Cash, that most basic element of our economy, can be in abysmally short supply for new young families scraping by on marginal jobs.
Sustainable housebuilding may not be foremost in their minds.
But one young couple in Wales managing on an annual income of just $10,000 went ahead and built their own cheap home anyway, sustainably, mostly out of materials from “a rubbish pile somewhere.”
They had wanted to spend as much time as possible at home while their two children were young. Their nearby woodlands ecological management work would have been impractical if they were paying a mortgage.
So they enlisted some help from family, and sometimes just from people passing by, and from any of their friends who stopped by to visit:
The result was their very low impact homemade house. A hand built unique setting for a charmed life for their two young toddlers. I’ll bet they’ll remember this first home for the rest of their lives.
Four months of hard work and they were all 4 moved in and cozy.
Total expenditure? $5,000. Tools? A chisel, a chainsaw and a hammer. Building expertise? Simon Dale says:
“My experience is only having a go at one similar house 2yrs before and a bit of mucking around in-between. This kind of building is accessible to anyone. My main relevant skills were being able bodied, having self belief and perseverance and a mate or two to give a lift now and again.”
Sustainable design and construction:
- Dug into hillside for low visual impact and shelter
- Stone and mud from diggings used for retaining walls, foundations etc.
- Frame constructed of fallen trees from surrounding woodland
- Reciprocal roof rafters are structurally very easy to do
- Straw bales in floor, walls and roof for super-insulation and easy building
- Plastic sheet and mud/turf roof for low impact and ease
- Lime plaster on walls is breathable and low energy to manufacture compared to cement
- Reclaimed (scrap) wood for floors and fittings
- Other items were reclaimed from “a rubbish pile somewhere”: windows, wiring, plumbing
(Maybe there should be a new LEED rating just for building so inexpensively: Sustainable Financing. This is one mortgage bill that’s not going to be haunting their mum and dad for years.) Inside there’s a wood-burner for heating – waste wood in the old-growth forest is locally plentiful.To get the most of the heat, the flue goes through a big stone/plaster lump to retain and slowly releases the warmth.
There are just a couple of solar panels – just enough for for lighting, music and computing. It’s a simple life. A skylight in the roof lets in enough natural feeling light, and water is fed by gravity downhill from a nearby spring. There’s a compost toilet. Roof water collects in a pond for gardening
Says Simon: “Our house is unusual but the aesthetic appeals to lots of people and perhaps touches something innate in us that evolved in forests.”
Want to try making one too? Simon will show you how or check out other green homes for more ideas and inspiration like this post on building a cob house.
Images: www.SimonDale.net
Related stories:
Berkeley’s Homeless Build Paleolithic Barbecue Pit
Earthsheltered Home Construction Work Exchange
Wildfire-Proof Prefab Camp Closes Up When You’re Gone
Hard Lessons in Sustainable Living
About Susan Kraemer
Namasté!
Welcome to the Shire…
Ha… more hobbits here: http://facebook.com/naturalhomes
There are plenty of houses alike in Iceland , really beautiful and cozy . of course they have the advantage of warm water all over the island . I love the idea and also the execution . no edges .
Fantastic I would love to live in a home like this, similar to my cave home in Spain but no walls to paint every year!! well done and best wishes with the new home.
Join us at http://facebook.com/naturalhomes where there is a lot more about this type of natural building including a profile on Simone Dale and his new home at Lammas.
Love this. Thank you for all the info. Here in States, there are so many building laws, not sure whether it would be possible on my wilderness land or not..may look into it. Have looked at Navajo hogans and straw bale homes before, and this has some elements of both. We have no dirt hills though only rocky ground. But lots of trees. Oh the wheels are turning… =)
Join us at http://facebook.com/naturalhomes where there is a lot more about this type of natural building including a profile on Simone Dale and his new home at Lammas.
I too Love this house for all the reason mentioned below. It will be lucky to last 10 years, also due to the issues mentioned by some below. Moisture and decaying wood will be it’s undoing. But due to its light and small nature the dwelling posses little risk to anyone. It is unlikely to fall down in one big BANG either. So 10 years for 5.000 Pounds. I think that is a very good deal!!!
I am amazed and impressed at your expertise, may the home you have built bring you and your loved ones lifetime of happiness, security and safety.
I urge everyone interested in this home to research ‘Earthships’.
The Earthship team have been in Haiti rebuilding eco-homes after the terrible tidal wave disaster.
Beautiful! Love it!
If you want to build something like this, make sure a large window faces south for solar warmth and thermal transfer. Proper ventilation is also essential in damp climates, otherwise, mold and mildew will be a big problem. Mold can make you really sick, so a good design should take this into consideration.
i would love to build something like this-i currently live with my parents, with my three boys, but we do have plenty of land and space for a home like this! i live in SE pennsylvania so we do get all of the seasons and extreme points of all…how would you recommend proper ventilation? my father is a carpenter, but i was looking into other builders that i could get help with…any help or ideas is greatly appreciated!
awesome. natural shapes formed by time. we did a roundhouse building workshop with similar materials it amazing, lots of bug hazel tied with silas cord. the structure looked great without the thatch on top.
think they still do the courses if anyone interested.
was. http://www.yurtsandroundhouses.co.uk and they build really nice yurts better than we had seen in England. think they were http://www.goyurting.com for those but they hired them too and one was 40ft across!
must get gathering sticks!
oops typo! awesome. natural shapes formed by time. we did a roundhouse building workshop with similar materials it amazing, lots of big hazel tied with silas cord. the structure looked great even withouth the thatch on top.
think they still do the courses if anyone interested.
was. http://www.yurtsandroundhouses.co.uk and they build really nice yurts better than we had seen in England. think they were http://www.goyurting.com for those but they hired them too and one was 40ft accross!
must get gathering sticks!
Join us at http://facebook.com/naturalhomes where there is a lot more about this type of natural building including a profile on Simone Dale and his new home at Lammas.
Talk about down to earth reallity
wow,
A fairtytale house. I would love to live in such a house!! super!
Great Work People!
Seems a lot of commenters here are more concerned about Permits than the forced slavery it takes to get started to buy into the market system.
So what if a house is unsaleable. Houses are for living in.
I think too many people are sucked into the system that sees homes as investmnet collateral first , then a place to live. Its pathological!
Composting toilets work great.
I have friends who’ve also built their own homes very cheaply. Using more conventional materials and recycled bits and on site timbers for about AUD $2500 in todays money.
i would happilly raise kids in this environment. And when they are pre-teens in a few years they can help mum n dad build a replacemnet home and get life experience in the process
Revile Saw: The reason you see a LOT about permits is because in the USA, if a house was not constructed based on proper permits, the local (usually city or county) government evicts you from your own home, labels it condemned and takes a bulldozer to it. You don’t get your home back even if it meets code if you didn’t have the right permits in the first place. It’s not about being able to resell it. It’s about being able to live in it after you did all that work.
We get snow here ..I wonder if this would work here ?
That look so cool, it is certainly what I would call a custom home, although I don’t think the council would approve permits here In Australia not unless you wanted your custom home in the middle of nowhere.
The fact they the entire house appears to be made
out of fallen timber is something that I can see as a cause for
concern. If something happens so that wood weakens, the entire structure
is going to cave in. Although wood has fairly good tensile strength, it
performs rather badly under compression and bending stress, and is
prone to deformation, and it can weaken ever time. I suggest at least
having a central pillar of concrete. That house looks like a very
dangerous place to put children in.
We have various earth house projects for charitable purposes.
Help us construct a sustainable future. This means restoring
environments and cultures through low impact, low cost and totally
natural sustainable community developments.
Support our cause.
http://www.natural-villages.org/
LOL!!! it looks like a hobbit hole!!! i luv it!!!! soooo awsome
We bought an earth ho me that wasnt finished about 10 years ago. All was well and good it does fine with saving us on the elect. and and we heat with wood. But it is always humid in here and there is always the mold issue i have to keep on that all the time. I cant grow any plants and I love my plants. There is the spider thing being in the ground. You see there are some things that you also need to look at. We have gotten older my lungs are bad, is it due to all the mold or age? I dont know. We are moving. I do have to say I did love it while we were here. We did have broncitis alot. I wouldnt trade the last few years, but now I think I would like to live in one of those “TINY HOMES” I have seen them made out of somewhere in TX. That may be what we need. We all need to do our part and I want to I just need to find what that will be in our housing needs. We all dont need to live in that big house on the hill with the 5 bed rooms. For my husband and myself we could do with a TINY HOME. Thank You for listening and Im off to findout about them. Wish me luck we close on the earth home I hope the 9th.
Thanks for your letter and best fortune to you and your husband.
hi Mary,
let me give you a clue. take from one who knows first-hand, ITS THE MOLD!
any little bit of mold in a house will make you sick because you are breathing in small particles of toxins. some are worse than others but all mold is bad!
get out. move to a dry climate. eat organic food. try Chinese medicine quit eating cheese and other yeast/bacteria inducing foods and de-tox your body–you’ll never have bronchitis again. Forgive my bluntness, but I’m telling you for your own good.
Erika, you are right on the mark with that suggestion. I have chronic lung problems from the house we bought that had mold. I now have a full blown mold allergy/sensitivity that extends to foods e don’t usually think about, but are fermented…tea, yogurt, soy sauce, terriyaki, all cheese, sour cream, cider, and so on, including pickles and vinegar. I now eat no bread because of the yeast.
I wish I could build a house like that in America, the problem being some idiot will drive by and feel the need to call the city or county and have inspectors come out and claim the house as unlivable b/c it doesn’t meet building codes. Mostly I would love to build my own house and not have to pay for it for the rest of my life. I’m getting rather sick of government telling me how to live my life, imagine people living in houses like this all over? Seriously the way we could all get back to understanding how we interact with the planet around us.
This is so interesting! thank you for putting it up!
Eminent domain can mow your house down.
For the good of the community, the government in Georgia would come in and make it a public bomb shelter.
Was wondering what the square footage. On one pod is before I dig any further into building one for my family.
I have a farm with an old barn foundation built into a hill, the barn is gone, but much of the stone foundation and the dug out bottom is present.Would a low impact home fit nicely in this type of space? Looking at the other sites and pictures it looks like it might, any feed nack would be appreciated.
Reminiscent of Lord of the Rings. Straw bales make wonderful walls and crops like Miscanthus can be used for lower cost.
I’ve been surfing online greater than three hours as of late, but I by no means discovered any attention-
grabbing article like yours. It’s beautiful worth sufficient for me. In my view, if all web owners and bloggers made
good content as you did, the net will probably be much more useful than ever before.
We built a earthsheltered home using a kit from Performance building systems (www/earthshelter.com) and it’s worked great. We live in Grass Valley, California (2000″ elev.) and it was a bit of a chore to get the permits, but once we showed our building department people the pictures on the website, it was easy. The guy who ran our buidling department came out when we did she the shotcrete work and was really impressed with our project. We typically us 10-12% of the propane of our neighbors and we use minimal electricity. The annual savings on our propane is @$2,500 per year. Our costs (with us doing the work) were @$72.00 per square foot (many items were purchased on Ebay) and strength wise, it has a @78,000 pound dozer driving back and forth across the roof spreading dirt. You can see many of the construction photo’s on my facebook page.
It does look great and it is a good idea where applicable. The trouble is that it is not engineered to withstand natural disasters such as earthquakes.
I lived in Colorado, and have spent time around Taos, New Mexico. A good number of people in those areas have done these type of homes. What I am wondering (without Googling for an answer) is, with all that rescued wood for the roof and the wall supports, is there some natural way to treat the wood with organics that would prevent termites??? This dwelling is so lovely, but I would think it would just be termite fodder within a very short time.
Beautiful house I want one!!!