Hey everyone!
It's Danielle from Exploring Alternatives.
In this video, we're checking out a tiny earthship
at the Terra Perma eco-resort in Harrington, Quebec, Canada.
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So it's basically a form of passive solar home
that allows you to heat your home and keep it cool
just by controlling the energy from the sun.
There's one main wall in this earthship
and it's built in a U-shape using recycled tires that are filled with earth
and then they piled on a bunch of earth on top of that wall at the back
so that the wall and that huge mound that they created
form a thermal mass that can absorb energy from the sun
and what that's meant to do is create an indoor temperature that's stable all year round.
So they've got these huge south facing windows that let the sun in during the winter
and then an overhanging roof to block the sun during the summer.
This tiny earth ship has a lot of really interesting sustainable features
and it's a beautiful structure
so let's go take a look inside.
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When you first come into the earthship, there's a really generous sized entryway
with a huge storage closet
and a beautiful recycled bottle wall that must have taken hundreds of hours to create.
Then you can come into the main room of the earthship
and it's absolutely stunning in here.
You've got the back side of the bottle wall here,
they did some beautiful sculptures using cob
on all of the walls,
and then they painted it with a natural lime paint.
You've got a nice big log bed frame here
right in the center of the house.
A cozy sitting area
with a futon that stretches out so you can actually sleep 4 in here.
Huge windows inside give you a really amazing view
so you really feel like you're part of nature.
There's a wood stove for supplemental heat in the winter
and there's a small kitchen over here
with a sink that's not plumbed so you have this water jug.
There's a small propane cook top here that's hooked up to a small propane tank outside.
A little bit of space for storage
and then they've got compost, garbage and recycling which I always like to see.
A small kind of working and/or dining room area
and they've got a couple of plugs here that are attached to their solar system outside
so that you can plug in a fan or a computer or whatever you want.
And then just a small book shelf.
So overall it's a really beautiful space and you really do have everything you need in
here
except a shower and a toilet.
There is an outhouse outside
and for the shower, this is part of an eco-village
so there is a communal shower block not too far down the path.
For us, if we were going to live here we would probably create a small little shower stall
somewhere in the house.
Because this is a miniature earthship, it doesn't have the exact proportions of a regular
earthship.
So, from what we've learned touring other earthships,
the square footage of your window area is supposed to be 30% of the square footage of
your floor space
to get the right ratio of the energy from the sun heating up the thermal mass in the
back
so that you're not overheating the house and so that it's not too cold in the winter.
So based on the amount of windows in here
it's really beautiful but I think it's probably more than 30%
so it is a little bit warmer in here during the summer.
So what they've done to address that is they've got a little pump beside the bed
that has a pipe going behind the house and into the mountain behind it
and basically that's allowing air to circulate through the pipe and cool down underground
and then be recirculated into the earthship
so it's bringing cool air in and circulating it through here to keep it cool.
They've also got some curtains that you can put up when the sun is really bright
and they also have the large overhang as well, which is blocking the summer sun.
Another thing you'd usually see in an earthship is angled windows
so that they're on an angle to the winter sun.
These ones, they've put them in straight up and down
so they're at right angles to the ground
and the reason they did that is because it's a vacation rental and they just
wanted to have lower maintenance.
So they didn't want to have a lot of dirt or snow collecting on the windows
so that they'd have to come by all the time and
clean them off.
In case it does get colder in here in the winter, they do have the wood stove
and they have plans to have an in-floor radiant heating system.
So they have put pipes throughout the floor
that they can fill up with glycol
and then have that be heated by the wood stove so you would even have a heated floor.
This tiny earthship has a huge 1000 Watt solar power system outside
which seems like a lot of energy for such a small space.
One of the reasons why they put in such a huge system
is because they are going to have a pump running the glycol through the floor 24 hours a day
during the winter.
Another really important component to an earthship is that they're usually designed to collect
rainwater.
So this one doesn't have their gutter system set up yet
but they did create an angled roof and they do plan to add gutters so that they have a
3-season rainwater collection system
to provide water for whoever is staying here.
Terra Perma is an eco village that's trying to incorporate community,
and tourism, and permaculture, and sustainability
all into one space
and it's really interesting.
So they've got a residential area on this huge piece of land that they have
where they're selling lots so that people can actually move here full time
then they've got a cooperative business area
so that residents of the eco village can create their own businesses and share resources
and then there's the tourism area which is where we are right now
and this is where they've built miniature models of green buildings
so that people can come here and stay for a night or two
or a week
and experience what it's like to live in a tiny earth ship
or a yurt
or another kind of sustainable building.
Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed this video about the tiny earthship
if you liked it, give it a thumbs up
and subscribe to see more like it.
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