we break ground in the summer of '11 the goal is to have the outer shell of the house ready by winter, so that we can continue construction without being hindered by snow a giant hole is dug rebar tying becomes a family bonding exercise
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we manage to make the outside of the house and cover it back up by snowfall we move in in august '12 now, this was a pretty weird house, if you hadnt already figured that out for starters: it was round, to better hold all the dirt on top
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one of the cool (heh) things about being underground is that the earth changes temperature real slowly so: no need for central heating or ac, because the earth will do it for us we also had a bunch of south-facing windows, so we barely needed to use electric lighting
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there was a pavilion out back, with a bunch of solar panels on it, and a tunnel leading out back which a battery rack to store the power, and a well for water the house itself was actually super nice: roomy, comfy, with character it was The place to have parties
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okay, so weve moved in now, so its all going to be peachy and wonderful and it turns out that wet ground changes temperature faster than dry ground so we spent our first winter at a toasty 60 F (and dropping) we had to get a propane space heater to not freeze in our sleep
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also, michigan winters and solar panels dont mix well the panels were angled to maximize average sunlight exposure, which meant that snow would pile up on top of them they were 10-20 feet off the ground, we had to get an extendable broom to clean them off
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also also the batteries we were using kind of sucked we had a bank of 40 batteries but one of them exploded (giving dad a nice chemical burn) and several other were faulty, refusing to hold charge and causing the circuit to have critically low voltage all the time
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we managed to smooth things out afterwards, but man that first winter was rough my sibling and i moved out for college 2 and 4 years later, my parents got a new job across the country 5 years later, and now some of my cousins are living there
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Replying to @imhinesmi
would love to hear more about your parents what influenced them to build the house (prepping/homesteading/rugged self reliance/something else)? did they plan on living there forever? do they intend for you/your sibling to live there?
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Replying to @choosy_mom
some interest in sustainability, plus my dad just likes building things my dads whole family is super into gardening+self reliance too i think the plan for the house is to be a retirement house/generational family home
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do you view it as an overwhelmingly net positive experience? do your parents? also, in a world where you weren’t prob going to inherit a sustainability hobbit hole, do you think you might do something similar?
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Replying to @choosy_mom
hell yeah the hobbit hole is lit af but i would probably not build one, it was real expensive+hard to make and i dont think it would work nearly as well if i were to make it
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Replying to @imhinesmi
yeah that makes sense, either way huge props to your parents, that house is some dynastic shit twitter preppers + the impending apocalypse have inspired me to investigate a self-reliance home(stead) as a long term plan, so it’s neat to hear your perspective from a generation out
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