UNDERGROUND LIVING NOT JUST FOR RABBITS

A workman from a St. Louis company uses a large hose to spray concrete onto the form of the domed earth-sheltered home. The spraying technique is called "shotcreting."

A curved wall inside the Huttons' future home shows several of the horizontal I-beams that converge at a compression ring in the ceiling. The home is virtually tornado and earthquake proof.

Walter and Shirley Hutton study blueprints of their earth-covered home. The blueprints, along with steel beams, are part of an earth-home kit they purchased from a Colorado company.

"Once inside you forget you're underground, and it's a conventional home -- except for curved walls," said Shirley Hutton, happily.

Hutton and her husband, Walter, are fulfilling a dream they first had 25 years ago -- they're building an earth-sheltered home.

Construction of the two-story, 2,700-square-foot domed home began in May, and the Huttons hope to move in by Easter.

"It's going to be an earth-sheltered home, not an earth-berm home, but one completely covered with earth -- about 2 feet of it," Walter Hutton quickly points out. "It's extremely earthquake proof and probably earthquake proof. It's well engineered."

Shirley Hutton, who was born in northern Missouri, and Walter Hutton, who hails from central Canada --"I'm an alien but a legal one." -- moved to Jackson in 1956.

An osteopathic physician with an office in his home for many years, Walter Hutton reduced his workload in 1989, and the Huttons sold their home in 1993 and moved into a mobile home on 98 acres in Oak Ridge.

Their mobile home is close to where their new home is being built.

"We first became interested in earthen homes about 25 years ago," said Walter Hutton, adding their interest in them was sparked from articles in "Mother Earth News."

The home the Huttons are building is a patented "kit" from a company in Durango, Colo. Called Earth Systems, the company sent the Huttons blueprints, steel beams, rebar and other materials.

The beams, called I-beams, are curved and they connect to compression rings to form domes. The compression rings are designed to "float" on the beams.

Initial construction on the home was done by two Jackson area residents. Last week a St. Louis firm spent two days "shooting" concrete onto the metal frame. About 90 to 100 cubic yards of "shotcrete," also called "gunnite," was applied via a large hose.

Walter Hutton says the concrete will cure for about a month, "then we'll put on a waterproofing for a seal, then an insulation, then the earth."

The concrete is about 4 inches thick except for around the foundation and a few places on the roof.

Hutton says the home will be quite impervious to destruction: "The company put a test home in an area in New Mexico where they were doing atomic blasts.

"On the seismic graph (Richter scale) the blasts would be over a 7. And there was no damage to the house after the bombs went off."

Water and electric lines have been installed, as has a chimney for a wood-burning stove. There will also be baseboard heat.

The home faces south and the Huttons believe the temperature inside will naturally hover between 60 and 65 degrees.

A central dehumidifier and numerous ceiling fans will be installed.

There will be three bedrooms and three bathrooms, a kitchen, a living room, a study, a utility room and two storage areas.

All the rooms will have curved walls. The kitchen area, says Shirley Hutton "is the only square, conventional area I can find."

On the front there will be windows to allow sunlight into two ground level bedrooms and glass patio doors will do the same for the second-story rooms.

"We've got an innovative thing called a sun tube," said Walter Hutton. "It goes through the ceiling and its inside is highly polished aluminum. It brings natural light into the living room and kitchen."

The Huttons say they expect to use a lot of rugs and carpet, and there will be tile in the kitchen and bathrooms. The walls will be plastered.

What do friends and relatives think of the Huttons' "unconventional" home?

"The first thing they say is that it's different," said Shirley Hutton, smiling. "Then they say they think it's going to be neat. And then they say they want to see it when it's finished.

"We've been inside finished ones in New Mexico and Arizona and once inside you forget you're underground."