Imagine a home you never have to paint, a home whose roof you never have to replace (though you may have to mow or harvest it occasionally). Imagine utility bills so tiny, you’re sure there has been a mistake. Imagine a home so sturdy, it’s considered tornado-, fire- and even earthquake-resistant. Yes, you can have it all. You just have to dig.
Underground living is hardly a new idea. But according to Marty Davis, it is still among the best. His company, Davis Caves, based in the tiny central Illinois farming community of Armington, has built about 400 underground–“earth-sheltered”–concrete homes over the last 21 years and also consulted on another 1,500. He estimates there are about 15,000 to 20,000 earth-sheltered homes in the U.S.
It all makes perfect scientific sense. If you dig eight feet into the earth anywhere in the world, experts say, the temperature will be whatever the average annual mean is for that area and elevation. In Illinois that translates to about 58 degrees–comfortable by winter standards, pleasantly cool in the summer. Add strategically placed southern-exposure windows to capture passive solar heat and you’ve got the basic “earth-sheltered” concept.
Marty’s dad, Andy, a contractor, built the first Davis Cave after his heating bills tripled during the mid-1970s’ energy crisis. One summer day, he stopped off in an abandoned mine, felt its coolness and realized then and there that the solution to his energy woes lay beneath his feet.
Of his dad’s inspired idea, Marty Davis says, “It’s a simple answer, a low-tech answer to energy conservation.”
