Well, being a simple country boy, I'm up for that... or something similar anyway:
double-dig urbania - and add a bl**dy great load of 'orse muck to sweeten the soil
Regards,
Keith
PS Many thanks for your help with the my floor tiling question the other day.
I've turned my third bedroom into a utility room, but a lot of people do their washing at night, to use off-peak electricity for heating the water, so noise would be an issue for them.
Colin Bignell
The message from Huge contains these words:
What? Scenery like this
Take a look at the climate data for Coober Pedy here:
It's a desert. Subterranean buildings work well when it is hot and dry.
There's an interesting set of examples here:
Now there are examples of semi-subternnaean homes used in northern climes: Viking Farmhouses in Iceland, pre-celtic stone houses in the Orkneys; and even in modern times the Norwegians and Swedes do have turf-roof houses, but subterranean houses where it is cool and damp don't work well without a lot of expensive work to prevent water penetration. For an example (perhaps overkill) try:
"Before the house was backfilled, specialized waterproof roofing materials consisting of 3/16" thick Bentonite rolls, 18" wide rolls of Bituthane, a felt-like drain mat, and finally two layers of protective
1" thick foam, were applied. Bentonite is a clay-like substance that will expand up to 22 times its original size on contact with water. Because of the tremendous pressure of the backfilled earth pressing against this roofing material, the Bentonite (which is covered with industrialized rubber) is so tightly compacted that, if any water was to come into contact with it, the expanding effect will effectively and permanently seal the leak. Any water that does make its way down to the roof will be absorbed by the felt drain mat and effectively wicked down to the French drain system that completely surrounds the entire structure. The two layers of 1" thick foam sheets serves as a protective barrier to prevent sharp rocks from puncturing the Bentonite roofing."This is from "The Ultimate Secure Home" - which is simply earth covered, and not subterranean. Full details are here:
Don't underestimate water's ability to penetrate where you don't want.
Cheers,
Sid
nightjar I've turned my third bedroom into a utility room, but a lot of people do
off-peak electric starts at 0030, pubs close at 0100?
Owain
The Viking farmhouses in Iceland were not underground at all and they were built of timber, the later turf houses were also not underground in any sense either.
You don't understand about insulation do you?
You don't understand insulation do you?
G=F3=F0an dag sigvald. Coming from .is, you ought to know.
However, as I understand it, there is/was little timber in Iceland, so as little as possible was used in construction. The method, as far as I know, was to find a low hill and dig into it, or failing that, just dig a hole in the ground. This was lined with stone. The above ground walls were made of turf, as was the roof, minimising the use of timber. The house was not fully underground - more like half, and as the wall and roof were made of turf, it would look almost as though the house were just a small hillock. Possibly I'm confusing farmhouses, built if timber was more plentiful, with pit-houses, but the principle of a half-sunk (semi-subterranean) house holds. I'm certainly not trying to say that long-houses were half-sunk.
If I'm wrong, please do say.
Sid
Apparently not. What specifically do you think I'm not grasping? I'm willing to learn.
Sid
About housebuilding in Iceland you are very wrong, houses were never built into hills or in a hole in the ground. Houses were always built above ground to get rid of the rainwater. The houses were built with wood in framework and the fronts were of timber but the outer walls were of stone and/or turf and turf was used in the roof. Timber was abundant in Iceland when the country was settled (ca 25% tree cover) and there was a usable timber supply until the 19th century (augmented by driftwood) to enable buildings to be built partly of timber though longer beams would have to be imported in the later centuries.
About housebuilding in Iceland you are very wrong, houses were never built into hills or in a hole in the ground. Houses were always built above ground to get rid of the rainwater. The houses were built with wood in framework and the fronts were of timber but the outer walls were of stone and/or turf and turf was used in the roof. Timber was abundant in Iceland when the country was settled (ca 25% tree cover) and there was a usable timber supply until the 19th century (augmented by driftwood) to enable buildings to be built partly of timber though longer beams would have to be imported in the later centuries.
some reconstructions showing the building methods at:
Thank-you very much Sigvald and Bob - and that link is very interesting.
The vikings certainly did construct pit-houses, as well as the type shown in such beautiful detail in the link. A little Googling tells me that they were possibly primarily used for textile making, rather than as dwelling-houses. I guess I must have seen reconstructed ones at either Ribe or Leira (both in Denmark).
Here's a (boring) picture of a reconstructed Viking pit-house (perhaps better called a pit-workshop).
And pit-houses were used in other cultures - see:
Sigvald is quite right about water ingress - the last paragraph of Bob's link is telling:
"During a visit in 2005, I noticed water running out from under the turf walls on the outside of the foundation. Water from the roof is supposed to run in the channel between the outer and inner turf walls and from there, directly into the ground, so finding water running on the outside was an unexpected surprise."
Cheers,
Sid
That once upo to temperautire, 4 foot of wet earth or 8 foot of masonry is as good an insulator as 50mm of celotex.
And in fact its a damned sight better as a thermal store.
Aah! I see. Thank-you.
I agree completely that a 4 foot thickness of wet earth can potentially be a good thermal store. How good it is as an insulator, I'm not sure. I'm pretty certain a 4 foot thickness of dry earth would be better. I'm sure someone (possibly even you) may have tables that include the numbers comparing celotex, wet earth, dry earth, straw, concrete, you name it. A quick Google gives:
"Dry materials are better insulators since water is a good conductor - so dry insulation is better than wet insulation. That's especially important with earth-insulated buildings.
Here are some very rough approximate r-values of materials per inch of thickness:
Dry earth: 0.33 per inch Wet earth: 0.05 per inch Wood: 1.25 per inch (assume the same for cardboard - not the corrugated kind but solid cardboard) Fiberglass insulation: 3.5 per inch Styrofoam: 5.0 per inch (use packing material or cut up a Styrofoam cup)
So in order to compare a house wall with 3 inches of fiberglass insulation and 1/2 inch of plywood siding (total r-value of 11.125) to the same r-value of earth-sheltering, you'd need about 36 inches of dry earth. Once the earth wet, you'd need 222 inches (18 feet) to get the same effect."
The problem is that water tends to move through wet earth - having heated the water up, it's difficult to guarantee that it will stay in the same place, unless you take measures like enclosing the wet earth in a water-tight membrane of some type. If it is not enclosed at the top, heating it above ambient will mean you increase the evaporation rate. Ground-water movement also means it will be replaced by cooler water at varying rates depending on the environment. I'm not saying you can't make it work, the point I was alluding to about needing 'decent isolation/insulation' was simply that you will have to take special measures.
As an afterthought, here's a page from CSIRO, admittedly talking about rammed earth
My, tentative, conclusion is that you would want to use something other than just plain in-situ earth as an insulator in a subterranean home - possibly your 50mm of Celotex.
Regards,
Sid
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