I started the plans for this house for my wife and me after I had been building and re-building houses in Portland Oregon for ten years, in 2002. I have always had my hand in construction, my dad taught it in a high school and would bring his tests home for me to work on.

This house started as a compilation of a number of designs in the book Earth Sheltered Housing Design, by the Underground Space Center, University of Minnesota. It is a fascinating book with a great deal of information about underground housing. After reading from many other sources, I came up with a design that was underground, used an atrium to let in light and air to the back of the house, had a floor plan that was open and would work for my wife and me, and the occasional house guest.

Next step was engineering so I picked a firm that had worked on five other underground houses here in Portland (Miller Consulting Engineers  millerengrs.com) and gave them a very basic set of plans to work on. After an initial set of calculations I started figuring costs and the numbers were not good. Just the concrete and structural steel was to be somewhere between 50 and 60 thousand dollars, more than half my budget.

As is often the case, every project seems to end up as the best solution to a blizzard of problems. In the end I used a slight variation of the original floor plan, brought the house up out of the dirt but kept it half buried and with an eco-roof. The eco-roof gives me most of the benefits of an underground house but not nearly the expense or troubles. The atrium still provides light and air and is a wonderful oasis in the wintertime. With a few refinements such as a radiant floor heating system, a good wood stove with a ceiling fan, an efficient kitchen layout and lighting and plumbing fixtures that are interesting and fit the style of the rest of the house, it is a pleasure to live in.

Here in Portland Oregon it is legal to do all the work on your house if, it is your house and not for sale, you apply for all necessary permits and you have all necessary inspections done. With help from an experienced carpenter, I was able to do almost everything that was necessary to build this house. The things that I hired out were; surveyors, structural engineers, excavation, foundation, insulation, sheetrock and the 50mm covering on the roof. I have a little bit of an inside track, but I encourage everyone to do as much work as they can in the construction of their own house. The learning curve is a little steep on the front end but with most of today's building products, its easy to do your own work once you figure it out. It helps to watch or work with electrical, HVAC and plumbing professionals or get a little help from your knowledgeable friends, but once you get going the rewards are tremendous. Most importantly is the feeling of attachment and appreciation for the house that you live in, less important is your ability to intimately know how it works and be able to fix anything that goes wrong. Its so calming to know that no matter what happens with your house, you can deal with the situation.

There are few things that I would like to mention that are specific to this house. TGI rafters (floor, ceiling and roof) are straight, light, relatively inexpensive, and are made from plywood and OSB (manufactured wood) which has a lighter impact on our environment. This house uses 12 inch TGI ceiling rafters on 12 inch or 16 inch center to handle the extra load of the eco-roof. The initial thought of radiant floor heating sounded like a lot of trouble and expense but in the long run it has paid off many times over. A 6 inch wire mesh was used in the slabs for the house and garage and the PEX was easily twist tied to the mesh on 12 inch centers. It took only a day and a half for two men to install all the pipe. The pump system and controls are much less expensive than a conventional forced air system and the only other expense was an 80 gallon, gas hot water heater. A small 120 volt hot water heater was put in the corner of the kitchen because the sink and dishwasher are about 30 feet from the hot water heater in the garage. It has turned out to be one of those delightful conveniences that you never thought you needed. Hot water almost instantly saving a bunch on water and the time it takes to get to the faucet. The high density, closed cell, rigid insulation under the floor slab and on the outside of the concrete walls has already saved hundred of dollars in heating as well as conditioning the air inside the house so that it changes only about a degree or two in the summer and even less in the winter when the radiant heating system is on. I've always had a wood stove but then I'm a carpenter and have plenty of scraps to burn. It also has saved us a bunch on our heating bill as well as keeping the scraps out of the land fill. The eco-roof has been maintenance free except for weed pulling a couple times a year and it adds significantly to the insulation in the ceiling as well as all the other great ecological benefits. They have been around for thousands of years and I'm always surprised that they aren't better known and accepted (sort of like the electric car I suppose). I would also like to mention the importance of landscaping. The idea of scraping a lot off of all trees and vegetation, building and then re-planting seems to me to be a waste of resources unless absolutely necessary. I was very careful to leave all the trees that I could and it has been wonderful to have full, mature trees shading our house and front porch from day one. Also the grape vines, canna lilies, climbing roses and other tall plants on the South side of the house help shield us from the hot summer sun and then die back in the winter to give us all the winter light that is available

I could go on and on but you probably have had enough so I will conclude by saying that this project has been a wonderful experience and has turned out even better than I had imagined. Now it's your turn, and I hope you will take the opportunity to travel your own road to the house of your dreams. The true joy is in the process, not so much the destination.