If you shut off all your mechanical means to cool your home in 105 degree summers, or heat your home in -25 cold winters,how would it fare?
Does a house that is self-sustaining (including food production), requiring no outside hookup to utilities/grid for source of water or electricity, and maintaining an average of 73 degrees sound appealing? Add to that, a yearly utility bill of about $100, and you have a Rammed Earth Tire Dwelling, aka an ‘Earthship‘.
Earthship Building Recipe:
About 1000 used tires or so, cob interior walls, cement, solar panels, re-cycled glass bottles and soda cans, glass for an interior green house, re-loved doors and windows, grey water systems, berming into the side of a hill,and oriented south towards the sun…more or less.
For a Full Introduction, read our explanatory article Rammed Earth Tire Dwelling aka Earthships. For detailed construction steps, read our Recent Earthship Articles further on below.
May our Workshop Building Adventures, including attending both of Michael Reynolds Earthship builds here in Canada, both inform and entertain!
Monica’s photos of Michael Reynolds first Canadian Earthship build in Lone Butte, BC, last August of 2010 can be seen on Michael Reynold’s Earthship Biotecture site. The build was a great success.
In the summer of 2011, Monica attended, participated, and photographed the second Earthship build here in Canada off the Gulf Coast with Michael Reynolds. Follow Monica’s 5 Week Photo Journal of this Island Earthship Build.
Check out the The First Ever Canadian Earth Home Construction Crew, a family Business headed be Pat and Chuck Potter in Ontario.
Image credits: keetsa, jessicareeder, marvins dad, Monica Holy
