Thousands of families who have built affordable homes, cash up front, made of earthbags, straw bales, cordwood, cob and rammed tires are not in danger of losing their homes in the current mortgage crisis. And if you include affordable adobe, bamboo and thatch homes built worldwide, over a third of the world’s houses have avoided the mortgage crisis.
In general, the people who build these low cost, alternative homes are often the same people who garden and grow fruit trees, raise small livestock and/or live on farms and, in many cases, utilize renewable energy. This includes many millions of homes with passive solar design, earth-bermed and underground homes, wind and water generators, and photovoltaics. Less obvious, but just as important, are the countless homes who utilize rocket stoves, Lorena stoves, methane digesters, vegetable oil, rice hull stoves or one of the other myriad low cost, sustainable cooking and heating systems.
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