Son bought a underground house

[CrealCritter]

I like the look of cordwood houses. Maybe I'd get ambitious enough to do a SMALL storage building....

I like the looks of those also but I always questioned how the could remain in good shape over the long haul. Wood shrinks and swells with change of the seasons, I fail to see how cement which does not shrink and swell remain stable or effective at holding logs in place over the long haul. Now if you could cost effectively use another material that remained stable and flexable over the course of many sessions it would be doable. But the cost of such a material far off sets the cost of cement by leaps and bounds.

 

[CrealCritter]

The cordwood should be fairly dry when you use it to build with. Most of those houses have wide/deep eves to help prevent rain from hitting the building and soaking the wood. Most of the wood is covered, so only the very ends are exposed to moisture. So maybe not as much movement as you may think.

My experience tell me "real" wood moves around an aweful lot with the seasons especially hardwood. i
t srinks in the winter air and swells in the humid summer air. A full "log" irregardless of length, will most definitely move in diameter but not in length.

I'm with Bay on this one, a good rot resistant softwood that's not subject to much movement, like white pine or cedar would be the way to go for cordwood walls. The worst would be hardwoods that have very little rot resistance such as ash, cotton wood, hackberry, poplar.

I really only have experience with midwestern and right coast lumber though, so I'm excluding left coast lumber.

 

[wyoDreamer]

Never heard of right coast and left coast, lol. It took me a second read to get it, bean one of those days.
I am upper-mid-west. We only use cotton-wood and pople for carving or making model planes. Ash, cottonwood, hackberry, poplar, pine and birch are typically campfire wood - not even used for firewood in the house. Why use crap wood when we have oak and maple for firewood.
The couple of cordwood buildings I have seen were built by raiding the firewood pile - so mostly oak and maple, and mostly split logs. One had wine bottles added to the walls for sh_ts-and-giggles. They allow light in without having windows.
They seem to be holding up to the environment well. No wall failures yet.

 

[Mini Horses]

DH & I built a cedar log cabin over 20 yrs ago. It's still standing well! The logs were fitted to one another & bolted together. If weather took that thing down there wasn't going to be much of anything, anywhere.... Sure was nice. I go by it maybe once a yr for the memories.

 

[CrealCritter]

I have a broken air conditioner, and I need to install new HVAC. Does anyone know a service that can do this?

@Chic Rustler this is up your alley

Jesus is Lord and Christ 🙏❤️🇺🇸

 

[perchie.girl]

He will adapt. Probably will need full spectrum lighting in at least one room. What was hard for me was discovering the light show that static electricity gave me every night...

 

[CrealCritter]

He will adapt. Probably will need full spectrum lighting in at least one room. What was hard for me was discovering the light show that static electricity gave me every night...

That's a good idea... I recommend skylights in every room but talking about a job to install them. There is at least 2 foot of dirt covering the roof and that's before to hit the cement and I don't have a clue how thick that is. Then you have to worry about drainage and leaking. Not something I would tackle as part of a home improvement project that's for sure.

 

[Lazy Gardener]

I don't think this is something I'd choose. But, to each his own, and if he's happy with it, that's great! There are so very many ways to build a home while decreasing the energy needs.

 

[CrealCritter]

Oh man. I would be claustrophobic!

I agree with you. I think I would claustrophobic also.

 

[GypsyG]

I grew up in an underground house. The biggest problem my family had with it was the humidity. We had to keep a large dehumidifier running 24/7 and had to empty a full three gallon tub from it everyday... If you didn't the walls would start to grow fur.

That was years ago though... Perhaps they have found a way to build them so that they don't have those problems anymore.