Our Underground Home

"Back" of our underground house.

Our home is located near the middle of 2o rolling acres of woods and bamboo.  There are two parallel creeks, one behind and another in front of the house.  The front creek feeds the small pond that is surrounded with bamboo.  The only way in and out of  the nursery is over the dam.  The drive leads to the back door, but also continues on up to the barn.  Visitors often pass the house and drive  up and knock on the shop door.
We started building our underground home in 1975, right after the OPEC oil embargo.  For the first time people began thinking about energy efficiency.  I read an article in Organic Gardening about the concept of building underground and my wife, Mickey liked the idea as well as I did.  We had been talking about building a house and trying to come up with a design we liked but we really liked the idea of a house with very little visual impact at all.  We live on 20 acres of mostly woods (and bamboo) and wanted to keep it that way as much as possible.  We also wanted a home that would be easy to heat and cool as well as being safe from tornadoes.  (we live in a very tornado prone part of the country).

Bamboo lined driveway.

We read everything we could find, which wasn’t much.  We also drove to many rural parts of Alabama, checking out every rumor we heard of an underground home.  We didn’t find anything we liked, most were very dark and damp.  We knew we could do better after seeing some of the designs of architect Malcolm Wells.  We purchased plans from Mr. Wells in order to study his building techiques and design.  By purchasing the plans we were also able to consult with the architect and spoke to him on the phone a few times with questions.  Over a years time or so we drew up plans of our own, had them checked by a structural engineer and finally began construction.  It took us about 8 years to reach the point where we could move in.  The building inspector felt sorry for us by that time and approved the construction even though we had a lot of work to do when we finally moved in.
Eventually we finished the house completely including landscaping.  It was quite a job and we learned a tremendous amount about both the building process and ourselves!  As of 2011 we’ve lived in the home for 28 years and still love it. There is a Birmingham News story with more information and pictures.  This article is an attempt to answer the questions we’ve gotten over the years about the underground home and some of the old and new projects here at Jmbamboo.  Follow the links below.
Why we built our home underground.