Underground House Problems

Discussions focus on challenges with underground or earth-bermed homes, including leaks, floods, mold, pests, poor waterproofing, and high maintenance, often debating if issues stem from bad construction or inherent design flaws.

📉 Falling 0.3x Other
3,012
Comments
20
Years Active
5
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#329
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Keywords

e.g GC researchgate.net BS MIL UK greenbuildingadvisor.com SIP HVAC house underground water moisture houses home leaks repairs sealed air

Sample Comments

kavalg Oct 7, 2022 View on HN

Looks pretty, but how about fire, excessive snowfall or wind, rodents and pests, flood/water leaks etc?

Gordonjcp Jan 18, 2023 View on HN

Maybe your house shouldn't be a sealed plastic bubble.

throwaway0a5e Sep 17, 2020 View on HN

>Most (if not all) problems are related with bad construction (leaks, floods during heavy rains, constant mold, pests, cracks during earthquakes), bad "fencing" and detail project (limited landscaping, people invade our privacy, difficult and expensive repairs), not with the kind of house itself. Was the house well built and this article wouldn't exist or the conclusion could be more favorable.The bad construction is the typical half-assery that homeowners expect to be able

jimmaswell Aug 3, 2019 View on HN

Seems like you wouldn't bother building well if you had to redo it every year

brazzy Sep 17, 2020 View on HN

How the hell does the article "not make sense"? The title specifically says "Our Underground House", and at the end they explicitly say they would consider choosing such a house again, under certain condition.And pretty much all problems are related to the kind of house itself. That it's not mainstream means not just that you need the right buyer to sell it, but also that you need the right contractor to build it, since most won't have any experienc

Finnucane Aug 20, 2018 View on HN

There's a lot of maintenance needed on _any_ house.

blaser-waffle Sep 17, 2020 View on HN

It appears this house was built during the 80s. Have newer designs mitigated some of those challenges? e.g. better materials and lessons-learned about waterproofing, etc.

dbfx Jan 6, 2023 View on HN

More of a material fault than anything else, hiuses in the us are disposeable

sintaxi Nov 6, 2018 View on HN

Building shitty housing is never a good idea.

datadrivenangel Mar 28, 2025 View on HN

Happened to my parents. Installer went under because the windows weren't as reliable as they expected.