We have one of his books and it looks very doable. Even if you had to bug out to a very remote place in long term SHTF situation this could be a good way to build a long term shellter. http://www.undergroundhousing.com/index.html OGM
Re: Build you own house on the cheap. Cool. Have you looked at log construction also? John McPhearson has a good book on doing it cheap and well at www.prairiewolf.net Ive been in the 'house' (it's used as his wifes workshop) and its nice, their house and outbuildings are also log and he built them all as well.
Re: Build you own house on the cheap. MM Thats a cool site. There are things that I like about the underground house better though. 1) Less worry about tornatoes. 2) It would be better insulated, which means less firewood to cut. So if you didn't have a chainsaw or more likely gas for a chainsaw that would be a hugh labor saver. OGM
Re: Build you own house on the cheap. Yup, there are definatly some advantages to earth contact. If studying up for the idea of being able to build after a BO though would be good (especialy if you didnt know of multiple sites you would choose from in advance) that multiple meathods would be a good idea. Basicly earth contactwouldntwork real well in an area with very little dirt over bedrock and log building would be worthless if in an area with few trees, like say some areas of North Dakota where the only trees are the ones planted around houses.
Hubbie and I have also talked a lot about "sod houses"... Many of those have lasted a long looooooooooooong time (over 100 years old), & are very practical/cheap to build. <TABLE width=600 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD> </TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> A sod house pictured above from the United States prairie frontier, circa 1901. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/award97/ndfahtml/hult_sod.html http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/natbltn/600-699/nb620.htm http://www.emints.org/ethemes/resources/S00000739.shtml On one site it said : "Sod is literally dirt cheap...." lol ~W~
Here is another cheap form of housing. http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/daily_living/text/longhouse.htm With 7 foot thick walls I think you might have a pretty good R factor. OGM
