Episode Information Cumbria: The Underground House

Date Published:

03/06/2008

Helen and Phil Reddy wanted their home to make the most of spectacular views, but they also wanted it to be ecologically friendly. Their solution was to build an earth-sheltered home, with most of the house built into the hillside.

Cumbria is a wild and beautiful part of Britain - surely a brand new house would stick out like a sore thumb here and spoil the view for everybody?

Well, this couple didn't build their dream home on top of this landscape; they built under it.

Their plot was a disused sandstone quarry in the Eden valley, with spectacular views and a house-sized gap conveniently quarried out over a hundred years ago.

Budget And Build

The Cost

Cost of site £23,000
Budget for build £197,000
Final cost of build £217,000
Total cost of project £240,000

The Build

The three bedroomed eco house was slotted into the hillside and buried under tons of insulating earth. To gain as much light as possible, the south facing elevation is entirely glass. The house is upside down so that the bedrooms are on the ground floor, behind a large conservatory area. The living rooms are upstairs. The back of the house, which potentially could have been very dark, is lit by sun pipes. The layout means that from the main living area, you get to see those glorious views.

The build also includes a separate one-room veterinary space. This element was crucial in getting planning permission. The budget for this self build was £220,000. The half acre site cost £23,000 and it was paid for with capital from the sale of Phil's previous house and an Ecology Building Society mortgage. The schedule was an economical twenty two weeks.

Problems

While the land was quite cheap, the budget for the build was a hefty £197,000, and the architect, the project manager and the structural engineer had never worked on an earth-covered building before. Yet they aimed to finish the house in 22 weeks, so that Helen and Phil could move in shortly after the birth of their first child.

They immediately hit a problem. When digging down for the foundations, they discovered deep natural holes below the site of the 'vetspace', and were forced to reposition the building. Meanwhile, the house construction began.

The main building material was concrete and massive amounts were used: 76 tons were poured for the base layer alone.

Huge concrete blocks, reinforced with steel rods, were fixed to the base to make the outer walls. Even the internal walls were concrete.

Eco-Living

This seemed a contradiction in terms for an eco house: concrete is made with cement, which is the single biggest manufacturing source of carbon dioxide, the 'greenhouse gas'. But Phil and Helen calculated that concrete would make the house very durable and that, over the years, its longevity and its insulating qualities would more than compensate for the polluting effects of its manufacture.

The build didn't go completely smoothly. Bad weather caused delays and it took longer than expected to work with the concrete blocks. The glass manufacturers kept postponing delivery of the glass for the south-facing wall.

Meanwhile, costs increased when Helen and Phil added photovoltaic tiles to supply electricity, as well as a reed-bed sewage system. Finally, six weeks late, they and baby Tom moved in.