Bill Kearns wrote:
This earth sheltered (pit) house was built by my friend Kyle somewhat north of Colville, WA a couple of years ago.
A nice read, really enjoyed it. I really liked what he had to say about finding out what kind of shelter was used in the area you are building in. He shows variations from all over the world, picks ideas from all of them, builds.... and then in the end finds that he would have been best to stick with the style native to his own area which is both climate and available material specific. The idea that these are really "high tech" dwellings that have been perfected over years of testing is great. Perhaps one of the things we need to be careful of is for me to not build a wofati on my property based on what works best on Paul's. I need to see the differences on my site and build accordingly. It is both warmer and wetter here. So while the large earth mass may work well, the earth covering may not. The plastic layers may help with that.... but then again
I am thinking more and more, to build a number of very small (10x10 or 8x12) test buildings, living in each during the winter. (even living in more than one at a time) then think about how I want to build something bigger.