Mom's Subterranean Root Cellar, Bungalow

Image Gallery After a hard day's work on MOTHER's properly, ECO-Village Director Leroy Richter takes a rest in MOM's cave and finds it snug and comfortable . . . even after periods of prolonyed heavy rainfall.

If you've ever fantasized about quiet little place in the woods, you'll love . . .

Located at the base of a gently sloping hill and opening onto the placid Eco-Village lake, MOTHER's "root cellar turned cave" (it was too nice to leave to the vegetables) was the source of a good bit of excitement when it was built in conjunction with last summer's Earth-Sheltered Homes Seminar. Of course, part of the attraction of this type of shelter is its simplicity . . . not only of construction and design, but of maintenance as well. Because there are no exterior walls, for example, the structure requires no summertime consuming paint jobs. And two (hardworking) people took only five days to build the cave . . . using some shovels, a mattock, an auger to dig the chimney and a tile spade to smooth the interior.

Furthermore, with six to eight feet of soil "roof" providing insulation and protection from cave-in, a solar chimney, and an air vent at the threshold, our burrow will typically maintain a closed-door temperature of between 45 and 60°F year round. So, if a similar cave were located in a hillside next to your home, it'd be great not only for storing cool loving vegetables, but for prechilling milk, and-with a smoldering fire built outside the open door perhaps for smoking meat or fish as well.

The 6' X 7' X 10' chamber is all but airtight with the door, floor vent, and chimney flue closed. When opened, though, the latter two provide the grotto with a continual current of fresh air. You see, a 6"diameter ABS plastic pipe-just inside the door-drops down to five feet below the floor vent and then gradually slopes away from the entrance (running within a gravel bed) before turning upward to end in an intake that breaks the surface about 25 feet away. The cool pipe works, in conjunction with the solar chimney, by drawing outside air down through the intake to the buried tube and into the chamber.

The chimney itself-a well casing that's been painted black to absorb solar energy-projects four feet above the ground, and draws cool air from the cave into its sun-heated metal length. As the rapidly warming air makes its way up the chimney, the pressure inside the cave lowers, and more ground-cooled air flows from the buried pipe into the cave to reestablish atmospheric equilibrium within the chamber. This constant give-and-take provides an effective and natural ventilation system. (See MOTHER NO. 73, page 134"My Mother's House: Part IV"-for more details about this type of setup. To order back issues, turn to page 68.)

The tube also keeps the cave nice and dry, since at the lowest point in the pipe-there's a "T" which allows any moisture that has condensed along the line to drain away.