The biggest investment most people have is their home. A mortgage, or rent, is a major item in most budgets. Many Americans who cant scrape together a down payment on real estate, or get a mortgage loan, feel locked out of The...
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The biggest investment most people have is their home. A mortgage, or rent, is a major item in most budgets. Many Americans who cant scrape together a down payment on real estate, or get a mortgage loan, feel locked out of The Good Life, and the American Dream. And according to some sources, thousands of people, even in America, have no homes at all. Most people regard these as inevitable facts of life. Since theres little they can do about them, they might as well ignore them. A few, however, are proactive. They think outside the box, and they have a fighting attitude. They consider huge, luxurious and expensive homes to be irrelevant to human needs, and wasteful of space, materials, and money. The cost of interest on a 20- or 30-year mortgage is especially galling to them. These housing pioneers have included Ken Kern, whose "Owner-Built Home" started many people on the road to mortgage-free housing in the 1970s. Rob Roys "Mortgage Free," as well as his books, videos and workshops on low-cost cordwood construction, have led the way out of the morass of overbuild, overpriced and consequently overfinanced housing. Buckminster Fullers geodesic dome enjoyed great popularity among owner-builders in the 1970s, and log construction has become so common most log homes are now built by commercial enterprises, not do-it-yourselfers. Other individuals and groups have been promoting building with straw bales, cob (a mixture of clay and straw), adobe, and houses that range, literally, from under the ground to the treetops. One of the people who has broken new ground (literally and figuratively) is Mike Oehler, author of "The $50 & Up Underground House Book." His innovative and ingenious construction methods and design techniques have been in use for more than 20 years, but few people today are even aware of them. One reason might be because his methods are too easy, too "primitive," and maybe too inexpensive for most modern tastes. On the other hand, these qualities are exactly what some people are looking for and what could become extremely valuable in certain situations. When planning this special feature on "Wilderness Survival," "Countryside" considered using the old "Boy Scout" and "Air Force Survival Manual" advice on emergency shelter. Frankly, we couldnt envision readers of this magazine needing emergency shelter of any kind unless they became lost in the wilderness. Temporary and emergency shelters used after hurricanes and earthquakes are more likely to be Red Cross tents rather than something made from branches, or even tarps. Mike Oehler has a different view. He thinks people will leave the cities in droves after a catastrophe, when population centers no longer function and are uninhabitable. They would seek food and shelter in the countryside. If they encounter Mike Oehler or anyone like him, theyll be handed an ax, a shovel, a roll of polyethylene, and directions for building an underground shelter with the PSP system. This building method is almost as fast, almost as easy, and almost as inexpensive as a Boy Scout hut with the same area. But with a little more work, time and money, you can build an actual home with the same method. Mike Oehler has lived in one himself for more than 20 years. Oh, by the way this system can also be used to build root cellars and bomb and tornado shelters. This is something worth knowing about. Its safe to assume that most people have never considered living underground. Therefore they have never looked into the possibilities and know nothing about the concept. However, its equally safe to assume that of those radical enough to not fit into that majority, most have heard only about concrete constructions that are relatively complex, expensive, and well, basement-like. Mike Oehlers PSP system, incorporating his unique design innovations, is a totally different concept. In its way it is both as simple and as amazingly ingenious as a paper clip. Living underground Underground homes, according to Mike, are not dark, dank, airless spaces, with artificial lighting or even
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