Does anybody have experience with underground houses built like those Mike Oehler (spelling?) wrote about in his book $50 and Up Underground Houses? I can see some good points to his methods, and some drawbacks, but it would be cheap with your own supply of wood and a chainsaw lumbermaker.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 28, 2000

Answers

Kathleen: Before we built our present earth-sheltered concrete home, we spent five years researching the genre. Having been there and done that, we have the following advice about earth-sheltered dwellings. 1. You probably don't need one. 2. It will take you forever to built it. 3. It will be virtually impossible to sell if you ever want to. If we were to do it over again, we wouldn't build a house which will last at least 5,000 years longer than we will. We would never, never conider building anything, earth-sheltered or not, from anything except concrete, concrete block and steel. If you live remotely, you are going to have bug and critter problems that you would never believe if you are used to urban life. Concrete and steel are immune to most of those problems. You won't have to worry about fire hazard either. We encased our home in 3" styrofoam and stucco on the outside and have found that the earth berming and cover was an expensive non-essential. The insulated concrete keeps everything cool or warm,as the case may be, and all that dirt is useless. One more thing....don't even consider earth-sheltered unless you live in an area of sandy soil. You can build a leakproof earth-sheltered home in clayey soil but it is going to cost you an arm and a leg to do it properly. My guess is that it would add 25-30% to the final cost. Good luck, John and Pat

-- john and pat james (jjames@n-jcenter.com), April 28, 2000.

I don't think the bugs and critters can surprise me too much -- I've never lived urban at all (though I guess urban areas have their own wildlife!). The reason I'm inquiring specifically about Mike Oehler's methods is because we will have to build almost entirely from what we find on our land in order to meet budget -- wood and dirt and possibly rocks! We won't be able to buy much conventional construction materials, but should have time aplenty. And it wouldn't necessarily be a permanent house, but would need to last several years. Also, I have in mind more of an earth-bermed structure with a sod roof, which ought to minimize the drainage problems -- and resale value is not relevant, as (Lord willing) this will be our last move. I am glad to hear from someone who has an underground house, though, even if the construction methods are different. I've been considering all kinds of 'alternative' construction methods. Rammed earth I think risky in case of an earth- quake. Straw-bale sounds good, but we'd have to buy the bales, lath, stucco, etc. Stone (assuming we had enough of the right type) is tricky to work with, and also vulnerable to earthquakes. Cordwood construction is on the list of possibles, but I think it's ugly -- told my husband that if we did that, it would have to be stuccoed, at least on the interior. Log homes require a sufficient number of good logs, are difficult to seal against winter winds, and the logs are heavy, not that we wouldn't have some heavy beams to lift with any of the other methods. Hubby doesn't like the earthships made of tires. What else am I leaving out? Anybody have any further suggestions? We do have some experience with frame construction, and we have the chainsaw lumber maker (and we do know it's slow, but the guy that gave it to us built his whole house with it!).

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 28, 2000.

I'm skeptical of any claims for a fifty dollar house, regardless of the materials used. I don't care if the shell were FREE, you'd still spend a lot more than fifty bucks finishing it.

I also disagree with Kathleen about the practicality of earth sheltered homes.Perhaps their complaints are due to poor design, or perhaps they are not efficient for their particular area or climate. But I can tell you that I live in a house I built two and a half years ago, and I am pleased beyond my expectations. It is two story, and thee bottom floor is a "daylight basement", with almost eight feet of soil against north and east walls, and about four feet against other walls, except where there are doors, and except where there is an attached greenhouse on the south side.

My total utility bills average around fifty to seventy bucks a month in the winter plus less than one half cord of wood per year. This is a 3000 sq. ft. home, counting my wife's 650 sq. ft. studio, which only stays around sixty to sixty-five degrees when she's not doing art work in it. We keep the rest of the house in the low seventies. We have a very efficient ground source heat pump, which I installed for air conditioning purposes only, as I have a forty-three acre forest, and always have plenty of firewood from cutting dead trees. I live in a fairly mild climate, in SW Oregon, but it freezes here quite often, and there is hardly any sun at all in the winter.

The ironic thing is that I really didn't need the ground source heat pump, since the house stays so cool that I've only used the heat pump between fifteen and twenty hours total in two summers! This is largely due to the downstairs being earth sheltered. It rarely gets over seventy-five degrees in the downstairs without the heat pump. Now this is partly due to the earth shelter, but also partly because of our cool nights, and my whole house fan, which can lower the house's temperature ten degrees in less than a half hour early in the morning, most days. So don't expect to have the same results if you live somewhere hot and muggy at night.

Since I did not cover the roof in soil, water proofing was easy and cheap, although certainly not something to treat lightly. My downstairs is built with 8"x8"x16" concrete blocks, with plenty of rebar, and filled with concrete. The waterproofing is two layers of a product similar to one called Thorough Seal", which is a cementitious product which is mixed to the consistency of pancake batter and slopped on with paint brushes. This product is quite water proof, but if the concrete wall cracks, the waterproofing cracks, too. To insure against a leak, should the wall get cracks (which is not unusual) I hung three or four layers of six mil visqueen from above grade down to the base of the footing. Then I placed perforated septic drainfield pipe around the footing, with a slope to daylight, and covered with septic gravel (inch and a half round rock) Over the top, more visqueen, poked full of holes by a garden rake, though filter cloth would be better, but spendy. Then I backfilled with my "topsoil". This consists of basically red potter's clay reinforced with boulders. Great stuff! I've never had any sign of moisture, and the house went through the wettest year in history, the wettest month in history, and the wettest day in history, the first year it was up.

Yes, the earth sheltering adds a lot of cost. I spent about $13K just for the foundation and block work (approximately 3000 blocks, but I didn't have to lift a finger (and I can still walk, which would not have been the case had I attempted to do all the blockwork myself; bad back, y'know)

Contrary to Jon and Pat's statement that "all that dirt is useless", the fact is, if the weather outside is say, twenty degrees outside, and the dirt against the wall averages forty-five degrees (it's warmer than that here, but I'm being conservative), and the house is kept at seventy degrees inside, you will only be losing one half the heat through the earth sheltered wall as through an identically insulated wall which is exposed to the outside air. True, your main heat losses are typially through your windows and doors, but still, the earth shelter does help, and, in the right climate, can make the house much more comfortable to live in. In a climate such as mine, hot days, cool nights, low humidity in summer, the earth shelter can make a HUGE difference in cooling needs and comfort. Not that there aren't other methods of acheiving this, but don't dismiss earth sheltering out of hand.

There are other advantages to earth sheltering. The underground parts are maintenance free if done right, fireproof, and extremely quiet . Jon and Pat also say," We would never, never conider building anything, earth-sheltered or not, from anything except concrete, concrete block and steel." I, too, am a great believer in concrete. But don't forget that it is virtually worthless as insulation, having an R value near zero. And as far as metal studs, yes they won't get eaten by bugs, but please make sure that they don't rob your house of heat by wicking heat through the highly conductive steel. Add insulation either under the sheetrock or plaster, or under the outside siding, if you have to use them on exterior walls.

Jon and Pat, I'm curious. If you spent five years "researching the genre", why do you suppose you didn't find out that it was not what you expected it to be? Bad information in some way?

I also don't understand why you say that you'll have all kinds of pest problems in rural areas. Don't people have the some problems in the city? Sorry if I'm missing something here; I haven't owned a house in the city in twenty-seven years.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@echoweb.net), April 28, 2000.

Kathleen, I'd personally hate to put all that work into something that wasn't going to last a LONG time.

I gather you have access to some timber, or you wouldn't be mentioning the chain saw lumber maker. I would NOT recommend building earth sheltered if the walls are to be made out of wood. I think you'd be asking for trouble.

But here's another suggestion: mill the logs on two parallel sides, peel the remaining two sides, and stack them as a log cabin. Place insulation (used carpet backing (the kind made of scraps of foam) is effective and free, generally speaking) between each row of logs.

The larger the logs, the better, for insulating value. Remember that softwood has an R value of only about one to one and a half per inch. I don't know about hardwood, as we don't use any for construction here, but I assume it's a bit lower in R value, as it's generally denser than softwood.

Good luck!

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@echoweb.net), April 28, 2000.

I guess I'd better clarify our situation: I am talking more about a shelter than a house, at least initially. It would have to be fairly small and quick to build, and something that my husband and I can build ourselves -- we are both in our forties, and not totally decrepit (yet!!). If we sell our place here for what we expect to get, (and my husband has a developer interested in the place, but doesn't know what he's going to offer), after we pay off our bills, allow some for a "new" pick up truck (the old one is about shot), and for moving costs, a down payment on a piece of land, a well, and some fencing, there isn't going to be much left for starting to build a house, possibly only a couple of thousand dollars. Now, we can see that in order to get the size parcel of land we want, we will have to make payments, but we DO NOT want to get any kind of a loan for the house. It doesn't initially have to have electricity and running water (we'll take care to purchase our land where we can do this), and it won't likely be finished inside -- we're talking basic shelter, something more durable than a tent, and with a little more room!! Okay, now let's see if any of you have any advice on construction methods -- preferably from those who have done something like we are doing!! :-) (We aren't hippies, never were, even when we were young, just have a strong aversion to being in debt!) Thanks. (By the way, I know an older mobile home would be a possible solution, but a very unattractive one, and hard to get rid of when we were done with it.)

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), April 29, 2000.

Hi Kathleen, I'm starting to sound like a used mobile home salesman, but here goes anyway. A mobile home doesn't have to be ugly. But if you park a metal box out in the middle of a field and don't do anything with it- it WILL be. There are so many easy things that a person can do to make them nice. A shingled roof is a big plus. The one we had was set under some beautiful maples (crimson in the fall), was painted nicely, had a roof and a porch. When we had it for rent, people would drive in and say, "You're ad said it was a mobile home- we thought we had the wrong place." Anyway, you have all the comforts of home, water, electricity, bathrooms and kitchen, while you are getting settled. For the first 3 years we lived in a little "cabin", and I use the term loosely. It had no bathroom, kitchen, water. When we got the mobile home for about $5,000. I was in heaven. They really get a bum rap because so many people live in them like they ARE metal boxes. They can be very nice cozy homes.

-- Peg (NW WI) (wildwoodfarms@hushmail.com), April 29, 2000.

Kathleen, I'm not big on mobiles. At all. But one way to accomplish what I THINK you're trying to do is to buy a cheap moblile. If you make a good buy on it, you'll be able to sell it for as much as you paid for it, if you keep it in the same condition.

Personally (and I WAS a hippy, or at least I think I met a lot of the criteria), I built a one room shelter, which I planned to turn into a barn after I built a house.Unfortunately, the spot I had planned for the house turned out to have no sunshine for three months each winter, so I just added on to the "barn" helter skelter up and down the hill.

But if you are planning to build this building to keep, as opposed to having it be temporary, I'd recommend building something very small, but with quality materials and building techniques, with an overall plan to make it part of a larger house in the future.

A couple of thousand dollars, unfortunately, won't get you a very large structure,if you have to buy the materials, depending on how finished you want it to be.

Again, if you use your chain saw mill, and have some timber, you can build very large structure for a lot less money (but a LOT of work!)

Another possibility, and this is the method I used--haul logs to a mill, get them milled up, and use them for a stick built building. Cost is way cheaper than buying boards.

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@echoweb.net), April 29, 2000.

Kathleen, it sounds like we're in a similiar situation. We're about ready to build this year, very little money, lots of trees, and I just brought home today the cutest little bandsawmill. I had a chainsawmill anout 90% done when I came across this. I was making one like I saw in Bailey's catalogue ( loggers supply) where the chainsaw runs on a track with the bar vertical and you move the log over to cut boards. They want about 1500.00 for one to cut 17' logs but it is so much faster and easier.

Anyway, I took the cordwood course a few years ago and I think the look of it is up to you. We don't much lik the look of round logs but we'll probably rough the cordwood into rectangles so it looks more like stone. If you still didn't like the look, leave the mortar flush with the cordwood you could probably stucco right over it, and cement isn't very expensive. One of the houses we toured was a suburban ranch that they either painted or stuccoed the inside but it just looked like stone that was painted. It's too bad we're not closer (I'm in NY )but e-mail if you want to bat around some more ideas, I've got a bunch of books on housebuilding (maybe some you don't have.

Good Luck!

-- Rod Perrino (redjouster@aol.com), April 30, 2000.

Anyone know where I can get a copy of the $50 and Up Underground House Book?? I know TMEN used to carry it but doesn't any longer. Can't find it in any on line book stores either so it must be out of print I guess. One of those things I was going to buy and just never got aound to it! Now I can't find one!!

-- Bob Johnson (backwoods_bob_2000@yahoo.com), September 04, 2000.

I thought maybe Chelsea Green would have it. They didn't, but they have a lot of other books many here would find interesting!

Chelsea Green Books

Then I did a websearch on Mike Oehler (as a phrase) and got lots of links. Here is one that sells his book, but there are others -- I didn't compare prices.

B & A PRODUCTS

-- Joy Froelich (dragnfly@chorus.net), September 04, 2000.

Kathleen,

I just got the newest issue of Countryside yesterday. There is a nice story on page 52 that you might be interested in reading. There is a lot more in Mike's book too.

It's really too bad about JOJ, if you read the first paragraph of his post you will see that he has made his mind up before looking at any facts. Pretty closed minded if you ask me, probably is convinced that the world is flat too. Then he spends the rest of his time telling all of us about his "high Dollar" house. Takes all kinds I guess...

-- Ed Copp (OH) (edcopp@yahoo.com), December 09, 2000.

Responding to Ed and Kathleen: My Countryside is in Tennessee (I am now in Wisconsin, but will be in TN in a couple days), but I think you (Ed) are talking about the barn made with stock panels and a tarp, apparently anchored with steel fence (T) posts. This seems to work quite well, at least for animals. Insulation and heating might be tricky. I am planning a similar structure for a storage and work building.

There are some "third-world" construction techniques that I have found that are labor-intensive, cheap and very strong. Other than the cob, rammed-earth, etc. the most common seems to be ferrocement, which is Portland cement + chicken wire (1-5 layers), sand and water. It is very strong, after curing for several days to weeks. The basic idea is that no cement particle is more than 1/4 inch from a steel wire. Rebar is definitely not used. The simplest approach seems to be to put up a stick structure, cover it with tar paper, 2-3 layers of overlapping chicken wire and then the cement, roof included. (Use your favorite browser with "ferrocement." You have to work at it. Most of the useful information appears to be buried in forums like this.)

It turns out someone has built a house in the desert using this method, more or less: stock panels (stiff wire 4.5' by about 30' for holding animals, e.g. large cows), ferrocement and, a misnomer, "papercrete." Papercrete is a mixture of paper slurry, cement, and sand. No stone aggregate, which distinguishes cement from concrete. Papercrete has some virtually unique properties. First, it is very cheap, once you make the paper slurry. This either involves some kind of grinder-emulsifier or, perhaps, cellulose insulation mixed with water. Essentially, it is a form of paper machie', The paper (wood) fibers evidently absorb the cement and excess water just runs off. Depending on the proportions of pulp:cement:sand, the result is (1) stiff, (2) somewhat flammable or not, (3) light, i.e. it floats, and (4) amenable to mass production of blocks and beams. It also soaks up water like a sponge, so waterproofing is a must, except in the desert.

In my case, next summer I'm planning on putting up a hemispherical stock panel structure, covering it with tar paper (cheap), then with a layer of ferrocement. I'm planning on adding "shelves" externally in place of scaffolding (made of ferrocement) and then using them for external storage or plants. Each bucket of liquid cement will, of course, be hauled by hand to where it's needed. On the top, I'm hoping to put a papercrete "holder" for more plants (with fertilizer and soil), which, with watering, should provide some cooling. Southern TN gets hot in the summer, and I'm a northen boy.

The biggest problem I foresee is the foundation and water drainage. I plan on building a wooden floor on beams (cut with a chain-saw mill) with a small dyke on the uphill side. Our soil drains like a coriander but is hard as a rock due to clay, sand and chert. On any other soil, e.g. in Wisconsin, a concrete foundation would be essential, I would think.

By the way, I have a Granberg Small-saw mill and a Haddon Lumbermaker. I much prefer the Haddon mill. Maybe it is this 56- year-old back, but you use it standing up and it seems to cut more effectively. Haddon's manual ($5, haddon.com) is almost worth the price of the jig for its ideas and shortcuts. He also has a plan for a simple log cabin that you might find interesting. It is summarized in Barnacle Parp's Guide to Chain Saws (1977, Rodale Press). Try Bibliofind.com. You can't live without it. If you have a honker of a chain saw (at least 4 cubic inches displacement), you might be able to build Haddon's cabin for under $2K, with planning and great care.

Good luck and take care. Marty Boraas

-- Marty Boraas (boraas@miliserv.net), December 16, 2000.

Planning to try a stock panel greenhouse this summer. I'm going to put our rabbits on the bottom and plant vegetables in shelves above ground level. I'll let you know how it goes.

I'm interested in all types of low cost housing. I sell "high cost" housing for a living and see the need for alternatives.

We sell a booklet on vertical log construction at www.alaskacabin.net but I am thinking about experimenting with an underground Oehler type house this summer to make into a playhouse or guest cabin.

-- martyvandiest (martyv@alaska.net), January 26, 2001.

Dear Kathleen,

You certainly provoked lots of discussion, but not much seems to be really specific to Mike's methods. I've followed his work for years and discussed the possibilities with contractor friends.

There are tons of examples of wooden earth-sheltered structures including wooden retaining walls. And they can last a surprisingly long time. If you've carefully thought through the psp method with specific regard to your site and follow Mike's directions, it ought to work.

And just to jump on the bandwagon with alternative suggestions - I lived in a Shawnee-style wegiwa for 4 months during a very wet Summer. It was amazingly comfortable, especially when my co-workers just 20 feet away sweltered in frame cabins from the high humidity. I leveled a recycled plywood platform for a floor (8' x 12') then attached green saplings around the edge. The saplings were arched together and 'braided', then the tips were tied with jute twine for extra security. I used the jute to tie more saplings running horizontally from the ground to the top of the arches for lateral stability, leaving an opening for a door. Traditionally the frame would then be covered with rush mats or bark sheets, but I used an old canvas cabin tent cut in long strips about 2' wide. I attached with (!) more jute twine, starting at the bottom and 'shingling' up. I left flaps at the top of the endwalls loose, which folded back on the rare times when it wasn't raining. Interior finishing included a sapling bed frame covered with my futon on one end, a sapling bench and storage shelves on the other and a small crate for a lamp stand (I ran an extension cord from a nearby well house.)An oscillating fan hung upside down from the ridge pole.

My biggest problem was too many guest wanting to spend a night inside!!! Never had any leaks, was comfortable even with near 100% humidity, and stayed warm on the occasional cold night by closing the end flaps and the door flap.

I'd be interested in hearing about your success with psp method. Good Luck!

Randle

-- Randle Gay (rangay@hotmail.com), May 02, 2001.