Extraordinary Off-Grid Hobbit Home in Wales Only Cost £3,000 to Build

[marmar]

from Inhabitat:


http://inhabitat.com/extraordinary-off-grid-hobbit-home-in-wales-only-cost-3000-to-build/


Extraordinary Off-Grid Hobbit Home in Wales Only Cost £3,000 to Build
by Tafline Laylin, 10/05/11





Simon Dale proves that you don't have to be an architect to design and build a beautiful, cozy, low-energy home. With £3,000, a few simple tools, and a little help from his father-in-law and friends, Simon constructed an extraordinary hobbit home that has virtually no visual or environmental impact on the surrounding landscape. Using locally-sourced and natural materials taken from the nearby woodlands, a common practice among designers in Wales, alternative energy sources, and a lot of imagination, the self-styled builder has created a gentle, naturally-lit family home that exists in total harmony with nature.

[hobbit709]

1. Me WANT!!!

[MineralMan]

2. Very nice, indeed!

[Old and In the Way]

3. This place has shown up on a lot of various sites I've stumbled on.

However, these are new pics I hadn't seen before. I've read through the construction plans on his website. Fascinating use of straw as both insulation and building material. A pretty creative builder.

[Cool Logic]

4. I wonder if this type of dwelling is vulnerable to roof leaks...?

[localroger]

13. There is probably a polyethylene moisture barrier

This appears to be a variant of the post-shoring-polyethylene PSP system invented and promoted by Mike Oehler in The $50 and Up Underground House Book.

[Kolesar]

18. Shelter your family from:

Mobs, gunfire, blasts, and similar results of social disintegration

[Rabblevox]

5. Beautiful, and I'd love to live in it. Have trouble believing he built it for Lb 3,000, though. /n

[flamingdem]

17. I'm guessing he got lots of donated materials and labor from family + friends nt

[TheWraith]

19. Yeah, frankly I don't believe that for a second.

Not to mention, I'm quite sure he's not accounting for the value of the labor that went into it, which is probably in the tens of thousands of dollars at least.

[XemaSab]

6. Very cool!

The only thing that seems off to me is that there is a lot of unused space inside.

I wonder if they could have gone smaller, but put in more storage at the same time.

[CJCRANE]

7. The pictures are of two homes

built by the same person, according to one of the comments.

[n2doc]

8. Plus a buttload of sweat equity

I wonder how many man-hours it took to build it?

[Hun Joro]

9. Love this!

[Codeine]

10. Now build a few thousand of those "low impact" homes

with "natural materials taken from the nearby woodlands" and you'd start to notice just how high the actual environmental impact would be.

[JoeyT]

15. That's actually pretty easy to get around, as long as you aren't picky about the kind of wood

you use. It doesn't take much land to make tons of straw, and the main problem with bamboo is stopping it from growing once you've got it started.

[glinda]

11. You have posted my favorite house! Thanks for the other one too!

[NV Whino]

12. Count me in!

The only downside I see is there is no place to hang art.

[hunter]

14. I think the entire house *is* the art.

If you need an art wall in this kind of house, you make one...

:D

[truebrit71]

16. Sign me up....

...that looks awesome....Three thousand quid, on the other hand, sounds a little like a tall tale to me...