Submitted by lettuceLeafer in Housing (edited )

So I really like the design of pit houses. Basically a hole in the ground with a dome made of sticks. A hole in dome so smoke from fire goes out and a ladder to climb down.

But I encountered a problem in doing that. Due to the instability if soil it's not super stable. I.e. walls cave in after a rain or whatever. So that's why modern day underground structures have concrete walls. Even bushcraft people take the time to line the walls with wood in their dug out.

Secondly buying or finding enough wood to make the dome and it be strong enough would be either expensive or difficult to scavenge. Plus I'm not a big fan of how it puts additional strain on the soil edge to increase likely good of cave in. Also I'm very leery about my ability to make a dome capable of not crumbling the walls, holding up dirt, plus snow, shed rain effectively, prevent the dirt collapsing into me due to wood rot and the wood holding me the dirt and the snow up as I clamer up to my ladder.

So I was racking my brain trying to think of how I will do the roof and possibly support the walls if need be. My first solutions were pressure treated wood or concrete bricks with mortar. Both I'm not big fans of due to sustainability. And I was still unsure about the roof. At this point I was mostly making my plans based on fruit cellars as they the provide mostly what I want. So both methods I would have to dirt the pit house roof style and replace it with a sloping door entrance and no fire pit. So most modern day fruit cellars have concrete roofs with I definitely don't want to do. That's out. I saw this one guys underground house made out of wood and dirt on top. The ceiling was flat with boards layer on edge so there way a thick ceiling attacked by wood walls. Thick plastic on top of wood to prevent wood rot. That would be a lot of wood even for a small house and lumber is expensive af rn.

(Oh and for those of u asking I'm not building a Cobb house its bc I don't have cheap access to straw. And ai don't know if I have access to clay)

So I keep looking. I eventually come across earth bag homes. I like this one dome design which reminds me of the pit house a lot. It doesn't have a pit but the earth bags form a done roof.

So my plan is to dig a pit like a pit house. Then use the dirt to will sandbags and reinforce the walls earth bag style. Sandbags, barbed wire and a packer is prob the cheapest was to reinforce walls.

Now this pit house plan is still very wishy washy and solving the cheap ceiling problem is going to be a pain. Atm my plan is to do the layering of pressure treated wood on top of the earth bags. With a small layer of soil to help insulate. It prob would be easier and a more constant temp with better airflow and a fire pit to do an opening on top. Then to help prevent getting water logged and catch water I'll build either or or who right triangle roof buts that more than the pit house with tin on top.

This is still very work in progress but I wanted to write out my current ideas to help sort out my thoughts.

3

Comments

You must log in or register to comment.

kyrasubmit wrote (edited )

There are several things to consider when designing a house! Multiple functionalities - that is, the house built on this project will be convenient and practical. The project of a house with their own hands should not be worse than the architect! I am also designing my new house because I sold the old one https://www.thepropertybuyingcompany.co.uk/. The simplicity of design - it will be easy to make a house project only if it does not imply any extravagances. Creating a particularly complex project, the implementation of which would require a huge amount of creative frills, a person who has no special education is not recommended because you can not consider some fundamentally important things!

1