Stayed in an Earthship!
 

So I had the opportunity to stay in an Earthship a couple weeks ago near Taos, New Mexico. My brother-in-law, his friend, and I stayed two nights in an Earthship called the Global Three Bedroom model (aka The Euro).

This was sustainable design at its finest! It was completely off the grid (ours was powered by photovoltaics), extremely efficient (NO A/C unit needed because of an ingenious circulation system), and very water-wise (water sourced from rain/snowmelt, greywater toilet, plant filtration cells). With a solar hot water heater and no A/C unit, the only electricity needed was for lighting (when the south-facing windows weren't filled with natural light), the refrigerator, and basic appliances (NO microwave). Lights and fridge were DC powered. Outlets were converted to AC.

The home was built into the side of a man-made berm, reinforced with tire bricks, cans/bottles, and adobe/cement/stucco.

More pictures can be found here and here.

Conclusion: I slept much more soundly here than at any motel on the trip!

Has anyone else seen these in person before?

TheMarkofPolo -

There is a lot of talent in New Mexico for making these buildings. In the 1990's I went on a tour of New Mexico and Arizona and we saw these. New Mexico is ideal because :

- High elevation => mild summers => lower A/C requirements
- Crispy clear skies for PV
- Crispy clear skies for passive solar heating in winter (high mass floors and green house)
- Low humidity in summer => lower A/C requirements
- Cheap(?) land for DIY designs like hay bale and tires and berms that need lots of square footage to work.

CarloSW2

I fell in love with the design of these Earthships when I saw the movie Garbage Warrior. Not only are they super efficient, they also look like nothing else, very beautiful to my eyes.
How practical are they to live in, have you noticed anything silly or have they worked out all the details by now?

I have my own copy of Garbage Worrior and have watched it many times. What I really like is the water management system and the developemnet of wast management systems. While riding through Nevada I kept thinking that, this is the place for earthships.

I want one.
A concrete one, I know a steel worker who will help me erect it. I am wanting to use a tilt up design, generally used for commercial buildings. The benefit of a tilt up is you pour the concrete on the site then with the help of a crane you tilt it up into position. First you make your cement floor then use it to pour your walls on.
A tip is to not make the tilt ups too heavy for the available crane.
I am finishing some reno's on my house, then I'm selling it and moving. Off the grid, maybe a clear cut..

My brother-in-law heard about these in Garbage Warriors, too. That's what led to the post-graduation roadtrip.

I would definitely like to see the design alterations for Earthships built in other climates and microclimates. St. Louis, for example, gets more rain, is much more humid, is irregularly sunny and isn't terribly windy. Still, many homes in St. Louis use basements, so perhaps parts of this design could be adapted...maybe even retrofitted?

The practicality of an Earthship in the West is spot on. It's a water-miser in a part of the country where water is scarce, improperly used (golf courses and Vegas), and reduced snowmelt from the mountains is a concern. It's off-the-grid where bringing out grid ties, being at the mercy of power utilities when lines go down, and energy produced isn't terribly sustainable. And, as I said before, the passive temperature control is fantastic, practical, and $-saving in the long run.

A couple quirks I did notice:
1) The vent boxes in the roof did NOT have any mesh to keep out insects. I had an abundance of moths attacking the LED TV screen the first night. The next day I noticed ants and a couple beetles in the hallway along the plant cells (coming from small cracks in the seals at the front door.

2) The water pump that sends greywater through the planter cells is a little loud, and was inconveniently placed next to the master bedroom. Every time someone took a shower or whatever, I knew about it. It could be muffled or placed down the hall just a hair.

Has anyone seen Earthships elsewhere? Looks like the late Dennis Weaver built one in Colorado.

Hee those would not work. several months in a year I can't see the sun as it stays behind the forest that surrounds me, at the same time temperature can occasionally reach -40F.

That really bugs me as I could easily build solar PV system that would generate all the power I need if there just would be sun, at October sun is useless for anything and at end of March it starts to be useful just a bit, but time between those two points is when we need most of heating and despite my optimizing in heating, there is no way to store enough heat for winter at summer time.

At this time of year, there is 2-3 hours in a day that sun is not up though, if I could put that in a can somehow :P But even now, it is more cloudy than sunny, so can't get much out from the sun.

They were not stupid that did build my house at late 40's, at late March sun is already heating house so that it does cut 2-3 months heating bill, also for summer there is windows and storage areas placed so that there is natural ventilation, constant wind at stairs that cools heat out easily, this all with original sawdust insulation and such.

Near equator there is limitless amount of energy available from my perspective especially when one keeps forests around him there is natural cool, but still one can get huge amount of energy from the sun, living without money could be quite bit easier than here, so I envy such conditions a bit.

jtbo
You need to do more research before coming to the conclusion that they would not work in your location.
The underlying philosophy of earth ships is that they be adapted to the location that they are built on. When the build site has colder temps with less sun then the building has to have more insulation and a very small backup heating system for the times without solar heating...
If you go to earthships web site you can learn more, you may be able to get some books or the dvd from a local library.
There are some earth ships being built in England and other places in Europe... as well as other places on planet earth.

England is warm, very warm, sure there can bit bit of cold, but Alaska level of cold is something such should be prepared for and thing is that sun is rather useless for 9 months, it is sure shining in the summer, but then heating is not needed, only for hot water such is needed.


Our building regulations already are demanding a lot of insulation, I think it was more than 200mm of rock wool at walls, over 400mm at ceiling and floor, that is minimum from my memory, around double and you get passive heated house, which is not requiring active heating most of the time.

Windows are here very small and contain 2 glasses with argon gas between them + 1 glass outside, also we use two doors to outside, outer one has 3 sealing surface, inner has 1 or 2, varies a bit.

Some are using already solar water heaters with vacuum pipes, which help to get hot water, but still useless at heating, that is our problem here, we get lot of sun hours at summer, 23 hours sunshine if not cloudy, but as then heating is not needed and hardly any electricity, it becomes bit much at totally wrong time and in practice is pretty much useless.

AC is not really needed here, this month here has been 3 days with temp over +20C.

It would require big modifications to design to it to work here and I don't think it would be earth ship any longer. It is not earth-ship's fault that it will not be good design here, it is this stupid climate and latitude that really require one to burn something to heat house. 5 square meters of wood and 4400kWh electricity was last years numbers, where in similar type of house typical number is well over 20 000kWh, nearly 30 000kWh and over 2000 litres of oil as many have oil heating.


I really wish that I would live near equator, living costs would be a fraction from what they are here, no snow to plow either, no need to buy electricity either.
Oh great, it is again below +5C at this early in the morning, there is usually one month in a year when temperature stays above freezing whole time and it is next month, but currently it might be that there is chance of get below freezing temps next month too, this place is just too cold for human beings, 35M years ago all oceans were nearly +20C and even here was warm around the year, now that would be nice to have back.

I recommend going to their project section: Sustainable Green Buildings: Current Projects & Events | Learn More

There are photos from projects around the world. Unfortunately, many of the link names and photo details don't match (Corner Cottage project goes to the Fife, Scotland photos for example).