FAIRBORN, Ohio - Products of the energy crunch in the 1970s, underground homes are worth another look from a new generation.

Because the earth surrounding a building takes on and gives off heat at a slow pace, they can be much cheaper to heat and cool, experts say. Heat taken in during the summer is released in the fall and winter.

Underground homes became a trend as a result of the Arab oil embargo of the early 1970s. Approximately 5,000 to 10,000 earth-bermed or underground houses were built in the United States during that time.

These homes were constructed in two ways.

A truly underground home used earth for all sides, with only the entrance above ground. Earth-bermed homes used earth for several sides and/or the roof, with one side, usually the southern exposure, built using conventional materials.

Cave-like darkness and moisture are the biggest concern people have about earth-bermed houses, said Columbus, Ohio, architect Richard Ohanion, president of Home Sweet Earth Homes. He has been designing earth-bermed and underground homes for more than 25 years.

Ohanion's homes have insulation and waterproof barriers installed between the earth and the concrete, which along with weatherstripping and drainage prevents dampness. Solar atriums can be used to bring the sunshine as well as the heat into the home.

Ohanion was the architect for the home Ruth and Ron Schroeder built during the late 1970s, out of an interest in an alternative energy-conscious lifestyle. Their 2,000-square-foot, three-bedroom home, which sits on five acres outside Fairborn, is earth-bermed on several sides.

When it was originally built, a visitor entering through the front door found himself on a balcony overlooking a room with a 24-foot ceiling - what the Schroeders call the "solar atrium."

The atrium, which is a passive solar collector, rises out of the ground, the top half of the south wall made of 192 square feet of glass greenhouse panels. The windows let in sunlight but keep heat from radiating back out, trapping the sun's warmth. Warm air collects in the upper part of the atrium, and a ceiling fan helps circulate it through the house.

Several years later, the Schroeders renovated the atrium to change the balcony into a small room, which is filled with musical equipment.

They originally heated their home with a wood stove but have since converted to a furnace. Concrete panels and dirt on the roof would have made their home more efficient, Ruth Schroeder said, but she enjoys the view she has of the back of their land.

"People like our property. They think (the house) will be like a cave, but it's not. It's nice and airy," she said.

Ohanion started building earth-bermed houses in 1977 when he and his partner, David P. Hamilton, Jr., of Springfield, Ohio, formed Shelterra Homes, which was dissolved during the Carter administration due to high interest rates. He is now president of Home Sweet Earth Home. He's found the renewed interest in his style of homes hasn't transferred to more business.

"Sometimes I think, since I put up my Web site, I've become Encyclopedia Earthtannica,'" Ohanion said. He gets a lot of requests for plans and questions, but that's about all. His architectural drawings for an earth-bermed home range from $1,250 to $2,500, with construction costs averaging about $100 a square foot.

Costs for an underground home can be 10 to 15 percent higher than a traditional aboveground home, Ohanion said. The biggest part of construction costs - between 60 and 65 percent - are in the construction of the shell.

There are more benefits to earth-bermed houses than saving energy, Ohanion said. "It's about out-and-out survival," he claims. "You can survive a night or two in an underground home without heat." During Ohio's spring and summer tornado season, the superstructure of an earth-bermed home will remain intact.

He thinks it will take the construction of an entire underground neighborhood of "10 or 20 on a street" for people to see how unique these structures are.

Edna McGreevy, 85, of Enon, Ohio, and her late husband John Gillam built their earth-bermed home in 1977 when Gillam wanted to have a low-maintenance home. McGreevy's two-bedroom home has a two-car garage and a small machine shop and is nearly completely underground, except for the southern exposure, which faces the road and the other conventional homes in this small southwestern Ohio town.

Originally heated with a small stove, McGreevy later added an electric furnace, then, when gas lines were extended through her neighborhood, converted to gas heating.

"Years ago people called us the 'cave people,'" she said. "Now they think it's neat." In the 27 years she's lived there, she's watched nearly all her neighbors replace their roofs.

"I just mow mine," she laughs.