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.”
- » See also: Greening Your Home
- » Get Green Building Elements by RSS or sign up by email.
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
Absoubtly inspired, The building is beautiful, your bravery and commitment is truly comendable, everybody talks about these ideas but so few take action. Seeing this has set fire to my dreams and ambition, and even if I never really do it, even if the realities of a compost toilet and going without are far less than enjoyable in the wet grey winter, you have stired my soul and warmed my outlook on life, however little, to know that this can be done and is being done is inspirational.
I have 2 friends who are dead set on building an earth dweling very similar construction to this one, they’re just getting money together and searching (long term ambition). I’ll send them this link.
Does anyone know where I can find more technical advice and suggestions on building earth dwellings?
What a beautiful house, and how lucky are you to be living in it!! I think this is an inspirational website and am so pleased to have “stumbled” upon it…thank you and good luck
You better own land in the middle of nowhere for this, if I tried this in my town I’d have the city inspecting my colon within 24 hours.
They tell me how tall to let my grass get in this town and I’m doubting I’m alone on that.
Great house! Good article.
I wonder if Uncle B is a dope smoking old hippy with no money.
I am so glad cool people still exist.
Terrific little house. And what an ingenious couple. Did they mention whether they had to buy the land. Great way to get out of a huge mortgage.
I like it, I just need to know what to do with the building inspectors, can U tell me whether or not they will harass me in the country? I know they would in the city.
Bagend! I’m home!
How in the hell do you get your interwebnets out in the middle of BFE?
I WANT ONE TOO!