I thought about digging into a hillside here but I dug some holes for a pole barn and they filled with water from the sides and held water for over two weeks with no rain. When we had heavy rain, I saw a mini geyser appear in a
garden bed.
Here in the Ozarks, people do dig into a hill though, especially with what they call a walk out basement. Two or three sides are dug in and one isn't so you can walk out onto the ground on that side. Odd thing is, they face them in all different directions, even single story with no basement. I've seen them dug into N, S, E and W slopes. We're going to face our house S/SE because I want morning sun to warm things but I'm more concerned with keeping cool than heating. I can burn wood for the cost of fuel for the chain saw and
splitter. I have to pay for A/C though.
My neighbor is dug into a hill and I loaned him my wet/dry vac one time so he could vacuum the water off of his floor because his foundation has a crack.
Now I do have two classifications of soil here and for drainage, one is considered "poorly drained" while the other is considered 'somewhat excessively drained'. There's a major color difference. The poorly drained is yellowish brown and the excessively drained is white-ish gray as the nutrients have been flushed out of it. I just started digging for a
root cellar in the closest thing I have to a North facing slope and it looks like it's the excessively drained stuff. I need to poke around and see if I can find a spot like that facing South or even Southeast. I did start digging for a dug in house and it's still oozing water out the side, three years later. Then of course, radon gas is a concern when digging in.
I originally wanted to do an earthship but once I saw that geyser in my
garden, I decided against a dug in house made of dirt. Hard to
sell an earthship or any alternative building too when/if the time comes.
@Ilektra Kou - if you add your location to your profile, that helps people when giving you ideas and answers. Just click on My Profile and then expand General Information about yourself and you'll see a spot for Location. That will show right below your user name in posts. Mine says Ozarks.