Earthships: self-sustaining homes for a post-apocalyptic land?
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Channel: Kirsten Dirksen
Views: 2,545,347
Rating: 4.8590279 out of 5
Keywords: passive solar house, off grid, off grid home, recycled materials, earthships, earth homes, natural building, adobe homes, self sustaining homes, contained sewage treatment, food production, earth building, adobe home, sunken home, underground home, thermal mass, natural ventilation, taos, new mexico, earthship biotecture, owner built home, DIY home, DIY, small space, simple living, simplicity, craft, craftmanship, building permits, zoning
Id: efI77fzBgvg
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Length: 40min 28sec (2428 seconds)
Published: Mon Oct 06 2014
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I stayed in one near Taos in January 2012. It was -7F with windchill outside and 72F inside with no heat. Tomatoes were growing in the glassed in portion.
Earthship is not everything it seems to be on the surface.
It doesn't work in every climate. Check out the massively failed Earthship movement in Europe
Building an Earthship is unbelievably labour intensive. It takes years for some people to complete. See point 3 below:
Mike Reynolds is a bit of a scam artist and has made a LOT of money from the Earthship business, yet he himself lives in a McMansion and not an Earthship (citations needed, do some research). You pay money to attend the school to learn how to build an earthship and basically end up pounding tyres to build somebodies home. So you pay to build somebody else's house. Quite ingenious really.
Do some research. Earthship is mostly shunned by the green alternative community.
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/earthship-hype-and-earthship-reality
https://www.off-grid.net/australia-falling-for-earthship-marketers/
Saying all that, the initial idea of the Earthship is amazing, and using the concept to inspire you to think about how inefficient standard housing design is, can only be a good thing. Just don't give any money to Mike Reynolds. Do some research, come up with your own eco-design that fits your block of land, in your part of the world.
Hint: There are much better ways to do it than pounding tyres.
I actually had a high school architectural teacher who highlighted these for me back in 04 or so. I thought it was really clever back then and realized just how inefficient most homes are. These houses use things like awnings that cover your windows in summer and let sunlight in during the winter based on just angle. They also recirculate air from the top of the house to the bottom to help keep the temps even. Some have giant stone or brick walls inside the house covered by a window that will heat and keep the house warm during the night in the winter. A lot of using nature to keep things the way we want them. Edit: Did I mention water columns? Yeah giant columns of water that help keep the house a stable temp by holding onto ambient temps.
This is exactly what I want. Seems like the biggest issue is permitting and rain fall. They get 9 inches a year. Where I live we average 40. I'm willing to bet to get the permits where I live are ridiculous for this kind of live in structure.
Haven't watched it yet, but I helped build one of these in colorado. Such great homes!
I've looked into these back when I was really into living off the land and saving money. Only real issue is the initial investment and getting people to help
As someone that lives in Taos I can definitely say these are amazing to check out and well worth the drive from border states. We're such a "hippie" town it's unreal. The earthships are only the beginning. I'd say the people here rival the earthships in terms of uniqueness.
When the leader starts fucking everyone's wife, you know shit has turned into a cult.
Not sure if this guy is full of shit or not, but my buddy has been living there for years now.