Hand-Build an Earth Sheltered House For $5,000
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.”
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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.
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
[...] Images: http://www.SimonDale.net First published by S Kraemer at Green Building Elements [...]
Matisse painted the nude when a sculpture he was working on shattered.
[...] Here’s another way to build with no money down, no mortgage, no credit, and —no cash. [...]
It *is* pretty cool, but it scares me just looking at it (contractor). I don’t know how they do things in Wales, but this would never pass plan-check in California…even in the ‘out-back’, you need a county building permit here.
[...] Das hier ist richtig richtig cool. [...]
It’s too bad that you cannot do this in most parts of America. You would not pass building codes and they would not let you do this. That is for certain. I’m a builder and I know how hard it is dealing with different bureaucracies, for zoning and building. It’s really too bad the strong arm of the government has too have such a tight noose around our neck.
The young man’s genius. In a “Simple Simon” sort of way.
Who cares about building inspectors! As long as the structure is on your own land, that land is not within city/town limits, it doesn’t have poured concrete over the building code limitations, it isn’t grid-tied to any public utilities, and you are not building it to sell on the real-estate market as a house of any sorts, there is absolutely “NOTHING” the local bi-law enforcement agents can say or do!
The codes were put in place for a very good reason. To provide proper protection to the occupants/owners of their investments for a set period of time(as well as many other significant reasons).
I applaud these people & all others wishing to “finally” take matters into their own hands and do what has now become “absolutely” necessary to survive the, not coming, but now “here & present dangers” of what we have all done to our global home.
If any government agencies attempted to remove me from a shelter I had hand-built for the benefit of my own family, on my own land, well…. It would not be very nice of them. Would it now?
Bravo Simon
BRAVO! I LIKE IT
Very cool house. We are spending quit a bit more on our earth sheltered house but also building it ourselves.
[...] Das hier ist so cool. So was zu bauen… Was für eine Gelegenheit zu lernen! Was für ein Spaß! Und wie konstruktiv. Earth Sheltered House [...]