爲逃按揭壓力 英國男子山坡上挖出一個家

Fed up with huge mortgage payments, Simon Dale decided to take matters into his own hands – literally。

Armed with only a chisel, a chainsaw and a hammer, the 32-year-old moved his family to a hillside in Wales and started digging。

The result is a wooden eco-home – constructed in four months and costing just £3,000 – which would look perfectly at ease alongside the Hobbit houses in The Lord Of The Rings。

Mr Dale, who has no experience in carpentry or architecture, created his sustainable family home using scrap wood for floors, materials scavenged from skips and by diverting water from a nearby spring。

And while he was doing the building work, his wife Jasmine Saville and their two toddler children camped in the nearby countryside。

He said: "Being your own have-a-go architect is a lot of fun and allows you to create and enjoy something which is part of yourself and the land rather than, at worst, a mass-produced box designed for maximum profit and the convenience of the construction industry. Building from natural materials does away with producers’ profits and the cocktail of carcinogenic poisons that fill most modern buildings。

The family struck lucky searching for a site for their dream project. In return for looking after the area, the owner of the woods gave them their plot for free。

After digging into the hillside, Mr Dale – with the help of his father-in-law, a builder – first constructed the building’s timber frame。

The roof, which came next, has a layer of straw bales for insulation and is covered with sheets of plastic to make it waterproof. Finally it is covered with a layer of earth, which ensures the house blends perfectly into its surroundings。

Once the outer shell was complete, the family made an interior wall from straw bales stacked on dry-stone walling and staked together with hazel sticks。

Miss Saville, writing on her husband’s website, said: "Some past experience, lots of reading and self-belief gave us the courage of our conviction that we wanted to build our own home in natural surroundings. "

"For us, one choice led to another and each time we took the plunge events conspired to assist us in our mission. There were times of stress and exhaustion, but definitely no regrets ."

As well as being made from sustainable material the Hobbit house, as it is dubbed by locals, has lime plaster on its walls instead of cement, a compost toilet, a fridge cooled by air from beneath the foundations and solar panels for power。

Mr Dale said: "This sort of life is about living in harmony with both the natural world and ourselves, doing things simply and using appropriate levels of technology."

Since building his house, Mr Dale is following the design to construct the first home in the Lammas Village, Wales’s first eco-development。據英國《每日郵報》9月22日報道，英國男子西蒙·戴爾由於厭倦了鉅額的按揭付款，決定親自動手(蓋房子)。

僅用鑿子，電鋸和錘子這些工具，這位32歲的男子舉家搬到了位於威爾士的一個山坡，並開始繼續挖鑿(房子)。

用4個月的時間，耗資僅3000英鎊，他們就建成了一個木製的生態家園，像極了電影《指環王》中霍比特人的房屋。

戴爾先生並沒有木工或建築經驗，卻用廢棄的木頭製作成地板，還用下腳料爲房屋附近流過的泉水改了道。

在他做這些建築工作時，他的妻子詹斯姆·薩維爾和兩個小孩就在附近的鄉下中的帳篷中住着。

他說：“作爲一個自由的建築師有很多樂趣，這能允許你創造和享受這些屬於你自己和這片土地的東西，而不是爲了獲取最大利潤並方便建築業，而大量建造一些“盒子”。用天然材料蓋房子就不會給房產商利潤，也和現代建築特有的致癌物質撇清了關係。

這家人幸運的選好了他們夢想工程的地址，以幫助森林的主人看守這個區域爲交換，主人給他們提供免費的土地。

戴爾先生在山坡上挖好(基礎)後，在作爲建築工人的岳父的幫助下開始建造房屋的框架。

其次是屋頂，用秸稈捆覆蓋，外加塑料板以防水。最後，在建築物上覆蓋了一層泥土，確保其和周邊環境完全融合。

房子的外殼一經完成，這家人用秸稈捆和榛枝製作幹石牆面的內牆。

維爾小姐在她丈夫的網站上說：“一些過去的經驗，大量的閱讀和自我的信念給了我們勇氣和信念去自然環境中建造我們的家。”

“對於我們來說，這一個選擇就決定了下一個選擇，我們齊心協力地冒險去完成我們的決定，免不了會感到壓力和疲憊，但絕對不遺憾。”

它被當地人戲稱爲“霍比特人的房子”，它本身也像可持續性材料建成的霍比特人的房子一樣，因爲它的牆壁是由石灰石膏塗成，而非水泥，廁所是可堆肥的，冰箱風冷來自房基之下和太陽能。

戴爾先生說：“這種生活，使得我們和自然世界和諧共生，把事情變簡單，並使用適當的科技。”

自從房子開建以來，戴爾先生一直想把它設計成威爾士聖彼得村首個生態房屋。