a permit for burying containers”. They have been inspected since completing their home and they have a permitted septic system and a permitted well, just no permit for a single family dwelling.

14:13

Original story: http://faircompanies.com/videos/view/...

Not underground but it's self-contained. In Spanish with English subs.

Turns stone barn into Minimal home with hidden furniture-rooms​

May 12, 2024

Africa Lao had spent her career designing homes from an office in Barcelona, so when she moved to the country to get closer to nature, she was inspired to transform a crumbling 18th century stone hayloft into a small, minimal dream home. Located in the middle of protected forest, the location was an urban refugee's dream, and she was unperturbed by the requirement to only restore what already existed here, which meant remaining within the original 602 (645 sq. Ft.) footprint.

The original barn had two rooms of 30 square meters each so, leaving this unchanged, she dedicated one room for daytime and the other for nighttime. To create a bathroom and closet without affecting the original layout Africa added a simple half wall of oak wood that houses both a bathroom and walk-in closet, and also serves as a headboard for the bed. Since this intervention was on the coldest (north) wall it also helps to insulate the home.

Far from any electric grid, the home relies solely on solar panels, a pellet stove to run a radiant floor heating system and a small wood-burning stove. Water comes from a well, so the home is completely independent.

While the 18th century stone walls were still intact, the roof had collapsed so Africa restored it to its original state with terra-cotta tiles and chestnut beams crafted from debarked tree trunks. To restore missing stones from the home's walls, Africa used rock from local rivers as they would have done 400 years ago. The few new elements in the home - the kitchen cabinets and the bathroom wall and floors- were crafted from the same aged oak wood boards. The shower walls and floor are natural limestone, and the sink is stone.

The original arch on the building's south side was left intact for a window-door that now provides the majority of the home's daylight. The north side of the home has only two tiny windows perforating the nearly one-meter stone walls so despite below freezing temperatures in the winter, the home stays warm with just heat from the pellet stove.

On *faircompanies: https://faircompanies.com/videos/turn...

13:46

My experience with stone walls is that they are really poor insulators.
A two foot thick stone wall that was supposed to keep the food store cool and the inside of this wall got warm to the touch in a couple of hours of direct sunlight on the outside. We ended up putting 2" of cellotex on the inside and it made a huge difference.
The website I was using to do the U value calcs for variable layers, basically gave masonry a zero for insulating effect and as a result of the above and other experiences with stone walls, I had to agree with this.

And yet a covering of subsoil /excavated material over a dome structure seems to work well for insulation ......

I think the most cost effective underground build / bunker would be buried shipping containers, ideally into the side of a hill, so drainage could work without pumping.

The bunker I alluded to waaay back up this thread is done and working nicely. Created out of old mine processing walls and foundations and looking out over a 3000 sq m lake I created during lockdown.

The urge to create hidden places has not died yet and the diggers remain functional (-;

The insulation values come from the holes/voids in the material. The more tightly packed holes (ideally isolated) will give more insulating value. Stones generally are solid and therefore will provide little value in that regard.

We live in a stucco'd home. Insulated with paper dust. It's colder inside during the Summer than it is outside!

Never lived in a stone house. But I remember complaints of Eastern Europe Soviet-style high-rises, which often were just poured concrete inside, painted in interior colors.

One big problem was, they would sweat in cold weather. The walls would be cooler than the inside air - which, due to people breathing and cooking and other activities (wet overcoats, baths, etc) was moist to begin with. The humid warm air would condense on the cold walls, leaving water...growing mold...dirt tracks...lifting paint...

If you covered such a wall with sheet-rock, you'd have a real good crop of mold under there in a few years.