[Greenbuilding] Earth-berming an existing home

[Kat]

Now that I read your post about the 46 consecutive 100 degree days I'm 
understanding why you're thinking earth-berm instead of just insulation, 
though!  I think I would tear down the wall on one side and around the 
corners and rebuild it as a retaining wall.  Again, insulate it based on 
recommendations from buildingscience.com - either with foam on the 
outside or foam on the inside.

And I suppose.... I suppose if you built a new retaining wall next to 
the outside (per Nick) and you insulated between the brick and the new 
wall that you could eliminate the condensation issue.  And if you 
drained the space between the walls and the space outside the new wall 
using gravel & perf pipe.... maybe that would eliminate the possible 
moisture-from-the-exterior problems.  So maybe you can do it, but it 
makes me nervous.  At some point basements always get wet, in my 
experience.  And if it did get wet you'd be trapping the moisture 
between the brick and the wood.

-Kat

Leslie Moyer wrote:
> Can anyone point me to some information on what would be involved in berming an existing above-grade home?  We have a typical 70's era brick ranch home.  About half of the home has high windows and I'm wondering if it would be possible to haul dirt in and berm up around the sides.  But of course, it wasn't originally built for that.  So I'm wondering what might be involved and what considerations should we take into account?  It's built on a masonry block stem wall with a crawl space that is ventilated right now.  
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> Leslie Moyer
> unschooler at lrec.org
> www.ShadyGroveNaturalFarm.com
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