Reddit reviews The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book
We found 12 Reddit comments about The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
I would sugest geting the 50 dollar and up underground house book by Mike Oehler. It goes into how to safely build a nice underground house. Paul Wheaton has some videos of a few houses built this way.
You can buy property with cash as soon as you have the money.
A house with all those bits will cost around 25k and need work. You will find cheaper but have to do a lot of work to fix it up, shacks and foreclosures and the like.
Under the age of 18 you cannot be legally held to a contract, so you really can't get a loan or financing (I believe that you could still with a co-signer, but that does require some legal research on your part)
My advice? Get a job and save up money until you can afford a plot of land out of the way. Then look into building "tiny houses" or finding a camper or trailer that fits your needs, so long as you can repair it by yourself. Cheap, DIY, and... erm.., "builds character."
Home/property ownership is an insane level of responsibility, ours was a foreclosure that took a ton of work to make comfortable, and we've long acknowledged that it will never be finished.
Good internet is nearly impossible in the areas your talking about though, more than 5 minutes out of a small town in Texas and your lucky to get a 10mb/s connection with a 10gb monthly cap for $50.
I had a similar daydream when I was a teenager, its cool to see there are still people that want a little disconnect from the rest of the world.
If you are REALLY feeling frisky, pick up this book: The Fifty Dollar Underground House Book
It is crazy out of date, but the principles are still there and filled my head with fantastical ideas when I was your age.
For that matter, just google up some pictures of Tiny Houses. They can be made for a couple of grand and if you made one it would impress the hell out of your parents ( and any date you might be able to fit through the door :-) )
The late Mike Oehler wrote books (and was featured in documentaries and on television) on the subject of creating practical eco-friendly earth homes. It might be a good place to start if you are interested in off-the-grid living.
EDIT: see here
Maybe this will help you:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/50-Dollars-Underground-House-Book/dp/0442273118
Written by a paranoid anti-world government hippie.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Passive_Annual_Heat_Storage.html?id=NttFnwEACAAJ
http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Dollar-Underground-House-Book/dp/0442273118
Start by buying those two. You just need to calculate the amount of dirt you want on top but most likely timber frame would be fine. I'll be pouring concrete walls on mine and doing natural timbers for main beams with 2x4 cross slats hidden above a canvas or cotton, modified version of this http://www.simondale.net/hobbit.htm. Will be strong enough for the 3-4 feet of dirt I'll need above. Don't do tires or put garbage in your mortar like earth ship advocates suggest or papercrete.
Edit: whisperlite camp stove from MSR is what I use backpacking, will run on anything but I don't know that I'd want to use it everyday. Get a couple burner camp stove and use your wood stove in the winter to cook.
Are you trying to hide completely in a hole? More info on what you're trying to accomplish would help
My main concern was validated with a quick google search: these don't live up to building codes.
Now to find a book on how to get around those...
If I ever went this route I'd build a large, hidden, Oehler structure, and have a small cabin nearby to distract the authorities / give them something to inspect.
More info in the first two amazon reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Fifty-Dollar-Underground-House-Book/dp/0442273118
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0442273118/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1
-> Mike Oehler - an Underground House for 50$ and up
> It's called reality, something you seem to be ignorant of.
This whole reality thing you've been doing the whole time is super condescending. I guess you're just not seeing it that way, but it is that way.
> You are an absolute idiot. You have redefined force to mean what you want it to mean, so that you can get away with it.
What? How have I done that? You say you're being forced - you aren't. You have the choice to do what you want. Including not being a part of society.
> Where? When? That's a reflection of you, not me. You know you're wrong, so you have to deflect.
Ummm all this reality stuff you keep saying kid.
> You may not be aware of what you reveal, but I am.
Lol...
> You have been so manipulated to misunderstand force, it proves the point.
You said you were being forced to participate in society. The only way someone can do that is with... well force of some kind.
> You're an arrogant sycophant, snuggling up the asshole of your owners, unable to think or reason - until I reach you.
I thought you said you had never been condescending? You been saying this stuff the whole time - do you really not see it?
> Any that is productive and accessible, yes.
It would bolster your argument if you could show otherwise.
No, that isn't true. A good example is Mike Oehler. Author of this book and famous mountain man hermit. Lives all alone, without any intervention from society, in a house he built into a mountain.
It is possible, but like he says, it's hard. You have to give up all the comforting things society provides for the pride of self reliance.
In addition to what others have said some of the book that have inspired my favorite building ideas are:
The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book
wofati eco building
Any book on treehouses
Have you looked through the Green Building forum at permies.com?
I generally think that Permaculture is more about making the environment outside your house more sustainable and that any house will work in that case. Many people have tried to take similar lines of thought with home design but it really is outside the scope of Permaculture.
The closest I can merge the two is by building a semi underground house. I like the way Mike Oehler put it in the Underground house book:
> When completed, an Underground house is nearly invisible. Rather than looking at a ticky tacky box of painted lumber and roofing or a hunk of concrete and steel you see only grass, shrubs and trees. An underground house blends in with the surroundings. It does not compete with or try to dominate the environment... A U house blends in with nature while the other is constructed, usually, with a total disregard for the environment. Those few above ground structures which do merge with the surroundings are so unusual as to sometimes become world famous. Frank Lloyd Wright's Falling Water house in Pennsylvania is an example of one such. Yet, a good subsurface structure blends with nature even better than that.
Have you read The Fifty Dollar and Up Underground House Book? About half of it is political/philosophical/environmental tinfoil-hat stuff, but the other half is really interesting building ideas and techniques, many of which I think would be of use to you.