When you think of a house,. the image that usually comes to mind is of a suburban-type home, wood framed, above the ground, without grass on the roof.
      But the field of ecological design attempts to make homes more efficient and more appropriately integrated into their natural environment and is becoming more attractive especially in light of rising energy costs.
      "It's kind of interesting to have grass on your roof. And I've been up there, there's been deer tracks on the roof," says Ned Miller the owner of a newly constructed earth sheltered home just outside of Huxley.
      From 2004 to 2005 there was an estimated 28 percent increase in energy costs per household in the United States. Earth sheltered homes, like the Huxley home, were popular in the 1970s due to similar rises in energy costs.
      Just east of Huxley, Miller and his wife, Diane, of Williamsburg recently completed a roughly 2,000-square-foot earth-sheltered home, one of the few in Iowa and the country. With most ecologically designed structures energy efficiency is a major goal and feature of an earth sheltered home, which is basically an enclosed structure covered completely on the roof and three sides by an average of 7 feet of earth. The design utilizes the earth as insulation, providing for a stable and relatively moderate inside temperature in both cold and warm weather.
      Ned and Diane began construction on their earth-sheltered home last April. Ned explains that they purchased the property to build their retirement home, and that an earth sheltered home was a second thought.
      "We were down on what I call the lower end of the lot by the creek, and we looked up to where the house is now, and I told my wife, I said, 'You know that would be a good place for an earth-sheltered home or a berm house, or something like that.'"
      With that idea, and having visited several earth-sheltered homes in years past, Ned and Diane began some research. After becoming confident that an earth-sheltered home was not only very energy efficient and comparatively priced, but also surprisingly pleasant to be in, they selected Earth Sheltered Technologies of Mankato, Minn., to build an earth-sheltered home on their four-acre property.
      In retirement, at a time in life where income is fixed, sustainability was a big consideration for how Ned and Diane wanted to build their home.
      "We figured that that would be one way to be able to plan that [retirement], and work with that- you know the air-conditioning in the summer, very, very minimal, the heat in the winter very, very minimal."
      Earth sheltered homes are built under enough earth to experience the benefits of the relative constant temperature of the ground. According to Earth Sheltered Technologies, because of the great insulation and heat provided by the earth, along with their design, "Our homes will never drop below 50 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit in mid-winter with absolutely no heat other than the passive solar and the natural heat from the ground." In summer the earth has the opposite insulating effect, helping to keep the home cool. The company estimates that, with some reliance on wood burning for heat in winter, earth sheltered homeowners could save nearly 80 percent on heating and cooling costs compared with these costs for owners of typical homes.
      Earth sheltered homes utilize passive solar energy as well in their design to increase energy efficiency. Ned and Diane's home is oriented to the south and east so the windows are facing away from the winter north winds and able to enjoy some passive solar energy from the low-horizon winter sun as it slants from the south along its winter course.
      Ned explains that with the windows facing south and east sunlight reaches nearly two-thirds into most of the rooms in the building in winter. Conversely, in summer the home avoids direct sunlight as the sun moves in its higher summer position through the sky.
      Earth-sheltered homes typically have one or one and a half exposed sides, with those sides dominated by windows providing the only inlet for natural light. The other walls and roof can be made of many different materials, but Earth Sheltered Technologies uses primarily reinforced concrete for their earth sheltered homes as they did in the Huxley home.
      To prevent the 'cave-feel' that could occur with a house completely covered by earth, the Huxley home has several features that help maximize the natural light it gets. The depth of the living spaces are restricted to an average of 30 feet from the outside-facing side, and 'cathedral domes,' designed to gather natural light, make up the ceilings in several of the living areas.
      Ned and Diane's son and his family are living in the home now until they decide to retire. After only a week of having lived in the earth-sheltered home, Corey Miller, Ned and Diane's daughter-in-law, gave her impression.
      "The interesting thing is that I don't notice that I'm below ground. It's so well lit, there's a lot of natural lighting. One side is pretty much all windows, so you don't actually feel like you're underground, which is great."
      Ned adds that another difference is the quiet:
      "[It's] very quiet, you don't hear anything. You don't hear road noise, you don't hear wind."
      One remarkable feature of earth sheltered homes, and evident in the Huxley home, is that they tend to blend in well with the property they are a part of. Actually, as the Huxley home faces away from the road, with some landscaping it would be difficult to recognize that a structure was even there.
      "That's our goal," says Ned.