RustinHWright's Journal: Why don't we earth berm more?

In the theme of the Buckminster Fuller thred now on the front page, I've been wondering for years, why don't we earth berm far more structures than we do? Why did we ever stop? I read a lot of military history and I'm always reading about some campaign or other where soldiers were freezing in tents for months at a time and I always wonder, why the frak didn't they just pile dirt up on the sides? At least for two feet or so? They had the time, they were reliably beset by a wide range of animal pests, and when they weren't freezing, they were dying of heat.

I just don't understand it. It would be, well, dirt cheap to do, requires no special equipment or skills, and as long as the berming stops a bit below the level of the windows, in no way reduces the openness or light levels of the rooms.

I'm hoping that in the next year or two I'll be doing that classic American thing and buying a home. For various reasons I'll probably be buying a typical stick-built piece of crap, probably one built some time between 1930 and 1980, and unless I find some serious reason not to do so by then, I'll bloody well be putting supplementary cob walls over all of my exposed walls as quickly as I have the time to do so. Only ones I won't definitely cover with cob will be the ones enclosed by a greenhouse.

What possible reason, beyond "that's weird" is there not to do this? I've spoken to some few contractors and suchlike and none of them have yet given me any reason I care about not to do it. And, yeah, I'm a strange guy, but I'm not that strange. So if this is so obvious to me, surely somebody out there is doing it already.

Somebody?

Anybody?

And if not, can somebody out there please explain to me, why do we leave our walls bare?

Humans. A difficult species.

-Rustin

What happened after that.

[RustinHWright]

Hi. Haven't gotten around to writing up the rest. Rehab went okay. Taught me a lot about managing to get things done in a system designed for people not at all like us. So, basically, a month in the burn ward, with the first rehab there. Enough that I could walk three or four feet without trouble, thirty or forty if I was doing okay. IOW, enough that I could get to the bathroom by myself pretty much all the time and could (with a wheelchair) make it to my rehab activities most days.

So, then another month i