Would you ever consider living in an underground home?

We have, many times. The easiest way to do this is on a hillside. Many such homes are really attractive, and energy efficient. I can’t imagine how to do an underground home where bedrock is so close to the surface. I can only guess you’d have to dig down to bedrock, build your structure, and then build up the earth around the home and plant it well so it would not be subject to the winds as much.

I tend to be claustrophobic and would have a difficult time doing that. I closed my eyes having an MRI, and that worked fine. But you can’t go around the house with your eyes closed. Maybe pretend I’m blind?

Not me. I like light too much, but then I don’t plan on living in Tornado Alley either.

A hillside home is not claustophobic, or dark. Every home needs sunlight, and skylights provide that on interior rooms. In most areas, any room that is used as a sleeping room, must have a window to the outside. All these things can be provided in an underground home.

No, I have issues with getting out quick in case of a fire.

I don’t think so, but as a kid I always loved cartoons like Bugs Bunny and books like Wind in the Willows or Pooh Corner that featured the luxurious burrow-dwellings of the characters.

I would love to do it. My husband and I actually looked at some online when we were looking to buy a house. There weren’t any in our area, but we both agree it’s something we wouldn’t be against if we had the opportunity.

No I wouldn’t. I just don’t think I could get comfortable underground. I would feel like a mole.

If it were in the Shire at Bag End absolutely. I’d need to raise the crossbeams though.

Yes, as long as their isn’t a my house my rules in side of it.

Maybe it is the little kid in me saying this, but I this an underground house is better. An underground house is as cool to houses as the flying car is to cars. There are only 2 better ways I can think of living. On a desert island, or a giant skull carved in to the side of a volcano.

Yes especially if I lived in that same area.
Better still, a concrete house.( above ground) as a newescast showed a man who had
survived in his concrete shed Ok.

I’d love to live in a well-designed underground home for all the advantages cited above.
As @snowberry notes they aren’t like caves, they have windows and skylights.
The earthen surfaces are serious sound barriers too, and muffle outside noise.
Like any home, it has to be built well or it will leak.

I have always fantasized about having a ‘bat cave’ like entry into my garage into the side of a hill or mountain from street level. Insulation would be no problems at all and no air conditioning costs in the summer. The only worries I see are moisture and the lack of sunlight. This can be solved with light tubes to the surface and voila! living like a hobbit!

I always thought it’d be really cool to have an underground house and then use all the land where there normally would be a house to grow crops. You could still have plenty of natural light in the house by having ceiling windows. It’d also be pretty cool if the entrance to your house was an old school looking out house or something like that :P

@poisonedantidote It’d be pretty sweet to have an Ewok village in the trees as well

No. I would simply move out of “Tornado Alley”. Nothing against these people, but it is sort of like the people who continue to live below sea level in New Orleans. And then they wonder what happened when Mother Nature reveals who is boss.

Although, I have to admit the folks in Oklahoma seem to be less helpless, hopeless, and pathetic than the ones in New Orleans. But neither is appealing to me.

Charleston would be nice.

Even Columbus Ohio. At least I could enjoy the Buckeyes in the open air.

Not completely underground, but I would be ok on a hillside where part of the house has windows.

@josie I don’t think you can compare Katrina in LA and Oklahoma. After Katrina people were stranded on rooftops in flooded areas. People could not just walk out. The destructions area was much much bigger after Katrina. Tornadoes can hit one house and not the neighbor and the neighbor can come to help. I realize some of the tornadoes that recently came through were large and on the ground for a long time, but hurricanes are much wider spread and on the ground much much longer. I am not minimizing the destruction that happened in Oklahoma, only saying I don’t think it os fair to compare to Katrina.

Maybe, like a hobbit house.

No, i’d most likely feel claustrophobic, not that I suffer from it under normal circumstances, but that’s the feeling i’m getting here.

There is an opal mining town here called Coober Pedy. Most house are underground there because of the extreme temps and also because you are closer to your mine. I have stayed there with friends for a week or so at a time on several occasions. I rather enjoyed it. For the most part though, they are underground for real, no skylights or windows except in the front. I like sleeping in a cave but having to stay inside too many days in a row would depress me. But I hate being stuck in any house for too long a period of time.

Sure, why not.

@rooeytoo I would so like to live in one of the underground homes in Coober Pedy for a few months.

That is actually a little more than I had envisioned as workable in Oklahoma though.

I’ve seen a few and they’re okay, but I’ll take the risks and benefits of suburbia. I’m not changing my life to avoid death, no one gets out alive anyway.
Que sera, sera (what will be, will be.)

@KNOWITALL I believe the literal translation of “Que Sera Sera” is actually “Shit Happens”.

but I could be wrong

I think it’s something like “Merde Se”.

@rojo @majorrich I’ve never really understood fearing death, and tornado’s although deadly, fascinate me with their power and unpredictability. If I have to die some day, I guess quickly in a tornado would be preferable to a hospital, for me personally.

merde frappe le ventilateur according to Google.

@majorrich that^^^^ looks more like shit hits the fan to me!

Gotta keep the fan Ventilated. lol

cave that is..