Underground housing

One of the site details I like about my proposed underground house, is that there is only a few inches of soil to bedrock. This is a good and bad thing.

My plan was to excaavate all the soil right down to bare bedrock, then haul in screened rock to get the concrete slab level. This will do several things. The first is allow the heat from that bedrock to help heat the home; a constant 57 degrees here in Maine. It wil also allow me to build 100% on rock. With the roof having a lot of weight, I like the idea of the building pushing down on the concrete slab, the rock under it, and then the bedrock. As the saying goes, "it is a wise man who builds his house upon a rock." But the biggest thing is, that screened rock under the slab will let any water that migrates there, drain away. That should eleminate any water issues.

Really the only bad part is, with so thin soil, I will have little soil to place on top of the house. But that is not really a big deal. I had intended to just bring in sand anyway. I got a gravel pit 1/2 mile away, so I can just haul some of that up, and cover my house with that. It will cost money to move, but would be a nominal cost really. Moving earth is kind of easy.

Interesting ideas but have you considered earthbags?  Similar idea to use "mostly" onsite materials for construction.  If I were a decade or two younger I would definitely consider using them on my place.  I seem to remember seeing a video recently of an earthbag root cellar.  

Looking forward to seeing how this post grows. ;-)    

An underground house needs a hat and boots. Keep water out of the living area and drainage. I would use clay as a top or whatnot. Then cover with topsoil.

Did Oehler build his $50 house without using an excavator? Did he own one or barter for its use?

Jesse Styer wrote:Did Oehler build his $50 house without using an excavator? Did he own one or barter for its use?

He did it with a shovel.

He mentions liking to dig but just a couple hours per day and it took quite some time for the original smaller space. I plan to rent a small excavator to dig out my area (less than 3 years till retirement!) as it’ll be say 500 square feet and 4 feet down in a pretty flat space is around 74 yards of soil to move, not including the additional patio. Full of stone from what I’ve found, so renting the tool for a week will let me dig all that out plus put a drain trench around it all for the PAHS umbrella.

In theory, I could also use the excavator to lift the logs as well, as they will be full of water in the spring and too heavy to move by hand, even after sitting a couple months after cutting. Or if I can drag them chained to a truck then I could lift on end using a block and tackle. Plenty of hard labor, so trading money for time or in this case overcoming physical demand that one person can’t handle.

Mark Brunnr wrote:I plan to rent a small excavator to dig out my area (less than 3 years till retirement!)

In theory, I could also use the excavator to lift the logs as well, as they will be full of water in the spring and too heavy to move by hand, even after sitting a couple months after cutting.  

Hey Mark, if you have three years, why not cut the trees this coming winter (when the sap is down), peel them and get them off the ground to dry for a summer or two?  Then they'll be lighter and, I think, less likely to rot when put into the ground.

That’s a good idea for at least a year in advance. I live about 22 hours away going the speed limit though and it’s open property. I’m hesitant to do that and the next year find the logs were taken but maybe that’s highly unlikely. Lots of hunting in the area and a 350 acre lot adjoining mine owned by a lumber company though.

Has anyone had experience (re)moving large stones or boulders in a hill? I don't know what I'm going to find yet, but I know its there since there are some large (5 to 10 foot) stones jutting out of the ground in a couple places. It's about 1000 feet from a highway so dynamite isn't going to be an option, but I need some kind of an effective way to remove large stone I run into inside my hill without killing myself.