# the $50 and up undergound house book



## Seldom Seen Smith

for anyone who wants it. the file is a PDF.


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## veggieguy12

Seldom Seen Smith said:


> for anyone who wants it. the file is a PDF.



BIG Thanks!
-Hayduke


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## Matt Derrick

Sweet! thanks, and i'll be adding this to the downloads section.


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## bikegeek666

what is this, before i download it?


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## Seldom Seen Smith

The $50 & Up Underground House Book teaches how to build the lowest cost, most sunshine-filled, best ventilated and driest underground houses of all. It teaches how to incorporate greenhouses, root cellars and fallout shelters into an underground home. It covers both hillside and flat land design, and explains how to solve drainage problems with dependable gravity rather then expensive, failure-prone building materials. It also details ways to pass or otherwise deal with the building codes.

The $50 & Up Underground House Book is the only book to explain in detail author Mike Oehler’s revolutionary Post/Shoring/Polyethylene building method, which cuts building materials to the absolute minimum. (See the video/DVD section for an illustration comparing P/S/P with the materials used in normal frame house construction.)

But The $50 & Up Underground House Book does much more than just cut your building material costs by up to 90%. It is widely recognized as the book which offers the reader the greatest possibilities for light, air and views in an underground home. Where most owner-designers and even professional architects are stuck on the disastrous "First Thought" concept, a design which greatly limits view, sunshine and air flow, and which usually causes staggering drainage problems, Oehler offers the "Basic Design" with the "Up Hill Patio" which solves these problems and more. He explains the weaknesses of the other three design concepts favored by conventional architects: skylights, vertical window wells and atriums. For example, though skylights admit a rewarding amount of light, they are hard to use for ventilation and fire escape, get dirty quicker, often leak, admit too much of the summer sun, too little of the winter rays, and offer no view whatsoever. They may have special applications, Oehler argues, but there are better design concepts for normal use.


Now in its seventh edition, it has sold more than 90,000 copies and has received enthusiastic reviews from Mother Earth News, National Public Radio and many others. Many consider it the classic in its field.

The $50 & Up Underground House Book reprises all these advantages, and more. The book discusses in detail more than 50 different topics related to underground construction.
This big, 112-page, 8 1/2" x 11" book contains:

* 4 pages of engineering tables and diagrams
* 8 floor plans
* 54 photos
* 100+ illustrations


Table of Contents
Chapter 1: What an Underground House Is Not
Chapter 2: What an Underground House Is – 23 Advantages
Chapter 3: Histories of the $50 and $500 Underground Houses
Chapter 4: The PSP System
Chapter 5: Design
The Basic Design
Posts
Elevation Changes
Views, Light, Ventilation
Five approved Methods of Design
-Uphill Patio
-Offset Room
-The Royer Foyer
-Clerestories
-Gables
Drainage
Special Designs
Flat-Land Designs
Special Effects
Special Features
Patio Barbecue Area
The Bachelor Bar
Built-in Greenhouses
Root Cellar/Fallout Shelster/Wine Cellar
Built-in Coolers
Chapter 6: Materials: Where to Buy and Scrounge
Wrecking Buildings
Windows
Auctions
Sawmill Lumber
Polyethylene
Concrete
Fee Timber Sources
Working Up Posts and Beams

Chapter 7: Construction
Secret Construction Method
The Excavation
Building the Structure
Chapter 8: You And the Building Codes
Appendices

This is an abridged table of contents. There’s more in the book. It’s simply the No. 1 information source for anyone wanting to build low-cost underground homes, offices or shelters.

Here’s what Natural Life Magazine wrote about the book:

"The ideas and methods are quite often unorthodox – but stronger for it. The design theory is well based in experience and appears to work well. Straightforward diagrams and black-and-white photos illustrate many construction and design points … a very useful and pleasant book for anyone wanting to build an inexpensive but solid underground structure."


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## finn

I wish I lived in a place where I could do this.


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## ferretwakeup

hey this is an awesome book. i read it in two nights last spring and am finishing up a structure this winter to play drums in and grow some food and sleep. its not 100% underground because of our high water table (my last attempt flooded after hand digging a 12x16 hole 4 or so feet down) but i learned alot from this book. a good and inspiring read!

once i can come across some land with a south facing slope im going to try this style out, its all flat where i live so that was another problem.


heres a picture from a few weeks back, another wall is already up now






http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/ind...dID=25024457&albumID=2960376&imageID=68320100


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## loess

ferretwakeup, we can't access the links you posted because your MySpace profile is private. would you mind uploading the photo to an image hosting website or something?


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## ferretwakeup

yeah for sure
i couldnt figure out how to make it not private
ill upload something













so this giant hole here is now filled in with a straw bale wall and im to berm this wall and the other one to the left once its done with dirt and soil. Then gonna put a living roof on the top of the structure and hopefully bring it down to connect with the earth at some points











this is all from a few weeks back ill probably put some more up once its further along or done. peaceeeeeeee


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## bote

thanks for the pdf Seldom, and Ferret, nice clean lines!


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## Psychonaut

Bloody awesome! Thanks a lot seldom seen. I've been looking all over for exactly this kind of info. I actually got off my ass and joined this forum so I could download it.


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## ferretwakeup

yeah its a great book
if you start to build anything let me know
i'd be curious to see it


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## ferretwakeup




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## ferretwakeup

some more pictures


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## trotsky

What's the deal with the notes in the margins? were they there before or did you scan a used copy?


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## AlyKat

This is awesome! Thanks so much for this!


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## FinnFiasco

Looks great! I'm hoping to build a little something at some point in the summer, because of the same book.


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## carlylanea

this is a really neat book.........too bad I'm horrible at building stuff....I would really like to do something like this.....except I'd be scared i'd build it wrong and it'd collapse while i'm sleeping! hahah


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## belA presente

perfect book, thanks... i hope i can find a place to use this infos.


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## EastCoast315

Really good idea. Once I settle down in a decade or two, this will be my top choice.


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## Hollywood

i continue to be astounded with all the great info on this forum! thanks for posting this


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## ferretwakeup

there are some youtube videos of this author i just seen, hes late in his life now and finishing up most likely his last building. it looks to be above ground but with earth bermed walls. its in the woods, looks really nice. 

youtube his name and the book title


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## Tare

Friggin awesome! Thank you so much!


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## Charles

Hi, can anyone tell me how to go about downloading the 50$ and up underground house file, I'm new and can't find the download link
Thanks


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## Matt Derrick

Charles said:


> Hi, can anyone tell me how to go about downloading the 50$ and up underground house file, I'm new and can't find the download link
> Thanks



this is a VERY old thread from before we had a file library for stuff like this. unfortunately we don't have a copy of this. but, you should be able to find one with a google search, it's pretty common. if you find it, you should upload it to our library for others to enjoy!

since this thread has lost it's relevance, i'm going to lock it so other's don't get confused as well.


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