Action - Earthship Style

"I feel I'm in a herd of buffalo, and they're all stampeding toward a 1,000-foot drop-off," he says. "If humanity takes the planet down the tubes, I'm dead."

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBMiDKxqQKs[/youtube]

The easiest way to get an overview of Michael Renolds 40+ year push for zero-carbon and completely self-sufficient homes (energy, water, heat/cool, sewer, and food), watch Garbage Warrior.
http://www.garbagewarrior.com/index.php It's available on Netflix, other rental services, and has been broadcast.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TbxhpG-Y4Q[/youtube]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23811326/

Meet Michael Reynolds, who has been raising hell and building what he calls earthships in the Taos, N.M., desert for more than three decades. With his long, gray hair, salty language and almost surreal single-mindedness, Reynolds is a larger-than-life man of eco-action.
He believes he is here to save the Earth — if only out of self-interest.
"I feel I'm in a herd of buffalo, and they're all stampeding toward a 1,000-foot drop-off," he says. "If humanity takes the planet down the tubes, I'm dead."

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I went to Mike Reynold's seminar in Taos, New Mexico. I even started my own Earthship. My website, if it is of any interest to you, is:

http://home.roadrunner.com/~thequarry/

I was building it with my brother, but my brother just died this year, so I am selling the property. I wish I could have built it somewhere near me in Southern California, but the cost of land is too much for me. It is a disappointment to me that I have to give it up, but life has a way of changing one's plans.

The good news is that the potential buyers of the property are interested in finishing the work.

I'm sorry for your loss, Danny. I hope the future owners finish your dream and invite you back to celebrate a bit!

Thanks for your site - "Mt. Pinatubless" is classic! :lol: I also enjoy 'propity' (I'm not a Native Texan).

Thank you, Danny!

Andy

Thanks Danny, that's quite a story. I am somewhat older, like you, and your efforts are truly remarkable... I'm tired just reading about your struggles during construction.

Someone should come up with an easier way to pack those tires with dirt, along with handling the #300 resulting dirt-tire

Good luck with the sale, and maybe you will get to see it finished, eventually.

mitch672 said:

...along with handling the #300 resulting dirt-tire...

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The good news is that the tire is packed in place. Homey don't move the dirt lump!

Very nice description and pictures on the web site. THANKS.

Older, too heavy, and getting too little exercise now, your story is motivating me to get more exercise, starting TODAY!

Thanks again. Good health, Gary

I was very excited about it when we started. I still am, but now I'm out of money. If someone wanted to build one close to me, I might be willing to help.

When I was in Taos, I had the opportunity to stay in a B&B made in the Earthship mold. It's called the Dobson House if anyone is interested. It was great on our last visit. We checked in and had a snow storm overnight. That night we used a SMALL pot belly stove to keep warm, but the next day as soon as the snow was cleared from the windows, we turned off the stove and stayed nice and toasty for the rest of our stay without any additional secondary heating. Solar energy works great in these buildings.

This is an overview of Dennis Weaver's Earthship - Sunridge - in Ridgeway, Colorado.

How many folks could handle a $50 electric bill for a 10,000 square foot house?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5509973403996720685#20685

Here's a tour of the inside:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3364719153433575088#

Tomorrow at 11AM I have to toss my son and our bags into the car and leave the Greater Earthship community north of Taos, NM and head back to San Antonio. I'm not looking forward to leaving.

Tonight will be our second night in a two bedroom Global Model Earthship that was built last summer. It's one thing to read books, watch YouTube videos, and have a mental image of how a passive solar house might work. It's another experience ENTIRELY to stand next to a wall at 8:30 in the evening and feel the heat radiating from it!

This two bedroom one bath house has about 1700 square feet of living space and a greenhouse across the front. It has a solar hot water collector on the front face that heats water stored in a 40 gallon tank. There are six ~220W photovoltaic panels on the front face as well. The 24V battery in the insulated box on the roof has dropped no lower than 99% charged over the past 18 hours. What's missing? This house has no heater, no fireplace, no wood stove, and no air conditioning. We turned on the flat screen TV, the exhaust fan in the bathroom, the satellite TV box, the WiFi router,and every light in the house and we only used 300W from the inverter.

I was very interested in experiencing how the house performs after a long winter night. At 7AM the temperature outside was 12 degrees F. The coldest area of the greenhouse was 48 and the main part of the house was 64 degrees in every room - even air temperature throughout. This doesn't tell the entire story though, because there was still heat radiating from the floors and back wall as they were warmer than the air. I checked email and read the news this morning in bare feet, shorts and a T-shirt.

[edit] The first night we left windows open between the rooms and the greenhouse. The second night we closed the windows between the house and greenhouse and the rooms were 68°F at dawn.



By 3:30PM it was 46 outside and 73 in the greenhouse and the living spaces. This is somewhat misleading though because the ceiling air vents were open at the time to cool things down. The living room floor was 77 degrees and the combination of radiated heat from the house and the rays of the SW sun thru the glass made it quite toasty.

The house is relatively new and the greywater garden isn't fully established, but both of the two banana plants are over seven feet tall, and we enjoyed fresh figs and mint after dinner.



I'm convinced - this passive solar stuff really works! It's time to find a piece of property. Maybe here on the mesa - they do have some impressive sunsets.

Finally getting around to processing some video and getting my notes together from January's visit to Taos. If anyone's interested, I recorded a walk-thru the inside of the building as well as some of the external details of the building and systems that I can make available.

In the mean time, here's a 3 minute look at the inside of the greenhouse at a bit after 8AM. It's hard to describe the smell that waits for one to enter the house - there's the scent from the flowers and the mint, along with the linseed oil used on the woodwork. The video starts in the east end of the house - and the coolest area. After a 12°F low temperature, it was 20°F just outside the door (there's no airlock here like the west end). Air temperature just inside the door was 48°F (floor temp 52.5°F). Around to the south side the air temp was 52°. It was 68° inside the living area. Late in the afternoon, the house air temp was 75°F and the floor was 76°F.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XoryJDx2U8[/youtube]

The 'cold' side of the house is inside this tunnel on the east (photo from Earthship.com):



Here's a plan view - south to the bottom - of this ~1700 square foot building:


Some assorted observations:

- The hot water system uses a 4x8' flat panel collector on the outside of the building, a ~40 gallon storage tank inside, and an on-demand propane water heater if/when needed. After a 15°F overnight, water in the storage tank was 90°F at 8AM when the sun rose over the mountains and provided enough PV to run the circulating pump. It didn't take long - 30 or so minutes - for water to hit 140°F.

- The inside walls and floor radiate heat overnight and in the morning - they are a few degrees warmer than the air thru the night.

- Some photos and videos of Earthship interiors can appear dark - but that' s absolutely a limitation of the recording equipment. The interior of the building is bright throughout the day. The design allows winter's low angle light to penetrate to the back wall. Summer sun stays in the greenhouse, but there's still plenty of light on the back wall in the summer. I'm at the point in life where extra light helps with reading and close work - and there was no need for interior lights between dawn and dusk.

- The temperature is uniform thru the house - and the 'convection engine' formed by the greenhouse's skylights and the north-wall air intake 'cooling tubes' will move a LOT of air through the building.

- The house feels very much 'alive'. There are sounds that start at sunrise - the low hum of the 12V DC pump on the hot water loop that starts around 8AM, or the grey-water recirculating pump that oxygenates the grey water and provides a low-volume 'water fall/fountain' sound in the kitchen for an hour or so in the morning. The timbers in the ceiling creak and groan from time to time as they warm and cool throughout the day and night. It feels very alive, natural, organic. And it's very, very quiet inside.

More info (including construction photos) here:
http://earthship.com/global-model-earthship-nightly-rental

A quick video showing the 'convection engine' that draws cool air through the house in the summer:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elRSkG-gAYY[/youtube]

A couple of primary school teachers are about 70% complete with their Global Model Earthship in upstate NY. They did the initial excavation and tire pounding themselves (and with friends) and then had the Earthship crew visit - with an army of interns - for two weeks.

This is the best view I've yet seen of the overall building process.

http://freevilleearthship.blogspot.com/2012/04/background.html

Project Page:
http://www.facebook.com/EcclesiastesProject



Build Photos:
http://earthship.com/category/33-vaulted-global-earthship.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Press:
http://earthship.com/earthship-sets-sail-in-huntington-vermont.html

Intern Experience:
http://keemseek.wordpress.com/2012/07/12/the-people-make-the-earthship/

I noticed the temperature logging equipment during my stay a year ago but forgot about them until reading this article on building performance:

http://renew.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Earthships-downunder.pdf

The author, Martin Freney, instrumented a number of different Earthship buildings north of Taos as part of a master's degree project.

The article highlights a challenge to the design in places like the SE US where the 'local world' doesn't cool as much at night as it does in the Southwest. The narrower temperature range (only 15-20 degrees many days) doesn't allow the ground to cool as much. In addition, the greenhouse windows reflect a significant portion of the summer sun - enough that the greenhouse is cooler in summer than during the winter. The downside is that the convection is slightly reduced in the heat of summer just when it's most needed.

This was the reason for a couple of week's visit to an Earthship near Crockett, TX last November - to retrofit the building with longer cooling tubes and a pair of solar skylights to strengthen the 'convection engine.'

The solar skylights were similar to the ones installed in a building in Georgia after the house in Crockett was built:



It was fun to be part of a building upgrade and also to close the circle from last winter's stay in Taos. It's cool to experience evolution!