In 2006, Al Gore released his award-winning “inconvenient truth” about global warming and sea level rise and then (several years later) infamously purchased a 9 million dollar, 10,000 square foot ocean side (sea level) home in Malibu CA.   The irony between his stated belief in an impending carbon-induced global-warming seal level rise and his actions to purchase such a huge (carbon footprint) home right at sea level helped push the story all around the world.   While others were laughing, I had to think, “If you really believed in global climate change bringing extreme weather, what sort of house would you build?”   What if you also believed energy prices would continue to rise?  Or if you believed our energy distribution systems were crumbling or threatened?

There have not been very many generations that made it thru their whole lives without being impacted by war or weather or at least a fuel shortage.  Consider England 100 years ago…  In 1912, two years before the first world war, England had the largest army in the world (and its first airforce), the most advanced education system, a large number of colonies that kept resources and fuel flowing cheaply to its shores, the Titanic had just been built, but not yet sunk, non-stop flights to Paris had just begun, etc.  England was on top of the world and I am sure that many Englishmen assumed it would stay that way, but the only constant is change.

If we look at our current situation, do we expect things to remain stable for the rest of our lives? What do we expect will happen to the costs of energy (barring the invention of a nuclear fusion power plant)?  Every one expects energy prices will continue to rise.  Do we see our energy distribution infrastructure getting better?  Nope, crumbling.   How about our governments ability to look after us?  Soon they will be struggling just to pay the interest on the debt.  Taxes will rise, jobs will be lost, etc.  If you agree that one or more of these things are likely, then what sort of home should you build?

How about the weather?  Regardless of if you agree that global warming is caused by our pollution or just some natural cycle thousands of years long, the data does seem to indicate that it is getting more extreme…  (perhaps weather like this has happened before, but can we at least agree that extreme weather is possible?)  More tornadoes, hotter summers, colder winters (the winter between 2011 and 2012 was an anomaly with the jet stream (arctic oscillation) that kept the bottom half of Michigan very warm by keeping all the cold further north, but next winter could very well see the Jet stream come lower and blast us with a colder than usual Canadian winter.)   The thought of riding out any of these sorts of events, or even a regular Michigan summer, where my AC struggles to keep the house at 80°, in my flimsy 2×4 and vinyl siding home was not appealing.  Tornadoes and strong winds could easily rip my home apart.  We had a hail storm last year that put a number of holes in my siding.   I always chucle when I see people on the news after a storm (or fire) vowing to “rebuild” after their homes were totally destroyed.  Why do most of them build the same type of weak structure that blew away last time…?  “Oh no, ya see, this time I used these here hur-can’ straps to hold my roof down…”  “Great, much better.”   Instead of just hoping for mild weather, why not build a safer way?

So I started looking around.  I started with more traditional passive solar concepts, along with the super insulated “passivhaus” concepts.   Some how, I don’t even remember when exactly, I became aware of this “earth sheltered home” idea as a way to moderate the volatile environment around the house.   I liked it and started researching, casually at first, but then heavily.   I couldn’t find an “off the shelf” idea that I liked.   For instance, many of the homes combined earth sheltering with passive solar.   This was a good combination, especially in sunny/freezing Minnesota, because the passive solar energy could be stored by the massive cement structures needed to support the earth, and then returned to the home over night.  But in S.E. Michigan, we only have 21% sunshine in January, so traditional passive solar with a daily cycle probably wouldn’t work very well.    Then I discovered this idea that I could cheaply incorporate the earth around my home into my “solar mass” so I could store even more energy, perhaps several days worth.  John Hait takes it further by suggesting you include enough mass to hold the home thru a cold dark winter.   I liked that idea, but it called for letting solar heat gain directly into my home during the summer.   This would result in over heated summers, and then thanks to losses found in any system, colder than comfortable winters.  Then I started reading about solar hot air collectors and it occurred to me that I could reserve my home for living in and build an external solar collector to “by-passively” heat the earth under my home.  If the pipes were buried the right distance under the home, the stored heat would take months to reach my floors at just about the time that I needed it.   Also, since I could push the solar heater up to much higher temperatures, I could drive much more heat into the earth (ΔT), and I could be charging up the earth away from the home to take greater advantage of the earths heat conduction lag time.  I will talk about many of these ideas in the “Tech Notes” pages of this site, such as Earth Shelter Basics, Umbrella Basics, Passive Solar, Soil Properties and Earth Tubes (still working on this last one ;^).

I now had the basic idea, I would look to build a “by-passive” (my own term) solar earth-sheltered home in S.E. Michigan…    I shared the idea with my wife and she actually LIKED IT!   Well that was helpful.  This is not the sort of thing you embark on without your significant other.  Of course the kids were on board, they put in their requests for secret rooms and tunnels.   So I started planning.  I used Autodesk Revit for the drawings and tried a number of different configurations.   I crunched numbers for engineering and cost, etc.

Back in 2007, I told my friends that I would probably start building in about 2 years…   Well, breaking ground as been at least 2 years away for quite a while now.   The 2008 housing crash slowed us down on the sale of our current house (its value dropped to 1/3 of its 2003 purchase price), but it did make it cheaper to buy the land we would need.   Buying the land in 2009 was clearly a serious step, however, the orientation of the lot forced a serious redesign.  Now that we have hired an architect and an engineer (two serious steps toward the final goal), had meetings with a builder, got quotes on windows (and more),  I would adjust that estimate down to less than one more year (giver or take a few).   In fact, we would like to start building in 3 or 4 months, but a lot would have to fall into place for that to happen.

This website will journal my progress as I prep for building and then eventually (Lord willing) as I break ground and begin to actually build this crazy home…  We will probably start with some past-tense posts to catch you up to where we currently are…

“The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success.” Bruce Feirstein