Additional Information

Have you checked lumber prices lately? A while back lumber prices took a tremendous increase, and now they are doing it again. Today a medium priced conventional home will cost around $150.00 per square foot finished. Even more in some areas of the country. In the next few years the lumber prices will be so high that you will not be able to afford to build with wood. As lumber prices go up, so does concrete, but it has not gone up as much as lumber has so far. Our home has so many advantages that it is hard to name them all. The biggest advantage is perhaps the energy efficiency. Our homes will never drop below +50 to +55 degrees F in mid-winter with absolutely no heat other than the passive solar and the natural heat from the ground. Therefore, you can simply turn everything off, including your heating system, and take a mid-winter vacation and never worry about frozen pipes or anything of that nature. Nothing in the home will ever freeze, even without the heating system being on. Perhaps you read just recently that fuel prices took an enormous jump over last year’s prices. Natural gas went up 23%, propane (LP) 67% and fuel oil 34%. With energy costs going up at that rate, it will not be long until earth sheltered will be the only type of home that people will build. At that time prices will skyrocket because of the supply and demand, and there will be many homes built by builders that do not have the technology that we have developed over the past 35 years, and therefore, some of the homes will end up being a disaster. Don't wait for that to happen to you. Take a close look at our offer today. We are offering you an opportunity to do so at no cost or obligation. Just a few more advantages are the fact that you are safe from tornadoes, storms, lightning and fire. The home is extremely quiet. You will not be able to hear a thunder storm or an airplane going over or a train going by. It is almost impossible for bugs or dust to get into your home because it is so tight. You may also install a bank vault in your home and keep your valuables safe from crooks and relatives. We do not build conventional nor earth bermed homes, only earth sheltered. By doing that we can offer you a home that is virtually maintenance-free. If you use clad windows and doors and stone, stucco or brick the exterior, you should have little or no maintenance on the home for a lifetime or so. It really makes very little sense to berm up two or three sides of a home and then use a conventional roof. You will lose a great deal of your heat through the roof, it is subject to repair and replacement, a tornado can remove the roof and a fire can damage the entire home with a conventional roof. You can not see through the roof so why not go with a completely safe earth sheltered structure instead??? Earth Sheltered Technology, Inc. has won national design and building awards over the past years, and was featured in a national magazine four years in a row. We are very happy with the fact that our homes are doing just as we advertise. Join our happy family!! If you were to compare out earth sheltered home and a conventional home of the same cost and same length of mortgage you would be very surprised at the results. For that purpose let's compare our earth sheltered home and a conventional home both costing $100,000.00 with both having the same monthly payment and both with a 30 year loan at 9% interest. On the conventional home you will pay for the full 30 years. If you take the energy savings that you would got from our earth sheltered home over the conventional home and apply that to the principal of the loan, our earth sheltered home would be paid off in 19 years and two months. If you continued to take the normal payment and the energy savings and place it in a savings account at 6% interest, at the end of the 30 year period the conventional home would be paid for, however the earth sheltered home would have long been paid for and you would have almost $200,000.00 in the bank just from the interest and energy savings by building one of our earth sheltered homes. Toward the end of introduction to our homes, you will be shown another way to pay for your home even faster than above. Our home is designed with a cathedral coiling in each module. It is constructed with a true domed ceiling. It is nearly impossible to describe in writing or even to take a picture that will show exactly what the dome is like. It is not a barrel type configuration. Each module has four straight up and down sidewalls the same as in a conventional home. At the 8’ level it starts to dome up from all four directions so if you were standing in the center of a 28’ X 28’ module (inside dimensions), it is 13 1/2 feet to the apex of the dome. On a 24’ x 24’ module (inside dimensions), it is 12 feet to the apex of the dome. No bearing walls are needed inside of the modules. The only walls used are dividing or privacy walls for bedrooms, baths etc. In the event that you can not fit everything into the module sizes, you can add space by extending the overhang from 4’ to 8’ or 12’, or you may add a flat roofed section of a maximum of 15’ 4" wide (by any length desired) to the front, rear, beside or in between the modules. By going no more than 15’ 8" in width we can place as much fill on top of the flat roof as we can on a dome. Unless you have a very good perception of our system, it may be very well for you to visit one of our homes. This is excellent for someone who has the impression that our homes are dark, damp and dreary inside. We have found it especially helpful for the ladies who are concerned about living in a home with earth over the top. They are totally surprised at the amount of light in the home. Our homes are actually lighter inside than a conventional home because the light bounces in the dome and actually illuminates it, whereas a conventional flat ceiling has a shadow over the entire ceiling. We have a list of homes that are available to be toured. If we do not have one in your immediate area, and you must travel a distance to see one, you may keep track of your mileage or air-fare and if you decide to build a home with us we will reimburse you for the travel expense. Every home that we build is custom designed and custom built, so if you have a floor plan that you like, or if you want to send us a rough draft (it can be very rough), we will take your draft and scale it out to ¼" scale. Every plan that we produce is designed to meet all federal, state and local codes. Our structure is sealed by 5 different structural engineers, and we are to our knowledge, the only earth sheltered home builder that will give you a written warranty against leakage. When the preliminary plans are finished, we will send you two copies and a firm cost on the basic structure and a cost estimate on the finished cost, and that will be done at no cost or obligation. When you receive the preliminary plans if you find that you would like some changes made, simply mark up one copy and return it to us for making the corrections. We will correct the plans and send you back copies again at no cost or obligation. Once you have decided that the plan is the way that you would like your home built, we will do a complete set of architectural plans for a fee of $750.00 to $1000.00 depending an the size of the structure. If you were to go to an architect it would cost you between $2500.00 and $7500.00 or more for the plans, again depending on the size of the home. Structurally Earth Sheltered Technology's home will hold up to 20 times as much weight on top as a flat roofed structure. In our photo gallery you will note that we show a Steiger. (center-pivot) tractor with a Carry-All behind it and two crawler tractors parked on top of our home plus all of the earth used to cover the structure. It is virtually impossible to damage our structure. In the past, some individuals and some contractors, with no knowledge of earth sheltering, have tried to build this type of structure and have made a real mess of it. It takes years of experience and trial and error in order to turn out an earth sheltered home that will give you the energy efficiency and all of the other amenities that you should get with this type of a home. We are to that point!! Do not try to build your own or go with someone that says they can do it, unless they have something to show you that proves that they have turned out a home that you would be happy to pay for and proud to live in. If you were to ask a realtor for his opinion, in almost every case you will get a negative answer, because he or she does not have one to sell to you. Unfortunately we can not tell you how well they resell because in 35 years, we have only had two that re-sold and they were sold immediately. Most of our homeowners indicate that they plan to live in their homes for the rest of their lives. There is no doubt whatsoever that an earth sheltered home is the home of the very near future. With the cost of energy ever increasing, it will someday be impossible to sell a conventional home because of the energy and maintenance costs. If you are thinking about building a home in the near future, it will pay you to look at our plans, visit a home, and build one of our homes that will pay for itself, while the costs are no more than, and usually less than a medium priced conventional home. Earlier we indicated that you could pay for your home even sooner than the 19 years and two months as previously stated. We have a unique plan that many of our present home owners are using to make additional monies. Some have agreed to show their homes to our prospective clients. In those cases, the client must call you and set up an appointment. Once the home is shown you are sent a fee of $20.00. In the event that the party builds a home with us, you are then sent an additional $200.00. If you find a prospect that is not on our prospect list, and you notify us at the office (using out toll-free number), and we sell them a home, you then receive a fee of $500.00. Beyond that if you really want to become an active part of our sales and marketing staff, you can become a part-time or full-time sales person for us. That entails very little, as we do not push our sales people. We allow you to work as little or as much as you desire depending on how much money you would like to make. We have found that man and wife teams work out very well also. If you own one of our homes, you will find that the home will actually almost sell itself. We will explain that more in detail if you are interested. When your children, grand-children and, great-grand children inherit your earth sheltered home and find it in as good as condition as when you built it, it will be a monument to your intelligent forethought. What better could you leave as your legacy!!!