Build a Low-Cost Earth-Sheltered Home

Learn how you can curb your excess energy consumption and slash your electric bill with this earth-sheltered home.

By The Mother Earth News Editors
Published on November 1, 1983
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PHOTO: MOTHER EARTH NEWS STAFF
Pouring the slab was made a bit more difficult by our decision to do so after the walls were up.

We’re ready to prove, once again, that energy-efficient housing doesn’t have to be expensive.

You probably didn’t have to read between the lines on MOTHER EARTH NEWS’ Passive Solar Eco-Village to figure out that we were pretty excited to announce the latest project at the Eco-Village. The Low-Cost Homestead is the most ambitious single effort yet tackled at our 622-acre center for research into lifestyle alternatives, and the combination of an inexpensive and energy-efficient home with perennial agricultural techniques and renewable energy sources will — we hope — allow that integrated one-acre project to become entirely self-sufficient.

But, because permaculture techniques (which involve the creation of sustainable agricultural systems) require years to establish and perfect, at this time there’s no way we can report on the success (or failure) of our schemes for raising plants and animals. (You can read about what we have in mind in Self-Sufficiency on a Low-Cost Homestead.)

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