That's not too expensive...

I live near the city. Washington, D.C... How close to a earthship can someone get if they have a plot of land in a suburban area?

The Packaged Earthship (here) would work well in a suburban environment, I would think. Although you'd probably have to jump over a few hurdles to get your county to sign off on building it.

Click to view attachmentClick to view attachment

In fact, Michael Reynolds (the Earthship's originator) has been fighting the legality of building with tires for quite sometime. There's a documentary coming out Garbage Warrior - The Movie chronicling his 'adventures' in New Mexico law...

This is what I want to get when I buy my next house, I have been checking their sites for a few years now, I cant wait! This is the way to go if you want to "green up" the enviroment. these homes generate their own heat, cooling, water, electricity, are built of recycled material and tires that would otherwise end up in a land fill. grow your own food in the indoor planters. how can you go wrong? we should be building communities like this everywhere.

I agree, it just makes sense. As I said in a previous post, I'm not an environmentalist, but I would LOVE to live with no utility bills save for a few bucks in propane for cooking! As you might know we just bought our first home in June of last year. We have a 10 year plan to renovate then sell and payoff our current house. The Earthship should come in to play somewhere in between. We hope to buy the land the Earthship will reside on in the next couple of years. (We're looking at Southwestern Missouri where a good friend currently lives. I had an opportunity to live in the Cabool/Mountain Grove/West Plains area for a few months and I loved it!)

I stumbled across this thread by accident, but as far as "earthships" are concerned, you're not going to beat those in Bhutan!

wow, talk about a mountain get away!! I'm still looking into earthships. I hope to be in one in a few years, still been looking. especially now with all the talk about global warming. besides, with the recent ice storms and power outages these types of homes would be up and running, warm, no connection to the grid.
Imagine building communities like these in places that have been destroyed by natural disasters like New Orleans. OK, maybe not for everyone but I still think these are very cool.

EarthShip, were does it go, and how ?.
Like zoommm, flying or are the just sailing alog with the rest of the earth.

i would like to build a cool house like that, energy efficent and all. -and with a "used" B-52 bomber infront, could act like a playground for me.
-but my funds seem at bit to low damm damm

Well, I just bought "Garbage Warrior -The Movie". Its a documentary about Michael Reynolds and the battle to have the right to build Earthships. Gotta wait for shipping but I'll post a review after I've watched it.

Finished Garbage Warrior a few days ago.

Great Movie!

My only disappointment with the movie was that Reynolds curses like a sailor, if not for his dirty mouth this movie would be completely kid friendly. At the very least I wish they had a secondary audio track with "bleeps" as I would love for my kids to watch this.

Reynolds is definitely a Hippie in the best sense of the word. My favorite quote is "I was like 'Whoa, this thermal mass stuff is like, in-TENSE'"

A little teaser:

After the Tsunami of a few years ago, Reynolds and his team volunteered to help India with recovery efforts. The flew over there with very little supplies of their own, and showed a town how to build a simple Earthship-like structure out of the rubble and trash laying around. Their wells had been spoiled by dead bodies and sea water so Reynolds showed them how to use the roof to catch rainwater. The heat is intense, so Reynolds showed them how to use thermal mass to their advantage. The work was labor intensive, but the whole town pitched in to help. They made one structure together and taught the town how to make more. One of the village volunteers was a local architect, he in turn, took the concept to architects of other Tsunami ravaged towns, and everyone was thrilled. They had housing they could build themselves, that would catch their own drinking water, that would keep them cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Meanwhile, In America, the New Mexico state senate refused to even further the debate on sustainable housing, and kept Reynolds from building Earthships in the name of "public safety".

Earthship owner gives MSN a Video tour:

http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-us&...87-767a22762205

More Videos:

The 1st one is in two parts and is called "Earthship 101" and just gives a basic idea of what earthships are all about:




Next are reports on Earthships on the Weather Channel and CNN:



Next are videos of Michael Reynolds talking about building Earthships around the world:





Here's how to pack a tire:

Here's a few of the ideas we have so far for own own Earthship:

- 1st off, we, of course, plan to build this house to live in, retire in, and pass on to our children, but things do change, so we do want to build with a possible resale in mind. to that end, the tire walls might go, My father built his current house using Performwall ICFs (Insulating Concrete Forms) and has convinced me of their usefulness. Aside from the obvious aspect of having a higher resale value, they will also not require the tamping that a tire wall would require. I can stack them myself, then sub out the concrete filling.

- We plan on buying Reynolds Packaged plans and building from them. This is the one we're thinking about:

Click to view attachment

- There will be no need for any grid intertie, be it electricity, water, phone or cable.

Electricity: Northeast Oklahoma (our current location) and Southwest Missouri (the other possible build site) have decent amounts of wind, although I'm told not enough to generate power strictly by wind. We plan to do a combination of wind and solar power generation, with battery storage, and diesel generator backup (powered by home brewed bio-diesel, of course).

Water: Either water catchment on the roof, as is the typical Earthship design, or a well depending on the build site.

Phone: I have this great device called a Cell Socket (they only worked with certain Motorola phones and are now discontinued anyway but a similar device called the Dock n talk is still available if you're interested) that you dock your cell phone into when you get home at night then it ties your cell phone into your home phones and allows you to use you home phones to make cell phone calls.

TV/Internet: Already have satellite TV through Dish Network, and with Hughsnet, Directway and Wildblue all out there now, satellite internet will be there when we need it. I have AT&T's cheapest and slowest DSL currently, so the drop in speeds will be negligable, and I've never really had a need for anything faster then what I have now. For a computer I'll be getting a laptop and will wire the house with 12vdc outlets in key places that bypass the main household inverter so I can use the laptop using a car adapter, which will waste less power then using a 120vac power brick. (The laptop uses DC power anyway, and there is a distinct power loss everytime you convert power from DC to AC back to DC etc.)

- We plan to save a lot of money buy doing as much work as we can ourselves. I will be doing all the trim and finish-out work myself. For flooring we plan to stain the concrete using an acid stain. The decor will be rustic by choice simply so I can build it myself and if I make a mistake or two, who will know but me?

- Of course, since I used to build home theaters for a living, I can't do without a projector. I plan to wire the living room up for a projector and TV, just like my current house. Currently the kids watch cartoons and I watch news etc on the small TV, but we watch Stargate/BSG (any of my favorite shows) and any movies etc on the projector. Given that we're planning for a generator up front, the power consumption of a budget-minded home theater won't be unrealistic as long as its understood that the generator most likely will need to be running if the Home theater is to be used.

Ok, so that jaunt onto the internet just consumed eight hours of my life. Very interesting stuff - I love the concept.

The ICFs are interesting but darn heavy - the thought of shipping them scares me. How do you accomodate interior wiring, plumbing and data? I suppose the concrete must be at least sealed, perhaps you're putting down a vapor barrier and then stuccoing the interior?

Have you seen the Touch the Earth Ranch website? The idea of using Tire Bales (at little or no cost) rather than rammed earth tires seem like a great time (and back) saver. More equipment needed but much faster construction. Also, he has plan sets which have corrected some issues he's experienced while building and living in Earthships.

Yeah, its one of those things that has consumed me for years.



For electical detail, see the attached PDF:

Click to view attachment

As far as shipping the ICFs, I would think I'd be able to source them from a local dealer to cut shipping costs. They're really not too heavy. My Father (~60 years old at the time) was able to stack them in place himself when he built his house...



Yes, I'm familiar with Touch the Earth although many if not all of the design flaws he points out were corrected in Earthship books Vol II and III. As far as the Tire Bales, I like their labor saving properties, but remain skeptical of their Thermal mass properties. I just don't see tires bales (with air in between) embodying mass in the way a tire wall shoved full of dirt would.

Hell, even Kellie says I'm "bad" for using these words (edit, "filthy-mouthed" post above deleted....)...but throughout my posts, there are few instances of "cursing". Kellie says we'll lose money by my speech (as if this is common from me!), but nonetheless, "fear" is the driver...

I still maintain my position: Make a reasoned argument for the abolition (or non-use) of "these words", rather than "filthy sailor mouth", "foul mouth" or the like. Tell me why these "non"-words have any meaning beyond the implicit...and particularly, why our kids shan't say them?

Because they are naughty words

Here’s a corrected version


Hi Ira!

Appreciate the female dog'ing review. I'll be watching this human excrement soon. Who cares about the "dirty sailor mouth" though? I mean make love , words are love making human excrement bottom words right? If our kids say them, it's only because we gave them no better words, or maybe they are just make love'ed? Or maybe they're stupid human excrement-head born out of wedlock prostitutes who don't clean their love making rooms!

Seriously, to hell with cursing! We need to clean up this make love-bottom talking and SOON!

People need to respect the meaning of meaningless words! Right? That's why we don't say those words? Those "curse words" are guttural utterances with nearly nil meaning, but the make love'rs are a
'pro-grammatically avoidable dialect for anuses version 3' to which linguistic conformance makes us....what? Righteous? Eloquent?

...what female dog?

Addendum: All words are useless without meaning.

Haha, beauty. I dumped my post in lieu of your corrected version though... Had to get rid of it before Mom read it!

Good, because you know the first thing I would have said was "You kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Seriously, though. Cursing is something, I'll admit, I'm prone to as well. But you are right if our kids curse "it's only because we gave them no better words". I give my children better words. When I was young my mother taught me that "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me". She was wrong. Walk up to strangers on the street, call a black man a Ni**** a woman a cu** or wh*** and see how much it doesn't hurt... I am by no means a PC person, you know this, but I would rather teach my children words that do not cause pain.

As for Reynold's message, I agree it should be heard. My point was simple - knock off the cursing for 5 freakin' minutes while the camera's on and you've got a movie you can show to the whole dang orphanage, continue to curse like a sailor and your message gets drown in the sea of concerned parents like me...

Yea you know I agree for the most part, I clean plenty of profanity out of the boards, but it was fun for a second to just let loose and "curse like a sailor" matey!

Aye me matey!

Simple way to cut bottles for the "bottle bricks":



Michael Reynolds on "The Colbert Report":

Night time in a beautiful "packaged" Earthship:


Click to view attachment

Interesting,

It appears that an earthship, as defined by the architect, is not really about houses built with domes and tires and half buried in the earth, Its about houses whose material and on-going use has a net zero impact on the environment.

By that definition my family built an earthship about 30 years ago. let me explain.

Years ago my dad bought an old abandoned farm so he could raise draft horses (it's a hobby of his). We built 2 log buildings. We used the horses to hall logs we cut on the property, and salvaged much of the old farmstead. It was heated by wood cut on the property and the water was drawn from a well. The hay and oats where harvested from the property, with the horses, to feed the horses. The largest expense in the whole construction was the beer .

There was no phone, electricity, or inside toilet. My fathers only concession to my mother and technology was a 75 year old kerosene fridge. (The beers where kept cold in a spring. It worked better than the fridge.(

Yes we had a place in the city but this is where I spent my summers and weekends.

Solar panels are highly inefficient atm. I, too, am concerned about my electronics' electrical needs when I build my off-grid house. The solution I've come up with is to use multiple wind generators. I'll prolly use very few solar panels. You can DIY wind generators for about $800-1200. Make three of them, and you'll have plenty of power. There is always wind ~100 feet up, so you'll always be making power.

I don't plan on using batteries for storage, as they are not friendly to the environment. I've been toying with the idea of setting up a system to generate hydrogen with excess power generation and then store it. You can then use hydrogen to power a DC generator, for when you need that extra power in the shop or what have you, and you can also use hydrogen as a replacement for natural gas.

The second power system that I've been thinking about is a solar reactor much like the solar power plants in the desert. They use liquid sodium in the pipes, and all the mirrors direct the sun at a main focal point. The sodium is circulated in the system. Heat exchangers then heat water to a boiling point, turning generators via steam. You can duplicate this system with mirrors and large Fresnel lenses. I don't have a link, but I came across a site where a guy was documenting his fooling around with mirrors and fresnel lenses. He would use about five mirrors to direct sun at one lense, and he could light a 2x4 on fire in a matter of seconds.

The system also acts as a heat storage system. If you have plenty of sun hitting your land during the day, and you've got a good amount of mirrors/lenses, you could potentially divert some of the energy in the sodium to heat exchangers that pass it on to storage containers of oil. If these oil containers are in a highly insulated room (say a concrete "bunker" in the ground below the frost point) to prevent the heat from escaping, you could have a second heat exchanger that is connected to your central heating system or even your hot water tanks. The heat stored in the oil can now be used to heat the house during the evening, if necessary. However, I would already have a heat pump that utilized a slinky loop line system run in the ground. This would act as a cooling and heating source. The oil bins would be used for heating the greenhouse (an actual green house for growing food) when it becomes too cold during the winter. The heat pump should be able to keep the house warmed up to and cooled down to ~60. If you wanted it to be warmer, the heat pump then switches to the exchanger pulling heat from the oil storage.

How much are mirrors, large fresnel lenses (the guy off the site did not mention they were expensive)? Sure, it would take a bit of time to actually build, but weigh the alternatives: inefficient solar panels that cost a lot of money to provide the power requirement you need. Not to mention that only recently have companies been addressing the fact you lose energy from solar panels via the heat that is generated but lost because they are in the open air.

The solar panels using magnifying lenses to direct sun on smaller, more efficient cells are starting to come on the market, and they are a bit cheaper than current solar panels.

/rant

I think I'd want a few modern conveniences but all in all it sounds like fun.

Actually it was a lot of fun. Most people don't realize that the standard of living doesn't equate to the quality of life. Once you have enough to buy a few luxuries and pay your bills, more money won't make you happier.

My wife and I have tried to keep things simple. Not so much as an environmental movement but because it makes good financial and quality of life sense. We don't live in a log cabin with out electricity but we have done small things to make a difference. (Owning one car, recycling, fixing things rather than throwing them away, turning down the heat). It’s the small things done by millions of people which will make the difference.

Having said that, I applaud those courageous few who build Earth Ships and push the limits. Maybe I will install a rainwater cistern and share in a small part of that glory.

Cheers to that

Another Earthship owner builder discusses her home:

This is a Loooooong slide show (at least 1/2 hour, maybe longer) but well worth it. An Earthship owner/builder takes you through her whole build, one photo at a time:

http://www.sdgraphics.net/myearthship/ThumbnailFrame.html

Didn't Anna just get back?

She's been back a few weeks. (Thank goodness!) Why do you ask?

I just came upon the below linked story (first saw the video on CNN.com, earlier today) about a guy in Grand County, Colorado, who built an Earthship. Granby, Grand Lake, Hot Sulphur Springs, Kremmling, Parshall, Tabernash and Winter Park/Fraser make up Grand County, Colorado - just north east of Denver. In the video, he says he "came up with the concept of building them into the walls of the house", but I believe he's referring to using the tires in bales, as opposed to stacking them and filling them with dirt.



http://www.koaa.com/wacky_stories/x1142480...of-rubber-tires

I could only get the video to work through the CNN site - and only using IE.

I was kind of hoping that the guy was Internet savy enough to document his build online - but no such luck.

I got to thinking... I spent several months, a few years ago, assisting a local company with shredding a bunch of tires to be used for recycling. So, I thought, wouldn't it make more sense to use the shredded tires (perhaps as a filler in concrete?), rather than spend all that time stacking and packing with dirt. It seems to me that you'd end up using more tires, if they were shredded? I don't know, maybe it's not possible.

I've been toying with the idea of building a home using recycled materials, myself. I've been wanting to go the route of using recycled shipping containers. Something along the lines of what Adam Kalkin did, with his 12 Container House - without all the artsy-fartsy stuff (might want to use IE for that link, as well).

As his site is a horrible example of web navigation, I'll just show the pictures here (click for larger images):



I would love to get into the building and managing of no-income (homeless) and low income (working poor and students) housing using shipping containers (managed as non-profit), much the same way that they did at TempoHousing's Keetwonen Student Housing site. Imagine being able to offer homeless people their own private apartment (rent free, 6 to 12 months), while they search for and secure employment. If they wish to stay after that, only charge them $100 - $200 per month. The 6 - 12 months should give them enough time to save up enough money to re-integrate themselves back into society, though. As for the students, I think $100 - $200 per month would offer them a significant savings and allow them to get away from the "party" atmosphere that seems to be prevalent in a typical dorm setting.

Like I said, it's an idea I'm only toying with - for the moment.

There's a basic misconception. Earthships rely on thermal mass to store energy. The tires are not the vessel that stores the thermal energy, its the tightly packed dirt within them that stores the thermal energy. Think of Earthships as Rammed Earth Houses. The only difference between a typical rammed earth house and an Earthship is the forms. A typical rammed earth house would use concrete forms, then pack them with dirt, an Earthship uses tires as the forms.

Okay so I watched the video up there. Now I know what these things are. In fact there are 2 in my own "backyard" not mine but you know in my small city. In fact we all thought this guy was crazy that was building them. My wife and I went to check them out because she knows the daughter of the father thats building them we walked all over the tires it was crazy. In fact I work for a truss company and I designed the trusses for both of these buildings. He just told me what he wanted and and that was that it was pretty simple. I dont really know anything about these at all. It was just neat to see that video and be like "hey I was at one of those houses." I should get pics for you. I am not sure if its all done. When we went the exterior walls were almost all done and thats was it.

OKflyboy, I think you were previously talking about using ICF forms and pouring concrete in them. What about using shredded tires and sand, instead of concrete (for the fill)? Or what about just sand? Or powdered, recycled tires?

Well, in the case of ICFs, I could see using some alternatives in the fill. You'd still want to use concrete (maybe with shredded tires mixed in) as the ICFs rely on the concrete to become structurally sound but I see where you're going now. Its an interesting idea.

I drew this up this evening. This is the current state of the design for my Earthship:



We're back to tires instead of ICFs. Why? Well mainly because Tires+ my labor = free whereas the ICFs were going to cost me >$6K.

This will be a vertical glass Earthship, a variant on the Packaged Earthship...

Click to view attachment

...(although I no longer intend to pay Earthship Biotecture >$6K for custom plans)

As noted we intent to place sliding glass doors all along the south face in place of inoperable glass. This will give us the ability to easily control ventilation as well as gives us multiple emergency Egress points (this is a must in many areas). You'll also notice there are no gray-water planters in the Living room/Kitchen, we want to be able to open the sliding glass doors and bring the Living Room and Patio together as one huge party space if desired.

I plan on cutting costs Wherever possible. One way is by finding used and cheap materials wherever possible. For example we're buying a new toilet for our current house because the old one is outdated and we're trying to do whatever we can to help this house sell when its time. But the current toilet is fine (albeit oh-so-70's Peach colored.). We're going to use engineered beams in place of trusses for the roof, and we'll leave them exposed instead of sheetrocking in a ceiling for an "industrial" look (and save big $$ in the process).

I gained a lot of knowledge working as a Custom A/V installer. In addition the the general skills I already possessed I now know how to:

-Frame
-Drywall
-Wall Fish
-Run Low and High Voltage wire

I'm ready to start but we have to sell this house first. The housing market sucks around Tulsa (and just about everywhere else, I know) right now so we won't sell until values go back up. Hopefully by the time that happens I will have the renovations done and we'll be good to go.

Are the engineered beams for the ceiling going to be part of the roof also? I guess what I am asking is what it the roof going to be?

The beams are to hold up the roof, yes. The roof itself with be metal roofing, like this:

Click to view attachment

The house we live in now is my first house. It turns out that it really was the wrong house for our family, but we didn't know that when we bought it. We lived in an apartment and were just happy to get more space and no neighbors constantly partying at midnight 1 wall over. Over the past several months, as my wife and I discuss selling and building, we've been evaluating the way we really live in an effort to decide what it is we really want. The drawing pictured above is the result of much thought, debate, and soul-searching.

You'll notice the kids space is all 1 room. We have three children who (even though the youngest is 7 1/2 years younger then the middle child) love to play together. Our older boys spend a good amount of time playing with their little brother, much to our relief and delight. Currently our toddler has his own room while the two older boys share a room. What we want to do is combine all their rooms into 1 large play space with separate alcoves designated only for sleeping or study (hence the loft bed with bed/desk and curtains that can be closed). I want them to still be able to have some privacy, but I want them to get used to the concept of sharing (they're pretty good about this already, actually). Plus, with three boys and the occasional mother-in-law, having 4 or even 5 bedrooms was just out of the question. You may also notice I said three kids, but I drew 4 alcoves. This is for, shall we say, 'future expansion'. . (Plus it'll work for that mother in law I mentioned, in a pinch)

The Master bedroom is pretty simple, no frills there. The Master Bathroom, however, will shine. I have a few tricks up my sleeve, and it should look something like this when I'm done...

Click to view attachment

...with the rock and big soaking tub (probably won't be a jacuzzi tub like the one pictured, though). I have a great idea for a cheap and unique sink, also an idea to make the shower more like a waterfall then a traditional shower. With water splashing down the rocks above rather then a traditional showerhead... looks great in my head but we'll see on that one.


We've found that we don't use a regular dining table all that often, in fact, while I have my Grandma's formal dining table here its shoved against the wall and Grandma would be mad at me, I think. An oversized Kitchen Island with barstools will take the place of a table.

Click to view attachment

Propane will supply our hot water (using and on-demand heater) and our cooking heat. We plan on using super-efficient DC chest freezer and fridge that will be part of the island, like so:

Click to view attachment

which, aside from being more efficient then a vertical fridge/freezer (even a DC one), they also double as more counter space when the doors are closed.

I miss outdoor BBQ's but with the yard in our current house there's not much open space for them (way too many trees). You'll notice there's a large concrete pad for a porch area, Shade sails will keep the area shady and cool in the summer and can be stored in the winter to allow solar gain. I will plumb a propane line out to the south edge of the pad so that a propane grill can simply draw from the same propane tank that feed the hot water heater and stove.

Well I suppose great minds think alike. I should have known I wasn't the first to think of it. I found an off-the-shelf version of my waterfall shower idea. I plan to make a DIY version of this:

Click to view attachment

It'd be pretty simple, really, just a hidden spigot with the water running onto a rock trough.

Well, since I saw that someone had already done my shower idea, I figured I'd check on some of my others. Looks like the sink idea I've been rolling around the ol' noodle for years has been done already as well:

Click to view attachment

I can get a galvanized bucket big enough for a bathroom sink for $5 and a generic drain kit for another $5, combine that with a swoopy bar style faucet...

Click to view attachment

...and you'd get a really cool one-off sink for cheap.

Here's the basic idea of the Kid's Alcove as we plan it:

Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

But imagine loftbeds like these (I already have the plans for them):

Click to view attachment

but with the bed sitting width-wise in the alcove and a wardrobe at the end, like this:

QFT

Kind of like this sink except a shower (of course):

Click to view attachment

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nice. I would aim to have it more realistic looking by using real rocks found while excavating the land. however, it would probably land up being too heavy and take a lot of time to mortar into place. :\

No, I think you're right. The concept remains the same whether it be concrete or rock that forms the trough, but the overall look would be much cooler with rock.

Of course, this is all concept at this point.

I even thought it would be cool to use a galvanized bucket (like in the sink idea) tilted at about 45° and have the water partially fill the bucket then spill out and create a waterfall that way. I did some small scale tests with a cup and the kitchen faucet and what I found was that the curve of the cup made the water all pour out in a single narrow stream rather then the wide 'waterfall' I was hoping for. (maybe if I hammered part of the bucket flat rather then curved... hmmm. will have to try that...)