50 Dollars and Up Underground House Book [Paperback]

Mike Oehler is an autodidact, and a man - he admits it, nay, proclaims it - of strong and idiosyncratic opinions. He has a recipe for building small dwellings cheaply in Pacific Northwest USA - which is to say it's as wet as western Scotland, warmer in summer and considerably colder in winter. He designs houses that I could afford to build using materials which are - with the exception of the polyethylene membranes which are key to his system - considerably more ecologically sound than most modern building materials. He makes substantial use of roundwood poles - which I have in abundance for the cost of cutting and seasoning them.

All these are reasons I should take him seriously. And yet, I'm wary. He's built - or claims to have built - remarkably few dwellings (two, as far as I can see, although people using his method have built many more). He doesn't seem to use any moisture barriers in his floors - in fact, he extols the virtues of earth floors. I simply don't see that working in Scottish conditions (In fact in the 'Update' section at the end of the book, Oehler now has a membrane under the floor of his house - which is now carpeted).

The other thing is that I strongly suspect that if you showed one of his houses to any self respecting British Building Control Officer you'd get something between a hearty guffaw and a shriek of horror. Indeed, Oehler's own response to building standards is clearly expressed on page 100 of his book: 'will a home built with the PSP system pass the code? The answer is, sadly, no... you may move to an area which has no codes...'

Well, you may. But I want to build my home on my land in my home valley, so I can't. I could adopt Oehler's alternative suggestion, of evasion... but the less said about that the better.

Finally, a note of caution about the title. Oehler's quoted prices relate to the 1970s; and even then I think a certain amount of creative (or merely forgetful) accounting was involved.

Nevertheless Oehler's book is both thoughtful and thought provoking. I'm glad I read it, and will continue to mull over it.

Mike Oehler has writen a very personal, intelligent and some times very funny book where the title pretty much summs it up. Any person thinking about undergrond construction, doing much of the work themselfs and is in any way on some kind of a budget should read this book.

This is one of the most inspired books, though not entirely practical as another reviewer suggests (I doubt the "Underground Home" would be approved in many areas). However, the project itself is worthwhile considering: build well, inexpensively, using available materials. Although the book is rather thin, it contains much useful information. There are the occasional anecdotes, but they somehow seem to fit well into the larger scheme. There are floor plans as well as practical advice on a variety of important issues.

The book contains:
1.) What an Underground House is Not
2.) What an Underground House Is; 23 Advantages
3.) Histories of the 50d and 500d Underground Houses
4.) The PSP System
5.) Design...(pp. 28-71)
6.) Materials: Where to Buy and Scrounge
7.) Construction
8.) You and the Building Codes
9.) Engineering Tables