Building Mud Castles

I said that this was going to become something of the “main theme” of this’a’here workshop, and I wanna run with it.

Now, let me tell you, you really need to do your local homework, as I can’t and WON’T do it for you. Specifically, local building code: Every place is different. Here in KY, (or at least the county I reside in) if you are not going to tie into the grid, you are purt much free to do as you will, shy of builing a tower of Babel or somesuch. Single story or split story don’t draw much attention, and if you aren’t going Grid,,, I didn’t even need a permit for the septic (and funny enough, you DO need a permit for an outhouse,,, Go figure.)

Another example is in Texas, at least along the border with Mexico, and this may be different in specific locations; I don’t know specifics. To the best of my understanding, if you are building your own home, no outside help/contractors, no permits or inspections needed.

All of that being said, I can tell this. If you build alternative housing, getting it insured may be the worst headache you have ever encountered. I can’t get homeowners insurance on my house; only Renters insurance for my belongings within. Had I gone through a contractor with all the permits and inspections, No problem, I didn’t and the insurers politely, but strongly, tell me to get fucked. Keep that in mind.

But heres the fun part of the equation. If you are doing earthbermed, pounded earth, or Earthship type building, chances of your house buring down, or being destroyed by anything short of a Divine flood, are pretty miniscule. “Poured” homes using a mixture of portland and quicklime will last centuries, as the quicklime makes the concrete ‘self-healing’

There are so many alternatives to how and what you can build with, and none of it is new. People have been building their personal caves for millenia. Builds like the Earthship design, using old tires filled with packed earth and covered in shotcrete,,, yah, sorta new, but really just a new mixture of old ideas. Your choice is yours, if you are building from scratch. Your costs may be under the 10K mark depending on if you are using your local resources and your own labor or all the way up towards the million mark if outsourcing everything.

And this post is written with the builder in mind, not already standing residences. That will come later in a different post.

SO, you wanna build an earth shelter, and you want it as near self sustaining as possible. Underground, partial underground, above groound as thick walled as you can. Those three aspects are the key. Above ground, you want those walls at least 20″ thick. The idea is to let tempurature changes crawl through the walls, NOT ISOLATE. In other words,,, when its hot and nasty outside, the inside will be nice and cool. As the day cools down (think summer in the high desert, it gets damned cold at night.) the heat the outside walls has picked up will be working its way in to the interior, slowly warming the inside (actually maintaining a constant or near so.) (the actual term is “thermal creep”) Cool inside during the day, warmer than outside at night, and you spent nothing but building costs to get that. No extra HVAC or central air environmental techno hoopla to maintain comfort. No added utility costs! That right there will save a homeowner several hundred dollars a month alone. It may cost more to make the house that way, but the long term savings will adjust it out.

As for heating the house. Thermal mass!!! Your walls are already massive, making a thermal mass heating option for when the outside temps drop and stay there is only ‘smart’. Here’s the thing though. You can build so that the walls are more protected from sunlight in the summer (so they stay cooler) yet still get massive amounts of sunlight in the winter (when the sun rides lower in the sky.) and get some solar heating that lasts all night. You can even do a solar battery setup where the light coming through a glass wall heats sand silos or water tanks, that will slowly release that heat out after the sun sets.

Think of it as designing a machine that you live in, not designing a box you live in and bringing in machines to keep it livable. And this ‘machine’ doesn’t need to be mechanically complicated. Passive is the goal here: Mass is your friend, moving parts are not.

Our current Federal Building Codes are not interested in designing homes in this fashion, no matter how much the politicos sing the praises of “Green this that or the other.” The whole mass of building code is meant to keep Economic Currents Flowing; its that simple. I’m not harping on those industries as evil or whatever, but they have enough pull to be able to get rules written in their favor and that puts people like me, possibly you, at odds with the system. Why we will have hard odds of being able to insure our homes against catastrophy. Why we must, if we choose this route, be our own engineers, plumbers, electrician, Construction managers, and lowly hobb loader, all at the same time.

The good news, This is a GROWING COMMUNITY. There are small outifits out there for hire, or contract, that can either do the work for you, or you can consult with to get primo results without need of researching a new degree from HardKnocks University. Sone key words to use for looking around the nets: “permaculture”, Earthhome, Earthship, Permies, Cobb building, etc

And here is another upside. Like the growing list of alternative teachings to Religion (The kingdom is inside you) the growth of alternative living arrangements is growing too. People are getting a might bit sick of the “in your face” Top down Control freaks, and being told “NO, you can’t do that (without paying US through the nose and giving us a lifetime of support to keep it.)” I see things around the globe; people stepping out of the ‘tried and true’ nature of modern building code that essentially makes every home owner a renting landlord. I see more and more push to eliminate property taxes for the same reason; “I bought it/I built it, I own it! keep your mitts offa my stuf!”

Ok, slight shift of content here. Went and bought a used block for BLooTwuck this weekend. Long drive of 200 miles roundtrip. I saw several broke down hicles along the way, and the shocking part,,, most of them were less than 10 years old. I think only one was a used up beater that probably just needed gas in the tank. I’m seeing more and more in my feeds of people telling the dealerhips to go get fucked, we aren’t subscribing for a car; we want to own it, and ownership means I get to deal with it on MY terms, not dealership terms. I’m watching the prices of OBS chevies going through the roof. A truck with a bluebook value of $4000 going for 15000 or more. Used vehicles selling for more than they did when they were on the dealer lots, brand new.

But they are still cheaper than a new 2026 Chevy 3500, and they don’t have all the computer gee-gaws and kill switch that are in the new. A guy with a basic tool kit can work on them. Aftermarket parts are still out there, and there are some places starting to make them since some of our sources are highly questionable these days.

The New Paradigm of “you will own nothingg and be happy” is not surviving first contact. Maybe in the younger generation, who don’t know anything but this modern world of ‘subscribe and like’. But us oldztimers? who grew up in a world where the phones were secured to walls and surveilance was “own recognizance”,,,, Yeah,, we ain’t dead yet and we still get a vote in the future.

More laters about building stuff or making current work better

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