My sister just bought a house like this!
Fun fact: it can be difficult to get an appraisal for one of these, especially if in a location where not many others have been built or sold. They almost had to back out of the purchase because the underwriter couldn’t sign off without an appraisal, but luckily, they were able to find one.
Does she have to mow the roof though?
She sure does
A bit of a fixer upper but I’d totally live there, especially for that price (I live near San Francisco).
The building itself looks quite claustrophobic and possibly haunted, but the outside looks so serene.
Seller could have doubled the price for the cost of installing a round door.
The whole point of these types of places is to save on heat/cooling.
The point of this place looks more like it’s for building bombs without having the government find you.
I don’t know. I looked at the photos, and I’m pretty sure this place is built for drugs.
I didn’t specify what the heating/cooling was for 😂
Yeah this was definitely not somebody’s primary living space. It is extremely barebones and industrial looking. Something illicit was happening here.
From the article, the owner died before completion. Just seems like someone who wanted to off-grid at a glance (and didn’t care a ton for permits/beaurocracy)
Just for your future reference, the “o” in “bureau” (and therefore “bureaucracy” and “bureaucrat”) is spelled “eau” because French. The really confusing part is that the u is spelled u.
And why is it a bureaucracy? It’s all about the desks.
Subscribe.
because French
Damn right
Yeah, I knew it was french but swapped my parts and gave up when even autocorrect was lost
That’s why the simplicity of u being u is the worst part! Goddamn Frenchies.
You’re welcome mon ami !
Is it the suspicious barrels outside?
I have one of the larger barrels pictured. It’s a 68G that I pump water up from the creek into for bathing, washing up, etc. Throw a couple of the small chlorine tabs in there, good to go. Just don’t drink it.
Mine came from imported Kalamata olives. Kinda greasy to clean out, excellent water storage. Money says that was the intention for those. 300+ gallons of water lasts forever if you have a creek to tap. I fill my 68 every month in the summer, and that’s only because it has a slow leak.
Background: I know nothing
Am I really bathing if I’m using water I cannot drink?
Am I really bathing if I’m using still-undrinkable—but chlorinated—water?
Am I really bathing if I’m using water I cannot drink?
Yes, drinking water is cleaned to the point that it will not make you sick to drink assuming a normal immune system. That is extreme over kill for bathing (and toilets, laundry, etc). The only reason we use drinking water for everything is because infrastructure is expensive and laying non-potable water pipes would cost tons.
The property has a 500 gallon water tank.
I can see the value in that, basically nature’s insulation - though I’m not an architect nor an engineer, but that looks like a flat roof - so would overgrown grass or sodden soil put some crazy weight and pressure on the structure?
It has to be designed for it, yes. A friend of mine built a house with a living roof. They even host parties in the second floor yard.
replace that roof with native plants and you have solarpunk
It was definitely a boomers bunker. A capitalist stronghold being usurped by the Solarpunks is short-story worthy.
Depending on how it’s built and insulated, it might be much cheaper to heat and cool, though.
Very unusual unfinished, unpermitted concrete bermed home with unpermitted septic system and no power on 4.97 secluded, wooded acres. Individual well. 4-1,000 in ground propane tanks, 500 gal water storage tank. Used to be powered by a solar system & a generator, both of which were stolen (and other equipment) but electric nearby. Owner was working on a self-sufficient home but passed during construction having spent over $400K on the project.
They were building a bunker.
but passed during construction having spent over $400K on the project.
A boomer building a bunker.
Would be better in the midwest where we have multiple tornadoes a year. I bet their electricity bill is nice though.
I kinda get “new-age cult” vibes from some of the interior pictures
Also, while I bet the house is quite heat efficient, the underground design means that rooms in the back will get no natural light, which would be pretty miserable.
the underground design means that rooms in the back will get no natural light, which would be pretty miserable.
Much like a basement in a regular house.
This isn’t that far from the Ramtha School of Enlightenment cult and when we were trying (and failing) to buy a home in the area we toured two similar places with bomb shelters. They have mild doomsday lizard people teachings.
That much underground would be awful for mold allergies. And IDK how much time and money is needed to deal with nothing ever getting permits
Very unusual unfinished, unpermitted concrete bermed home with unpermitted septic system and no power on 4.97 secluded, wooded acres. Individual well. 4-1,000 in ground propane tanks, 500 gal water storage tank. Used to be powered by a solar system & a generator, both of which were stolen (and other equipment) but electric nearby. Owner was working on a self-sufficient home but passed during construction having spent over $400K on the project. Current best use may be to bring in power, do engineering calculations & permit this structure as a shop/ag building & build another home/manufactured home. Owners have some construction photos. Great buy at the list price. There is still a lot of value there. Located in the country East of Olympia.
How bad it would be for air quality and exchange would come down to the HVAC almost entirely as long as the build quality is there. A modern energy efficient house is sealed so tight that the sum of all air leaks to the outside is smaller than a baseball.
The build quality would of course be the biggest concern, if they didn’t do the weatherproofing and water management right there would be water seepage and a high likelihood of a roof leak that would be horrendous to address.
Getting permitted may be about impossible, but there’s a lot going on here. On a creek, near a lake, not too far outside a major city, I dig it. And 5 acres is nothing to sneeze at. I’ve got half that in Florida Swamp and still haven’t explored it all after 4 years.
5 acres for 245K between Seattle and Portland is nothing to sneeze at
Rainier is decently off the I-5 corridor, but it actually has some of the best potential in the region if the county-state-country ever got back into rail transit.
This is the kind of place I want. Mostly underground. Like a Hobbit hole.
Deja vu! I legitimately looked at this listing (not in person). I think it’s neat but we don’t have the time or money for all of the problems of an unofficial unpermitted unfinished prepper pad of unknown quality.
Zero percent chance any of it, at the very least the septic, could be permitted after the fact. It is nice Bo is at least disclosing it has an unpermitted on-site septic system, but a bootleg OSS is more expensive than no OSS at all.
Source: used to work for the county where this site is located.
It’s a house for elves. Don’t you think?
A home for Hobbits
My dream home
You do you BB but it makes me itchy to look at.
