Rod moved to Costa Rica in June, but before he moved he was living in this charming house at the Earthaven Ecovilage near Asheville, NC. His housing expenses were about $40 per month including community fees. Utilities cost him nothing.
It doesn’t look like it from the road, but the hobbit house is earth-sheltered. By using massive materials the interior stays comfortable in the summer without using fossil fuels. A wood stove and passive solar gains provide the heat during the winter.
Most of the materials came from the site. The house is on a terrace cut into the side of a mountain. Using an excavator, the top soil was removed and stockpiled to be used on the roof. The subsoil was used to make the rammed earth bricks that would form the walls.
The south wall is cinva rammed blocks. The blocks themselves are a clay/sand/water mixture. They are held in place by mortar also made of clay/straw/sand/water. Around windows and in tight spots, the same clay/straw/sand/water mixture is built up by hand (it’s called cob).
Above the concrete foundation are a couple of rows of feed sacks filled with gravel. Concrete is permeable, and if the earth blocks were set directly on it, water could wick up through the foundation to the block walls. On a typical wood framed house a rubber sill gasket keeps the wood dry. Here, any water that gets to the gravel is pulled back down by gravity and drained out the bottom of the wall.













