AH Challenge: Earth-sheltered buildings more widespread

MrP

Banned
Earth-sheltered buildings have been around since prehistorical times and were independently developed by many different cultures around the world. Yet, in modern times, the practice is quite marginal, despite the well-known advantages of using earth for thermal insulation.

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Can anyone think of a POD preferably after 1900 that would make earth sheltering a common construction method by the latter decades of the 20th century? It doesn't have to be the dominant method, just one frequently used for low-rise buildings and private homes wherever local conditions make it suitable.
 
As the Lord of the Rings was quite popular with the 60's counterculture, they could potentially take more ideas from the book rather than just mentally adapting it to their worldview. One example could be an attempt to replicate hobbit-holes, as they are seen as housing that is (literally and spiritually) closer to nature. Maybe one trend that could help this is to make more of the counterculture movement take place in colder climates. However, it will be hard making this more than a short-lived and inconsequential fad.
 

MrP

Banned
Maybe one trend that could help this is to make more of the counterculture movement take place in colder climates.
Earth sheltering happens to be very effective at insulating from heat as well as cold. If you remember Uncle Lars and Aunt Beru's homestead in Episode IV, it was based on actual traditional subterranean homes in southern Tunisia. It also works quite well in Arizona.

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Driftless

Donor
I think one of the historic (regional) challenges would have been the initial cost of materials and the cost of construction. For large areas of the US and Canada, wood-frame single family houses have been traditional popular for a number of reasons: comparatively low cost framing material, some of the labor needs some serious building skills, but part of the crew can be less well trained; and for many of the northern European immigrants, it was a familiar concept. For those houses, the initial building costs might be comparatively lower per square living area. However, heating and cooling and routine weatherizing (paint, roofing, etc) maintenence tends to be much higher for frame houses. I have a friend who lives nearby in an earth bermed home, similar in size to my frame house, and his annual HVAC bill is about $1500 less than mine His return on investment was quick.

For Earth sheltered homes to break that monopoly early on, would probably need a couple of PODs: some early cultural leaders acting as innovators set a design precedent; and that the building cost is at least comparable to wood-frame houses.
 

MrP

Banned
For Earth sheltered homes to break that monopoly early on, would probably need a couple of PODs: some early cultural leaders acting as innovators set a design precedent; and that the building cost is at least comparable to wood-frame houses.
Leaving aside the former for now, do you have any suggestions about the latter? Could the trend start in a region where timber is comparatively expensive, like the US Southwest?
 

Driftless

Donor
Certainly there was extensive Native American traditions for a basic template. If you want the model to be an earth covered home, and there's limited timber available, then your going to need either arch and vault method built with traditional adobe? I know little of adobe as a building material, but I'd think you still need to waterproof the "roof" in some fashion. Either you build with adobe, or part of the structure is made with reinforced concrete (which has been used since the mid-1800's).

Adobe as a locally sourced building material should have been/be a relatively inexpensive structural material. One of the limitations of the Native American building was the lack of window glass. Incorporate windows and doors with glass panels should appeal to those who were more accustomed to extensive natural lighting.

I'm not sure what you would use as a roofing cover plant in the southwest, That would form part of the insulation.
 
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POD 1972 ..... When the Arab Oil Embargo substantially increased the cost of oil-heating houses in Canada ..... Canadian architects reviewed a wide variety of alternative construction methods: active solar, passive solar, underground, hyper-insulated, etc.
In the end the government used all sorts of tax incentives to convince home-owners to retrofit their drafty old houses with hyper-insulation.
 
I think one of the historic (regional) challenges would have been the initial cost of materials and the cost of construction. For large areas of the US and Canada, wood-frame single family houses have been traditional popular for a number of reasons: comparatively low cost framing material, some of the labor needs some serious building skills, but part of the crew can be less well trained; and for many of the northern European immigrants, it was a familiar concept. For those houses, the initial building costs might be comparatively lower per square living area. However, heating and cooling and routine weatherizing (paint, roofing, etc) maintenence tends to be much higher for frame houses. I have a friend who lives nearby in an earth bermed home, similar in size to my frame house, and his annual HVAC bill is about $1500 less than mine His return on investment was quick.

For Earth sheltered homes to break that monopoly early on, would probably need a couple of PODs: some early cultural leaders acting as innovators set a design precedent; and that the building cost is at least comparable to wood-frame houses.

My advisor when I worked on my Masters had actually done a good deal of study on earthen homes on the Great Plains and I had the pleasure of taking a summer class with him about the subject (and even got to help restoration efforts on one!). Anyway, one of the points he always brought up is that, although earth homes are cost effective on the Plains and make more sense, they run up against on serious problem: cultural acceptance. Although settlers were more than willing to build an earthen home when first settling a region, they desired a frame house because those were the type of homes that they had grown up with, and they were viewed as more 'civilized'.

Now, in North Dakota the earth home traditions actually stuck around for longer, largely due to the ethnic makeup of the state. Many of the immigrants to the state were German-Russians who had lived in the Ukraine. In their original homeland, earth homes were much more common and accepted, and so they had less of a reason to want frame homes. There were actual sod homes being made up until the 1960s in some places.

So, perhaps one of the ways to make earthen homes more of a 'thing' would be to change the immigration wave to the Great Plains, and increase the numbers of German-Russians, Ukrainians and so forth.
 
Earth-sheltered buildings have been around since prehistorical times and were independently developed by many different cultures around the world. Yet, in modern times, the practice is quite marginal, despite the well-known advantages of using earth for thermal insulation.

98174411_cb467868c8_o.jpg


Can anyone think of a POD preferably after 1900 that would make earth sheltering a common construction method by the latter decades of the 20th century? It doesn't have to be the dominant method, just one frequently used for low-rise buildings and private homes wherever local conditions make it suitable.

I don't have much to add at this point, though I will give it some thought, I just wanted to say, excellent and imaginative AH Challenge!:)
 

Driftless

Donor
My advisor when I worked on my Masters had actually done a good deal of study on earthen homes on the Great Plains and I had the pleasure of taking a summer class with him about the subject (and even got to help restoration efforts on one!). Anyway, one of the points he always brought up is that, although earth homes are cost effective on the Plains and make more sense, they run up against on serious problem: cultural acceptance. Although settlers were more than willing to build an earthen home when first settling a region, they desired a frame house because those were the type of homes that they had grown up with, and they were viewed as more 'civilized'.

Now, in North Dakota the earth home traditions actually stuck around for longer, largely due to the ethnic makeup of the state. Many of the immigrants to the state were German-Russians who had lived in the Ukraine. In their original homeland, earth homes were much more common and accepted, and so they had less of a reason to want frame homes. There were actual sod homes being made up until the 1960s in some places.

So, perhaps one of the ways to make earthen homes more of a 'thing' would be to change the immigration wave to the Great Plains, and increase the numbers of German-Russians, Ukrainians and so forth.

Your reasoning about familiarity makes sense. My friend with the earth-bermed house is a very well respected retired science teacher. His house is dry, spacious, well lit, and quiet. He can cite chapter-and-verse about the benefits of the design, and still most folks think the idea a bit nutty(in part because of a lack of financial comparability). That line of thought is the first barrier to break.

The other technological pieces should be easily solvable, even early in the 20th century: means for keeping the structure waterproofed, and adequate natural lighting
 
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MrP

Banned
How about someone coming up with the idea of prefabricated earth-sheltered houses earlier than in OTL?

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No, this isn't Hobbiton or a scene from Teletubbies. It's a rendering of a community of earth-sheltered houses built from a new prefab building system. I once wrote that from Hobbiton to Tatooine, earth sheltered houses make sense all over the universe; now you can just order one up.

Earth-sheltered houses have long been known to be very energy-efficient, with the thermal mass of all that dirt keeping the temperature relatively even all year. However they have often been expensive to build and difficult to make totally waterproof. Now a Florida company, Green Magic Homes, has designed a prefabricated system of fiber-reinforced polymers (FRP) where you can roll your own earth sheltered house at a reasonable price (US $41 per square foot for the shells).
 
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