chaosrambling

If you’ve seen or read The Lord of the Rings and know what a hobbit hole is, then you can see where I’m headed. There are many modern day ‘hobbit holes’ all across the world. It’s an age old art even, creating a home that is one with the Earth. Some homes are completely underground while others are just embedded into the ground with one or more sides open to the sky. Some people use completely modern materials to construct their homes while others go ‘green’ and use only natural and non chemical materials.

Homes can be built ready to be completely ‘off the grid’ which means that you are not connected to regular utility providers to whom you would pay a bill. Alternative sources for energy abound, from old fashioned water mills, to Wind mills and solar panels. Propane tanks can take you off the grid as well. No need to put in a pipeline and plug into the rest of the city and sheds can be built or hedges grown around the tanks to mask them. Water can be derived from a well or natural spring filtered through a pump and then piped straight into your home. Drainage is almost always into a septic system from what I understand but I’m still researching this aspect of our future home.

As I said before some homes are built entirely with all natural materials such as concrete, hay bales, logs, fresh cut lumber,  rock or stone. Some homes incorporate metal framing and plastics into their construction while others are made of entirely or mixed modern materials like plastics, treated lumber, tires, ‘found’ items and oh so much more.Insulation for the home can come from a variety of natural sources as well. I’ll put more on that as I learn it.

We want to build our home of mostly natural supplies preferably from the site itself. Like cutting down trees right where we want our home to go while leaving the rest of the trees as they are. We will be berming our home into the side of a hill. And we even want the round door like BagEnd has in LotR. We’re just trying to figure out how to hinge it. I’ll let you know what I learn.

A simple google search for Earth Berm House in either web or images will take you to a ton of sites that will introduce you further to this new world.

My current Favorite home can be found here. I’d love to have this place.

This site is a whole encyclopedia of Alternative Living information! Welcome to Green.

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