Several have commented on the previous post (both in the comments and privately by email) that I’m unduly harsh and don’t leave a way of escape. That isn’t true, but that doesn’t mean that it’s easy. In this post I’ll discuss solutions to the problem of rampant, institutionalized adultery within the church.

Keep in mind that the source of much of the problem here is the idolatry of Christians refusing to acknowledge that marriage belongs to God. By ceding the authority over marriage to the State and refusing to teach sound doctrine the church has brought this upon itself.

Let’s say a guy’s wife separates from him, runs to the state and some judge issues a “Dissolution of Marriage” document under the no-fault divorce laws. Her offended husband doesn’t want to be sentenced to sexual starvation and looks for another wife. What’s really going on?

#1, The so-called divorce is illegitimate and she’s still married to her husband although (contrary to the command in 1st Cor. 7:10-11) separated from him.

#2, If she finds another guy to purportedly marry (in further violation of the command of 1st Cor. 7:10-11) they won’t actually be getting married- a married woman cannot marry another man because she already has a husband. If she does so she isn’t really married to him, they’re simply shacked up in adultery.

#3, Given that two married believers are forbidden to divorce, any such “divorces” are illegitimate and God won’t accept them (c.f. Matthew 5:32-33), so when the husband starts looking within the church for another wife, he has to exclude just about every so-called “Christian” divorcee from consideration.

#4, Any divorce initiated by a wife before she came to the Lord is automatically illegitimate because women don’t have the authority to divorce their husbands (except for the Christian woman who’s unbelieving husband left her, 1st Cor 7:15). This further reduces the number of women eligible to re-marry.

#5, Any divorce initiated by an unbelieving husband for reasons other than the unfaithfulness of his wife is illegitimate and God will not accept it. Likewise, any divorce initiated by a Christian man (except for the aforementioned exception in 1st Cor. 7:15) is also illegitimate regardless of whether his wife was unfaithful or not.

#6, Points 3-5 indicate the number of legitimately divorced “Christian” women who are actually eligible to remarry is remarkably small. So small, in fact, as to be non-existent. It also means that the prohibition of the wife returning to her first husband in Deuteronomy 24:4 does not apply, because that prohibition only applies if the divorce was legitimate.

#7, This leaves the offended husband with a choice between widows (not many, although it doesn’t matter if they have children or not), never-married women without children (usually damaged with unrealistic feminist expectations) and so-called “single-mothers.” It also leaves all those illegitimately divorced wives with the option of returning to their husband (the guy they’re still married to) and according to 1st Peter 3:7 he doesn’t have the option (as a Christian) of refusing reconciliation.

#8, Even in the cases in which the offended husband can find an eligible woman to take as a second wife, he defrauds her by claiming to be divorced (the implication is that the divorce is legitimate) and not explaining that his first wife is separated from him and IF she wants to come home she will be welcomed and he expects her (the 2nd wife) to stand there with him with a smile on her face to welcome the first wife home because at that point he’d have 2 wives.

#9, This leaves the offended husband in a rather bad position because there are very few women he’d want to marry who are eligible to re-marry and culturally these women reject the idea of anything other than monogamy.

#10, As we go down the list I’ve just enumerated, at some point both Christian men and women reject it out of hand. I didn’t make this stuff up, I’m just the guy that’s pointing out what God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ require of men and women, but there’s a whole lot of of so-called Christians who can’t accept what the Bible actually says. Their usual line of defense is “I don’t agree with that interpretation” but such arguments are childishly easy to destroy if one actually knows what the Bible says.

What does all that mean? There’s a whole lot of adultery going on out there. If the believing wife who separated herself from her husband violates her instruction and shacks up with another man she’s committing adultery and as a Christian she has an obligation to her Lord to stop sinning. If the man she purported to marry as a “second husband” is a Christian he is under the same obligation to stop sinning by removing himself from the adulterous situation.

The refusal to do so by either or both parties automatically calls into question whether they’re even Christians and 1st John 2:3-6 applies but does not alleviate the sin, because adultery is a sin whether one is a Christian or not.

This brings us back to my point of my last post, that the Christian men are hypocrites for calling the women out on their sin but in the hardness of their hearts refuse to do what they were commanded to do; which is forgive, be reconciled to and restore their wife if she, in humble repentance, returns to him and desires reconciliation.

Solutions: I gave some hints, but I’ll spell it out. This is the solution for the wife who separated herself, has repented and wants a husband again without being in sin.

If the Christian wife who wrongly separated herself from her Christian husband realizes her sin and repents of her sin, she is to go to her husband asking to be reconciled to him. 1st Peter 3:7 is a command, stating “husbands, LIVE WITH YOUR WIVES” and as a Christian he doesn’t have a choice.

If the offended husband refuses to accept and be reconciled to her she is to give him time to think about it, then return with witnesses and confront him again. If he still refuses to repent of what is now his sin, she is to take it before the elders of the church. Under the authority of 1st Corinthians 5 and under the standard of 1st John 2:3-6, the church should give him the opportunity to make his case (he won’t, but I’m describing an ecclesiastical court) and if he refuses to repent should excommunicate him.

With such a judgment made, regardless of her sin (which she has repented of) he is now the unbeliever who left her, 1st Cor. 7:15 applies and she’s free to legitimately remarry. She should reflect on all the things she did wrong in her first marriage and try to solve those problems (entitlement attitude, rebellion against his authority, refusal to honor him and be submissive in everything, major weight gain, etc.) BEFORE thinking about being courted by and agreeing to marry another man.

Given the serious shortage of attractive high-value men within the church willing to marry a divorced woman (especially a divorced woman with children), the woman would be better off if she partnered together with one or two other Christian women who were eligible to marry with an agreement to offer themselves as a “package deal” in a polygynous marriage. Sounds crazy? Perhaps, but look at what’s available in terms of high-value men and what they’d want in order to agree to marry. I wrote an entire series of novels that started off with a group of three women doing just that. The research I did in writing those books really opened my eyes.

In such a situation the women (who had better all be Christians with a serious desire to be obedient to the Word in terms of submitting to their husband in everything) would be offering a package deal that provides the following to the man of their choice (if he’s willing to take the offer):

This is not to say that restrictions could not be placed on the offer. If all the women are in agreement there are things that would truly offend their conscience and they believe such things should not be done, such things can be placed as restrictions the man must agree to in order to marry them. One restriction might be “No X-rated photos or videos and don’t ever do it in secret for any reason.” For health reasons they may decide on a restriction of “No anal intercourse.” It’s all negotiable and he can either agree or not as he chooses, but we’re talking about things God placed no prohibition on, so this should be very carefully considered before making a list of all the things the wives would refuse to do.

Some women can handle that but most can’t and the question becomes why they can’t. The masculine Christian men willing to truly husband their wives are few and far between. Why a woman would settle for a much lesser man is beyond me, but perhaps that’s because such a man isn’t willing to settle for what now passes for “Christian” women. In other words, if a woman wants it all she has to be willing to give it all. They draw a line, unwilling to totally surrender and thus rob themselves of what they might have had because they don’t trust God.

Prior to looking for another wife, he really should do everything possible to maximize his SMV with a focus on his attractiveness, game and earning potential. Hit the gym, lose the gut, learn game, maximize income, develop a life that a woman wants to be a part of, etc., etc., etc. You’ve heard it all before, just do it.

If the illegitimately divorced husband can find another woman to marry (he is entitled to take more than one wife) and is stupid enough to try monogamy after being burned the first time he MUST explain the situation to her. If she can accept that, great.

Ideally he should seek out several women to marry in a polygynous marriage (far better than a monogamous marriage in this legal environment) because if he can swing that, explaining point #2 is nothing more than the same sauce applied to the first wife. I’ll repeat the point that in marrying wife #2 the husband will have two wives- not a wife and an ex. If you don’t like it, take it up with God. This is a win-win situation for the husband whether he wants wife #1 back or not. If he does want her back and she’s willing, great. If she’s not, he’s still getting his needs met and he can continue to pray for her. If he doesn’t want her back, well, keep reading.

He should explain to wife #2 (and #3, #4, whatever) that after they’re married they will visit the separated wife and invite her to be reconciled to her husband (clearly explain the door is always open to her if she wants to return) BUT now that there’s more than one wife, things will definitely be different. For one thing, disobedience, disrespect, dishonor and fighting between the wives will not be tolerated and they will be disciplined, if necessary, for engaging in such behavior. Further, group sexy-time with all wives present will be mandatory at some frequency or another. A PDA on the part of wife #2 toward wife #1 after that’s explained will probably totally creep her out. In the case of multiple wives, a few PDA’s between wives (while smiling at wife #1) is probably all it would take. The door is open but the emotional price is high, so the only question is whether she’d be willing to throw her pride on the altar and submit. Most likely the answer is not only no, but HELL NO!

If she’s “married” to another man she’s pretty much guaranteed to reject this completely, but regardless, in explaining she has a right of return the husband will have met his obligations and not have defrauded his other wife/wives. Remember, Deuteronomy 24:4 does not apply in this situation because she was not legitimately divorced. If she is convicted of her sin and repents (which will probably depend greatly on how dissatisfied she is with her current “marriage”), a sister in Christ has been saved from her sin. If not, that’s between her and the Lord but the husband will have done his duty.

If points 2-4 are followed, it pretty much guarantees the 1st wife will never come back under any circumstances. If she does, it also pretty much guarantees she’s seriously in repentance and willing to be obedient. However, if she’s not willing to end the adultery, 1st John 2:3-6 applies and the husband has the option of taking it before the elders, the end result being that she is the unbelieving spouse that left him and he is free. The big question of whether she’s actually a Christian will be settled by her willingness to be obedient.

Dalrock’s blog has been at the forefront of exposing women’s refusal to obey the clear commands of Scripture and pointing out that, as a rule, their rebellion is because they don’t like what God had to say. Unfortunately, and I say this as constructive criticism, there is a similar condition for the men in that certain points the Bible contains are not discussed because they are profoundly uncomfortable for the men.

In fact, Christian men refuse to accept the standards of behavior the Bible requires of them for the very same reasons the women rebel against God’s Word. Plenty of Christian men in the manosphere will probably take issue with that, but it’s true. In fact, these same men will reject what I’m saying for the same reasons the women reject what God has to say- it’s just too uncomfortable.

I married a very attractive, conservative Christian woman 10 years my junior who was still attractive and still enjoyed having sex on a daily basis after giving birth to more than 6 children. Judging from the commentary in the Manosphere that makes me an extreme outlier in the marital sex sweepstakes. Yet, she drank the feminist kool-aid and decided after 17 years of marriage that she was missing something that must involve another man’s penis… so she took me to court and destroyed our family. Yes, what she did was completely immoral but at that time I didn’t know what was happening and I’m convinced that if I’d understood then what I know now I’d probably still be happily married.

According to the Bible, she had no authority to divorce me (no woman has that authority) and God won’t recognize or accept an illegitimate divorce (c.f. Matthew 5:32-33 the woman could only commit adultery if she was still married, but if it had been a legitimate divorce she would no longer be married and thus couldn’t commit adultery). So, lawfully we’re still married and 1st Corinthians 7:10-11 applies to her. Just as she had no authority to “divorce” me, much less any reason to do so other than her NPD fueled EPL fantasies, she has no authority to “remarry” another man (a married woman cannot lawfully marry another man)… not that any man she’d be attracted to would have her at this point.

To continue the narrative, we get into areas that become progressively more uncomfortable to men, particularly Christians, because what the Bible says doesn’t agree with what the churches have taught for well over 500 years. The problem here is there are two sides to the ledger: Authority and Responsibility. My wife doesn’t get to sentence me to celibacy because men have the authority to take more than one wife and if they choose to do so God provided His rules for such marriages in His Law. God does not regulate sin. I recently told some friends that I’d never do monogamy again, and it’s true: even if I married another woman in a monogamish type marriage (which I’d never do), I’d still have two wives and if #1 ever wanted to come home I wouldn’t have a choice in the matter (c.f. 1st Peter 3:7: “Husbands *live* with your wives”). Yes, I’d expect #2 and #3 to be standing at the door with smiles on their faces to greet #1 and welcome her home.

The major point that makes Christian men and women extremely uncomfortable is the headship doctrine. “Wives, submit to your own husbands as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church. As the church is in submission to Christ, so also is the wife to submit to her husband in everything.” That is a massive disconnect for women who can’t stand the idea that they are to be in submission to a man, but it gets worse.

The relationship between Christ and His church is a master-servant relationship, so therefore the relationship between husband and wife is a special form of master and servant relationship. That alone is enough to cause the white knights to come out of the woodwork, pointing and shrieking. The point is further made in 1st Peter 3:1 that wives are to submit to their husbands, in silence, even if their husbands are disobedient to the Word. Is adultery disobedience to the Word? Of course. And the wives were commanded to do what, if their husbands are disobedient to the Word by committing adultery? Submit, in silence. Not only the women but also the men go ballistic over that, but it gets better. The first part of 1st Peter 3:1 says “Therefore” or “In the same way” which is a direct reference back to 1st Peter, chapter 2, the instruction to masters and servants. Read it and understand that it applies to the wives as well.

Christian wives claim that they want their husbands to love them as Christ loves the Church and this is one area in which the wives have a valid complaint although it’s based on ignorance. How does Christ present His church as spotless and blameless in the day of accounting? Revelation 3:19 is one specific part of that, He hold’s His church accountable: “Those whom I love I reprove and chasten; be zealous therefore and repent.” A reproof is verbal, chastening is done with a rod. It’s right there in one of those areas of Scripture that’s studiously ignored, because to mention it is to evoke screams of outrage from both men and women.

However, there is yet another side to loving the wife as Christ loves the church that is mocked and ridiculed, as evidenced by the comments in many threads on Dalrock’s blog as well as other Christian manosphere blogs. The problem is while men can legitimately claim that the women are in rebellion and using the police power of the state to abuse men, the men are also in rebellion because Christian men are completely uncomfortable with just how far their grant of authority goes and the responsibility such authority likewise entails. It literally scares Christian men to death.

I recently got into one of these discussions and after destroying one argument after another my opponent was finally reduced to saying this:

My response was simple: Romans 4:15 and Romans 5:13 are clear- if God did not prohibit something in His Law, it isn’t Sin. That isn’t to say it isn’t sin for a particular person (“whatever is not from faith is sin” and “to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin”), but those are personal issues between the individual and the Holy Spirit and the brother is NOT to be judged over such issues (Romans 14:4). To say that an Apostle in the New Testament “changed” the Law is incorrect because that would have them in violation of Deuteronomy 4:2 and 12:32“You shall not add to the word I am commanding you, nor take away from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you” and “Whatever I command you, you shall be careful to do; you shall not add to nor take away from it.”

Yeah, I know, lots of people have problems with that and I take massive amounts of flack for pointing out that a man can have more than one wife and even more flack when I point out just where that can lead.

My opponents’ answer exemplifies the attitude of both feminist women and feminized men, who are so indoctrinated in the ethos of our modern-day culture that issues like God’s ordained authority structure (the headship doctrine) and the responsibility of the one God has placed in authority to hold those under his authority accountable are not allowed to be discussed for fear of the point and shriek response by feminists and their gamma SJW churchian white knight defenders. They ignore the fact God requires husbands to hold their wives accountable and seek to find some Biblical justification to claim it’s a sin. At the same time, the aggrieved men who have been run through the divorce mill, had their families destroyed, been subjected to betrayal trauma, gas-lighting, passive aggressive behavior and worse are in their own way rejecting what the Bible has to say about how to deal with their wives.

I can understand Dalrock’s reticence and unwillingness to allow discussion of such things (I’m guessing) for fear of being painted as an extremist. I am well aware (probably more so than most) that the legal climate in which we live presents Christian men with the choice of either obeying God or man because of the laws that criminalize what Christians are ordered to do. Yet, we also have God’s Word:

Jesus said to “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesars’ and render unto God the things that belong to God.” Marriage belongs to God because it was created by God, marriage is a covenant relationship to which God is a party, God provided His rules for marriage and Scripture says God takes an active part in the marriage (God opens and closes the womb, children are a gift from God). The problem is this gets very uncomfortable very fast.

The subject of one of Dalrock’s recent posts, Constance, said this:

She may call it a “mutual” divorce, but odds are she’s the one who pushed the issue, she’s the one who filed and her husband went along with what was obviously a done deal. Reference is made to the woman writing the frivolousdivorce blog to emphasize the point Constance was responding to:

If both Constance and her husband are Christians, there is a major problem with her situation and it’s sure to make most Christian men extremely uncomfortable. The point is Constance clearly violated a command from the Lord when she separated herself from her husband and she was further commanded to either remain single or be reconciled to her husband (1st Corinthians 7:10-11), but this is where the men rebel. The Word says “husband,” not “ex-husband” because she’s still married. Her husband was commanded in 1st Peter 3:7 to live with his wife and in Ephesians 5:25 to love his “wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her; that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the Word.”

But look at the responses of the men. It’s as if nobody ever heard of the book of Hosea. Yes, the husbands were placed in absolute authority over their wives (who are to submit… in everything), but with that authority comes responsibility and forgiveness isn’t optional if the wife returns, confesses her sin and in repentance seeks reconciliation. Yes, he can demand she toe the line (scripturally speaking) as a condition of reconciliation, but if she’s willing to be obedient he’s stuck with her.

Why do you think the disciples said to Jesus in Matthew 19:10 “The disciples said to Him, ‘If the relationship of the man with his wife is like this, it is better not to marry.’” They understood that Jesus was saying that if you marry her you’re stuck with her. I have no desire to ever have my wife back in my life after what she’s done, but God willing, if she ever made the decision to seriously seek reconciliation I must trust that God will give me the grace to embrace her again (along with the extra 140+ pounds of lard she’s put on- excuse me while I vomit). I’ve read lots of horror stories of divorce, but I must say that I have to be in the top 5% of acrimonious divorces. This woman is STILL trying to put me in jail and refuses to allow me to see my children (the judge gives her anything she wants).

You say the husband married another woman? So what- like that’s an excuse? No, he now has two wives and an obligation to provide both of them with equal food, housing, clothing and conjugal rights (Exodus 21:10). That isn’t a polite suggestion. You might say “that’s illegal!” but you’d be wrong because it isn’t (see Brown v. Buhman, which struck down Utah’s prohibition on polygyny). Many people claim it’s a sin, but that disagrees with Scripture: Romans 4:15 says “Where there is no law there is no transgression” and Romans 5:13 says “where there is no law there is no sin imputed.” Not only is there no law prohibiting polygyny, but rather exactly the opposite: God regulated polygyny in the Law in the same way He regulated farming. God does not regulate sin, He prohibits and condemns it. In fact, look at Jeremiah 31:31-32, where God said He was married to both Israel and Judah. To claim having more than one wife is wrong is to claim God did something wrong… Christian, you probably don’t want to go there.

The point is simple: Women have some real problems with Scripture and what God says, as do men. However, there is a difference: Men were placed in authority over women, not women over men (1st Timothy 2:12-15). With authority comes responsibility and it is just as wrong for men to avoid the uncomfortable passages of Scripture that point to the extent of their authority over women and the corresponding responsibility men have been given for them as fathers and husbands as it is for women to avoid the uncomfortable passages of Scripture that point to the extent of the authority men have been given over them.

Yes, she divorce-raped you, took half your stuff, stole the kids, alienated them from you, screwed them up to the point they now have behavioral problems, got used as a cum dumpster by multiple men… but now she’s finally realized what a fool she was and is repentant. She wants to have her husband back. You married her, you have an obligation as a Christian to take her back.

Yes, you’re stuck with her. After all, you made a VOW to God, who will require that you keep it (Read Numbers 30).

Yes, I know, it doesn’t seem fair. The fact remains that Ephesians 5:22-24 is very clear. In commanding women to submit to their husbands in everything, the corollary is the husband has responsibility for his wife in everything. Look at Numbers 30, the law of vows. Just as wives will not be able to escape judgment by claiming she was legally entitled to divorce her husband for any reason or even no reason at all, so too the men will not escape judgment for refusing to hold their wives accountable because holding a wife accountable is now criminalized. Neither will they be held harmless for refusing to forgive and *restore* their wife if she is convicted of her sin, confesses it and seeks reconciliation in repentance.

There are solutions to these problems but to refuse to discuss such issues because they are uncomfortable for men and upsetting to women and their gamma white knights is not the answer. The situation we’re presented with is extremely complicated, but King Josiah faced the same situation. What did he do?

If you’ve made it this far, I’ll give you guys some relief. There’s a fairly simple way to ensure she’s serious about repentance and submission, but wife #2 had better be on board for it as well. In fact, part of the problem is men refuse to recognize the wife of their youth is in sin and still a wife, regardless of what some family court judge says. They refuse to acknowledge that and explain to their second wife that as far as God is concerned they’re still married to wife #1. In doing so they defraud their second wife. However, I’d guess that over 90% of the so-called “Christian” wives who divorced their husbands are unwilling to accept the following:

That separates the wheat from the chaff.

Expanding a bit from my previous post about growing ginseng, I’ll talk a bit about building an underground house. The correct term is actually an “earth sheltered home” but most folks would call it an underground house. Underground homes can be extremely expensive to build and all you have to do is hire an architect who doesn’t know anything about it. He’ll consult with a civil engineer and you’ll wind up with something that looks like it was designed by the department of defense with a comparable price tag. Fortunately, there’s an easier and much less costly way to do it, using what’s known as “off the shelf” technology.

The basic building block is the ubiquitous shipping container.

These things were made to hold about 30 tons of whatever needs to be shipped and fully loaded, stacked 8 high on ships to be transported around the world. Truthfully, these things changed the way global trade works. Ships come into port fully loaded and spend less than 24 hours getting unloaded and reloaded. It’s amazing.

The first thing to notice is these things are made of steel. Steel can be cut and welded. In the picture above, the containers are hooked together, but when they get welded together they are a really strong single unit. In fact, they’re ideal for building an underground house because the weight of four or five feet of dirt on top is nothing compared to what they were designed to hold.

A second critical piece of building material is the bridge panel. These are lengths of prestressed reinforced concrete that engineers build bridges out of (among other things).

Let’s start with the design of a 1900 square foot home made from six 40-foot “high cube” shipping containers. A normal 40-foot shipping container has outside dimensions of 8’x8’x40′ which means a ceiling of a bit over seven feet on the inside. The high-cube containers have exterior dimensions of 9’6″x8’x40′ which means about 8′ 10″ for the ceiling height. That’s more in line with standard residential construction.

This home is 48’x40 feet in exterior dimensions, with the bottom facing the south and a wall of windows on the dining and living room and more standard windows for the kitchen. Keep in mind, this is a simple floor plan. The children’s bedrooms could each hold anywhere from 1 to 4 children with lots of room for their stuff. The master bedroom and bath aren’t huge, but what’s the point of designing a home for sybaritic excess if most of your time will be spent working somewhere else? This home can be built for under $60,000 and a 20% down payment is only $12,000. The only problem is finding a lender, because this isn’t “normal” housing and they worry about the resale value if the home has to be foreclosed on and sold.

I believe it’s possible to get a lender to give such a home consideration due to the very low cost to build and the fantastic energy savings, but it just depends on how anal they are. If a bank won’t lend, there are a number of private lenders who can and will lend with a well-written loan proposal. In this case, being able to show the low cost, energy savings and other advantages will go a long way toward convincing them. A reasonable family budget demonstrating that such a home could be easily paid off even working a low-wage job will probably do the trick.

One of the neat things about building this way is the home can be built as modular units, pre-wired and pre-plumbed. If you look at the plan carefully you might be able to tell that the second container from the left is the only one that contains plumbing, with all three bathrooms and the kitchen sink and dishwashers all contained in that container. This makes building the home far simpler to build than a “normal” home, in which one has to wait until the home is under roof before putting in the wiring and plumbing. What this means is the home could quite literally be built over time with a pay-as-you-go approach.

A crane will be required to put the units in place, but an empty shipping container only weighs about 8000 pounds so figure one in which finishing work has been done will weigh no more than 10,000 pounds. That’s only five tons. This means that two containers can be welded together and a crane can still easily lift them to put them in place. If the containers are properly placed on a good support when they’re delivered, fitting them together correctly can be accomplished with 8-ton bottle jacks. Once welded together, the sections that need to be cut out can be removed and finishing work can be accomplished.

In the plan above, notice that almost all the work will be in the left one third of the home. In fact, the middle third and right third are basically just removing and installing walls. Because of the corrugation of the steel walls, running the electrical and water lines is easy to do before putting the drywall on. Quite literally, this is a home that could be semi-finished by a single person in less than a year before being lifted into place and welded together.

If desired, three 20-foot containers could be positioned perpendicular to the home to make a two-car garage with 10’x24′ parking bays. That would add to the cost of the home or it could be added at a later date without any problem, but the point is this could be considered a “starter home” that has a simple design and provides enough room for a growing family for years to come. Five 20-foot containers gives the home a garage, storage area and a private space if it’s desired. Something like this.

That plan has a safe room and an escape tunnel, which isn’t a bad thing to have in our most interesting of times. The nice thing about this is the garage, storage space and safe room will cost out at about $15 per square foot, or an extra $12,000. That extra 320 square feet of storage and safe room space could always be finished out as living space, bringing the home up to 2200 square feet. It’s rather easy to build an escape tunnel out of three-foot steel culvert, but that costs out at about $25 per foot just for the pipe, so 400 feet of escape hatch tunnel will set you back about $10,000. All that together would bring the price of the home to somewhere in the neighborhood of $82,000.

For those preparing for the zombie apocalypse, the ultimate security measure is a couple of precast concrete panels that can be raised quickly to seal off the front of the home. This isn’t nearly as difficult as one might think, because it isn’t that difficult to dig a couple of pits for counter-balance weights. A 24×9 4 inch thick concrete panel only weighs about 10,000 pounds, or five tons. That’s the same as a 4 foot by 4 foot by 4.5 foot block of concrete. A lesser means of security can be had by taking steel panels removed from the interior of the home and crafting them into rolling steel shutters that close off the front of the house on barn door hangers.

One note on safe rooms and escape tunnels. I realize that some readers of this blog might be tempted to do something contrary to the laws of the land with such a hidden room, and might even figure that running banks of metal halide lights would make up for the lack of other electrical usage and not show an inordinate power consumption; and the escape hatch could be used to vent interesting smells out into the woods.

Listen carefully. If the home is hooked to the grid, it will have a smart meter, which will be able to tell what the power is being used for. The only way to defeat this is to run the incoming power through an inverter into a battery bank and back out on the other side. Such a battery bank would provide backup power during power outages and would allow the installation of solar panels or wind generators if wanted. It also makes efficient use of a generator. As with any such endeavor, unless it’s for personal use, the problem isn’t the job, it’s the company you have to keep.

The escape tunnel should always go downhill away from the house to prevent water infiltration. It’s possible to run the first section downhill for 40 to 50 feet to a sump with a drain, before going uphill with it, but God help you if your drain becomes clogged and the tunnel fills with water at the low point when you really need it. Recumbent bicycles and specially built skateboards can travel quickly through such a tunnel. Anyone who ever shows up at your home with evil intent will not have looked at the land registry before coming, so a little creative landscaping can give the appearance that a property line is much closer than it is. For homes on large tracts of land, a hedgerow that defines the yard likewise serves to restrain movement, channel the intruders and keep them focused on a rather small piece of terrain. In more residential settings the escape tunnel could literally go to another building several hundred feet away that appears to belong to someone else.

There is another type of tunnel that’s useful above ground. Plants like Washington Hawthorne, floribunda rose, acacia, osage orange and others all produce lots of sharp thorns and can form an impenetrable hedge. It isn’t unusual to see a treeline overrun with such plants and planting these bushes three to four feet apart and later pulling the tops together so they grow together can leave a hedged in tunnel underneath if care is taken to keep the interior trimmed. This was a favorite of mine as a child, when I took old woven fencing wire and created arbors which were quickly overrun by honeysuckle and wild blackberries. Carefully trimming fields of fire later in the season made these the ultimate deer-hunting blinds. I strongly favor protecting the exit point of your escape hatch with a hedge of protective plants that will prevent anyone from getting close to it.

For those not so inclined to wild scenarios, a simple escape hatch can utilize a short piece of culvert and a ladder that goes straight up, out of the house onto the top. The only problem is if there’s a fire, it creates a wonderful chimney effect to fan the fire. Not that there’s much to burn in an underground home, which is constructed of steel and concrete. Drywall doesn’t burn and one would have to work pretty hard to get the home on fire to the point it did some serious damage. However, the problem with fires is smoke inhalation and even a small fire can kill the occupants.

One of the critical points to an underground house is air flow. There isn’t a lot of room for standard HVAC ductwork, so the solution is to go with a high velocity mini-duct system which uses 3″ tubes instead of standard ductwork. this allows almost inobtrusive ducting that allows a constant flow of air through out the home. Standard homes leak air from the outside all over the house. Underground homes don’t, so care must be taken to keep the air circulating and a supply of fresh air coming in. If the builder installed an escape tunnel, that can be rigged up to bring in fresh (earth temp) air, but a fan is required.

Another critical point to these homes is insulation. Use sprayed on closed-cell urethane foam insulation sprayed on the outside of the house, three to four inches of it. This will ensure there is never any condensation on the ceiling or walls of the house. Failure to do this will result in a home that over time is uninhabitable due to the condensation and resultant mold growth. On the inside, the walls must be covered with drywall or some other wall covering because the steel reflects too much sound. I suppose cloth wall hangings such as tapestries would work as well or even better though, but I’ve noticed that women like things to look “normal” even when they aren’t.

One other critical point is drainage. Build the home into the side of a hill, and I don’t mean at the bottom. When the site is excavated (like any residential construction) the water and sewer lines need to be dug in first. In addition, gravel and perforated pipe needs to be installed to ensure that any water infiltration that makes it under the house is drained away downhill.

One of the big decisions is whether to put the containers on piers or a slab. The slab will be more expensive and has to be completely level, but piers work just as well if not better. As long as the house is level on a solid foundation, it isn’t going anywhere. What is critical is a monolithic foundation that supports the corner pillars of every container. Piers will suffice to support the floor rails. Overhead, a 4 inch reinforced slab will distribute the load and prevent the ceiling from buckling from the weight of the earth, or one can use precast reinforced concrete panels that have the advantage of being pre-stressed. These have the advantage of being trucked in and stored until needed, put into place with a crane and immediately sprayed with foam. With proper preparation one could literally put the modules in the ground, put the roof in place, foam it and have it covered with dirt in a single day.

Back to our simple house plan, a good way to support the overhead load is to have a four-inch gap between the three joined 2-container units and fill the gaps with concrete. Everywhere you see a red line represents a 4 inch concrete support wall, which means no extra reinforcement is necessary on the sides of the containers. The back of the house has corner pillars every eight feet so very little extra reinforcement is necessary there.

Shipping containers were designed to support weight on their corner pillars, not on the roof, so in order to keep the dead load of earth overhead, reinforcement needs to be provided. Concrete is a very cheap way of doing this. In fact, for remote sites renting a large concrete mixer that mixes a yard at a time might be the best alternative to having concrete trucks deliver it. Not as easy, but not nearly as expensive either.

This post wasn’t designed to teach you how to build an underground home, but I did want to make a few points about how they’re constructed and the benefits of living in them. Essentially, with a good supply of water these are comfortable, safe and effective homes with no electricity at all if they’re designed right. Tornado and storm proof, convenient fallout shelters, soundproof and mostly bulletproof, a lot can be done with a house like this.