TERRACING WITH TIRES
Using rubber to prevent erosion, roof sliding on underground home.
May/June 1983
by William S. Hogan, Sr.
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PHOTOS BY THE AUTHOR
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A little more than two years ago, I purchased a two-acre residential lot in the bluff country of Iowa. The price seemed quite reasonable, but the challenge presented by the lot was formidable! This particular piece of property, you see, lay crudely up a long, steep hillside. However, it did afford a marvelous view of the agricultural valley below, and of the skyline of Omaha, Nebraska, 16 miles away. My homesite was part of a newly developed subdivision ... and, though 42 lots were available, I chose to buy a sloping, south-facing site, because it offered a chance to fulfill my dream of a passive solar retirement home in scenic surroundings. The lot did, however, present two problems: Where would I put a house, and how could I make that house accessible?
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HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE ASKED A MILLION TIMES,
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, ANYWAY?"
The one and only exit from the nearby paved street onto my lot was a small, ill-shaped area just big enough—if it were level (and it wasn't)—to turn a car around in. Obviously, I had to do something ... but, since I had no money to spend on an elaborate rearrangement of the site's topography, I began to use a less costly resource: my brain. I drew countless house plans and spent endless hours climbing up and down the hillside, sitting here and there... trying to come up with a workable solution. Finally, like some sort of great vision, the parts of a plan for the lot fell into place.
I picked up my shovel and began what turned into a two-year "labor of love" . . . a task that took almost every evening, every weekend, and a month of vacation to complete. The lot's terrain was such that I couldn't get earth-moving equipment to the spot, so I was limited to using my body and an ordinary spade ... two 5-gallon plastic buckets for carrying dirt ... a saw ... and (over the two years) three pairs of sturdy work shoes.
"I THOUGHT MAYBE YOU WERE BUILDING SOME SORT OF MONUMENT!"
First, I enlarged the sloping parking area adjacent to the street by leveling it off and reinforcing the southern edge, adding a 15-foot-wide band of level surface. In the beginning, that really was all I'd hoped to accomplish by myself, but—once the job was so satisfactorily finished—I couldn't stop. I felt that I'd just scratched the surface of what could—and should—be done. Again, I spent hours sitting and contemplating various possibilities, including the option of digging a basement by hand!
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