PEORIA MAGAZINE June 2023

S P O T L I G H T

UNDERGROUND EQUILIBRIUM Never too hot, never too cold, it’s always just about right – and that includes the utility bills – in a cave home

BY MARK WELP PHOTOS BY RON JOHNSON

could build a house that uses the temperature of the earth and make it comfortable, it would save on heating and cooling,” said Davis Caves owner Marty Davis. “He was paying $400 a month, which would be $1,000 a month now to heat and cool this rental house.” ‘WE COULD LEAVE THIS HOUSE FOR A FULL WINTER, PROVIDE NO HEAT AND THE TEMPERATURE WOULDN’T DROP BELOW ABOUT 60 DEGREES’ — Roger Wehage So, Andy Davis — Marty’s father, by the way — built a new $15,000 home and covered it in soil. It went viral before viral was a thing. National magazines and television news crews descended on Tazewell County. After so much attention, eventually the family started building earth-sheltered homes, what others called “cave homes.” That first winter, “what the headline said was, ‘Illinois man heats home for $1.29’,” which was the price of “the gas and oil for Dad’s chainsaw to cut wood,” recalled Marty Davis. “He had a Ben

Marty Davis, of Atlanta, Illinois, builds underground and earth-sheltered homes

S ince prehistoric times, people and animals have lived in caves. The dark, damp and sometimes dangerous holes of varying sizes are hardly ideal but can protect you from the elements and predators. You really can’t be picky when carnivores want to make you their next meal! Now imagine purposely living in a cave in 2023. More people are doing it thanks to

a central Illinois family business that began as one man’s way to save on utility bills. The 1970s energy crisis saw gas and heating oil prices double and even triple in the U.S., if you could find those products at all. In 1976, a man named Andy Davis in tiny Armington, Illinois, came up with a solution to part of the problem. “He kind of got the idea that if he

22 JUNE 2023 PEORIA MAGAZINE