Our journey to our final choice of building structure has taken a few years. The first type of building we considered was an Earthship. That is the name given to a type of structure developed, in the 70's, by Mike Reynolds in Taos, New Mexico. The basics of an earthship are a building that is constructed using rammed earth filled tires as bricks, which are then parged to make the load baring walls. Interior walls are made using bottles and cans along with cement. This is why the movie explaining the journey of Earthships is call Garbage Warrior. You can watch the entire documentary on YouTube. The structure is also bermed on the north side as well as a major part of the east and west sides. The entire south face of the building is windows which allow for solar gain during the day. This heats up the interior thermal mass (all those earth filled tires) which then releases the heat throughout the cooler night. We researched this building option at length. Purchasing books, watching videos, even attending at a few earthships built in Ontario to see how it was done.
Why an Earthship?
We gave serious consideration to this type of structure because many of the materials used for the build are recycled - tires, bottles and cans. That is important to us. We try to be good stewards of the planet. Additionally an earthship provides an efficient means of dealing with your grey water (the water from your kitchen and bathroom sinks). We did not want to incur the cost of a septic system. We believe that everyone should recycle their water, a precious commodity, as much as possible. It is important to get the most use of your water before it goes back to the ground. The Earthship design includes an interior grey water recycling planter system. This planter allows for growing food and in a colder climate that can be quite useful. It can be used for starting plants as well as lengthening the growing season, giving you free food. Built correctly and given time to acclimatize an earthship does not require additional heat, although cooking and fire for ambiance can provide additional warmth if desired.
Why not an Earthship?
As a test Ed decided to pound a tire. After almost half an hour of hard work he looked rather done in. Knowing this would need doing close to a thousand times for our home we thought this was better suited to the younger crowd not a couple in their 50's. What other options are out there?
Having decided against using tires for bricks we looked into other options. One that seemed doable was drystack block building. Our thinking was, at our age, we could handle hauling cinder blocks around more easily than tire pounding. There is more cost involved with this type of building over an earthship however many of the same design principles can be utilized as we would still be building a passive solar, off-grid structure. This site is where we found most of our information on this type of building.
Along the way we also found information on dirtbag building. This method of building uses 50 and 100 lb feed bags filled with a dirt mixture which is wetted, tamped and put down in rows, with barbed wired between them, to make walls. We felt this would be a little easier on the budget than drystack blocks. Once again videos, books and blogs were the best sources of information. A special inspiration and turning point was when we found the Canadian Dirtbags blog. By reading about the journey of this couple we felt we had found the perfect style of build for us. They have been extremely helpful. In fact without their expertise and experience we would have gone with our original design plans and never have been able to complete the build in the required time. You see Cochrane has a rather lengthy snow season that we need to work around. We now have a reasonably sized build planned, about 700 square feet, with the option to add on over the years. Thank you B&S!!
So here we are. Packing up, prepping for a summer of unknowns. Excited beyond words to begin this next stage.
Addendum
In case you think this earthship thing is just for hippies. We had a hard time convincing some of our friends that we weren't crazy. Some still think we are. Or if you believe that you have to do without to live this way. It is all about choice. Have a look at the build done by Dennis Weaver on YouTube
