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Building Your Own Hobbit Hole
Alien54 writes "Sometimes people go too far in being a fan of a great movie or of a great book. Now you can be the proud owner of a Hobbit Hole. The site offers basic plans, as well as technical resources. For example, one thing you might want to consider in your planning is Large Elliptical Precast Concrete Pipe."
And remember: it's not realistic unless you make the chandelier so low that wizards bump their heads on it.
"Einstein argued that [...] God is not capricious or arbitrary. No such faith comforts the software engineer." ~ Brooks
Might be a tad bit of a problem getting a building permit.
I wasn't aware of anything that constituted a "hillside" in Florida. I thought it was just a sandpile with a swamp at each end.
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
Do not build hobbit holes in large metropolises with pre-existing transit systems. Cohabitation may occur.
"Sometimes people go too far in being a fan of a great movie or of a great book."
Case in point:
"After seeing The Fellowship of the Ring, you have probably fantasized about living in a Hobbit Hole and lazing about in the shade."
Um... not sure how to break this to you, but NO I HAVEN'T.
*shakes head*
Too far gone, this one is.
My other sig is also a
The circular pipe is available in diameters (OD or ID, doesn't state) up to 144 inches. Now, I'm taller than average (6'2") but with a floorspace of, say, 1 ft for plumbing, electrical, and the obligatory Cat5. That would leave 11 ft of height. That would feel like being hobbit size walking around in Bag End.
Now, the other thing to deal with is your local building code. Would they let you live in what is, essentially, sewer pipe?
It would make a pretty cool bomb shelter/computer room.
No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova
Simply by supplying these plans as a package with a Thoreau's Walden, you too can be rid of the biggest smelliest most-hardcore tolkien geeks in your neighborhood. :)
Great. Just what a Geek needs. Something the promotes sunlight deprivation all teh more. *shakes head*
Really though, half of what makes Bag End from the movie so damn kewl was the woodwork and *THAT* isn't cheap. My uncle did it for a living (before going back to school again and becoming a newspaper editor) and the cost of godly woodwork of the Hobbit or Elf is enough to buy another whole house...
Do you know why the road less traveled by is littered with the bones of the unwary?
Build a monolithic dome and cover it with sod. Should work just as well. Monolithic domes are cool.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Malcom Wells wrote seriously about this in the 70's. Check out The Earth-Sheltered House, a real classic.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
My uncle built a rammed earth barn that's half underground and located in a part of the country where the theme music to Deliverance is still on the top 40. He's "off the grid" and lives with his horses like a wild man torn between the Gratefull Dead and his LOTR books.
If his generator powered Mac Classic could see pictures of that hobbit hole he would be on his backhoe tonight, digging pits all over perfectly good hills.
Fear the pot smoking LOTR fanatics.
... someone is reading a logfile and saying "wtf???"
Smart move keeping the site simple - serve it up, IIS!
"Consider yourself a member of a virtual corporation with Mr. Torvalds as your Chief Executive Officer." - Linux Advocac
Those concrete pipes come in sizes up to 144 inches. That would be 12 foot.
I think you'd fit.
The problem I have with the idea is basically you would be designing your home in the likeness of a sewer..
Never trust an atom. They make up everything.
You are definitely right that it's not very practical. Even in the book (The Lord of the Rings) Tolkien mentions that most modern hobbits do not live in holes.
Only the very poor and the very rich hobbits live in holes. The poor hobbits live in holes because they can't afford to build a house, and the rich live in elaborate holes because it is traditional, and because they can afford to make them luxurious.
... anyway, that's what I remember reading. If anyone can confirm that I'm not just pulling this out of my ass, please do. (I can't find it in the book at the moment.)
...when the Internet would have a guide on how to "build" a hole.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
The building codes in most states in the US require a window large enough to be used as a fire escape in EVERY bedroom. This is difficult to do in a berm house. Also, berm houses in general have a problem with moisture condensation on the interior walls, so they're not for people who don't enjoy mold and mildew.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
A hobbit hole! Now THAT would help me woo the ladies!
I do security
Troll?! They aren't supposed to appear until page 32! (Hobbit, Methuen edition) CUT! CUT! Everyone get back in your places please. Ready, camera! Action!
I'd rather have my own dark tower. It impresses the neighbors and strikes fear into the hearts of travelling mormons.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Judging by the Yoda-speak
"Yoda-speak" you can call it, but the technical term is "OSV typology", for "Object Subject Verb".
J.R.R. Tolkien's hobby was building fictional worlds and languages. The Lord of the Rings began as his back-story for a book about Elvish tongues. Some of his languages might have been OSV, but most were SVO like English.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I saw the history channel show about this and I thought it was one of the coolest things I had seen in a long time. But now it's for sale... check it out...
underground fortress
But when a grown adult man daydreams about living in an underground wizard cave instead of about girls, money, and cars, I believe that there is a problem.
I don't doubt he dreams about girls; but some of us need other, more realistic dreams. Cars just aren't everyone's thing. He who truely dreams about money is lost; they get to spend their life in the cold and heartless chase of cash.
I doubt any of us live on grounds that are vast and mountainous enough to actually build one of these holes.
You doubt that any one of the tens of thousands of slashdot readers lives near a hill? Go back to geography class; just because you live in Kansas, doesn't mean we all do.
being a hero and saving everyone from a death by drowning. [...]imagine that you're a sexy, long-haired Mel Gibson.
Because these are such realistic goals. Instead of dreaming we're a hero in the ancient past, let's dream we're a seductive commoner in the recent past (who, IIRC, only saved one person) or a sleazebag who lies, and steals his way to the top and is a complete cad, but it's all right, because he has charisma and is Mel Gibson.
You offer us the sad myths of the modern world instead of the great myths of fantasy. Sorry, not interested. I'll try and take my modern world straight, and let my fantasies go where they may.
The problem I have with the idea is basically you would be designing your home in the likeness of a sewer..
there you go encouraging the teenage mutant ninja turtle demographic.
Some notes: I grew up on a barrier island called Singer Island in a split level house. The hill it was placed on was almost certainly artificial. My bedroom window was about two inches above the ground. On a couple occasions I had very large insects (including two wolf spiders the size of a man's hand) come inside.
That said, I got a book for my birthday, "The $50 and Up Underground House", a very out of print (I think) book written by an old school serious hippie environmentalist. You don't see his type around because he actually practiced what he preached and went off to live in the hills. Very fun and interesting book about how to build a cheap house, basically single handed, that is very good shelter. Lots of 'out of the box' thinking, and highly original (solves all the problems associated with underground houses like drainage and pressure but completely rethinking and reinventing the idea). His houses are built with the entrance facing *up* a hill... but they work for very non intuitive but very common sense reasons. Nifty.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
The way to go is tunnel liner, bolt-together segments used for making tunnels and small underpasses. Diameters to 6 meters are available standard, and to 36 meters by special order. Various cross sections are possible by mixing curved sections of different radii. You can get a nearly flat floor if desired.
Armtec's tunnel liner system isn't particularly good looking inside, but there are nicer ones, such as the ones used in newer Jubilee Line stations of the London Underground. The Tube is a good place to look for ideas on how to use curved underground spaces.
"All Hobbits had originally lived in holes in the ground, or so they believed, and in such dwellings they still felt most at home; but in the course of time they had been obliged to adopt other forms of abode. Actually in the Shire in Bilbo's days it was, as a rule, only the richest and the poorest Hobbits that maintained the old custom. The poorest went on living in burrows of the most primitive kind, mere holes indeed, with only one window or none; while the well-to-do still constructed more luxurious versions of the simple diggings of old. But suitable sites for these large and ramifying tunnels (or smials as they called them) were not everywhere to be found; and in the flats and the low-lying districts the Hobbits, as they multiplied, began to build above ground. Indeed, even in the hilly regions and the older villages, such as Hobbiton or Tuckborough, or in the chief township of the Shire, Michel Delvig on the White Downs, there were now many houses of wood, brick, or stone. These were specially favoured by millers, smiths, ropers, and cartwrights, and others of that sort; for even when they had holes to live in, Hobbits had long been accustomed to build sheds and workshops."
That's from the prologue in the fellowship of the rings.