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renewable energy and evs are just a few
pieces of a puzzle for achieving net
zero living but what if we could combine
eco-friendly building materials energy
efficiency and sustainability like a
passive house
being heated and cooled by the ground
without relying on the electrical grid
it's time to get on board an earthship
it's a house not an actual ship
what are they where can they be built
and are they even worth it i'm matt
farrell welcome to undecided
[Music]
there's a lot of focus on getting solar
panels for your home or buying an ev to
go net zero and save money in the long
run but that's only one piece of a much
larger puzzle finding ways to reduce our
energy use and live more sustainably is
just as important like building a net
zero or passive home or using smart
technologies to optimize how and when
things inside your home actually use
energy i've done several videos on
various aspects of these concepts
already but just like the passivhaus
standard there's another building
technique that doesn't get as much
attention now while i don't personally
see myself building or living in an
earthship which sounds like something
that should be traveling the galaxy
i find myself endlessly fascinated by
the approach and how some of these
principles can apply back to more
traditional mainstream approaches now in
the construction sector sustainable
buildings like past homes and green
buildings are getting traction and are
important solution for a low-carbon
future combined with renewables evs and
battery storage now these homes
naturally reduce carbon emissions from
heating and cooling which is a very good
thing especially when you consider that
heating and cooling accounts for 51
of the total energy used in the u.s
even though green buildings and passive
house designs have a positive impact for
the most part they still rely on the
electrical grid and public utilities
which depending on where you live
isn't as reliable as it should be
but what about an approach that could
pull together energy efficiency upcycled
materials and even food production and
cooling from the earth itself
combined with off-grid living
and potentially do it for less money
than something like a passivhaus
enter earthships
now built with eco-home building
materials earthships offer comfortable
energy efficient and cozy living spaces
without relying on public utilities
i've been drawn to solar power and
battery storage in my grid tied system
to try to reduce my depends on the grid
but not to cut it out altogether
now this on the other hand takes this
thing to a whole nother level
it all started in the 1970s in new
mexico with the architect michael
reynolds he proposed the inclusion of
bioecological features like beer cans
old tires and bottles into his designs
which was very curious at the time
and even today
airships can be boiled down to six basic
design principles the first is building
with natural and repurposed materials
some of these materials are available in
abundance worldwide
in the us for example about 290 million
tires were scrapped in 2003 that's just
one year
now most of that is chopped up and
burned recycled into other products or
burned in landfills but there are
millions of tires stockpiled
every single year so you can get some of
them for very cheap or sometimes for
free
and when they're used in earthship
construction old tires are used as
bricks they're filled with earth that's
pounded to create very strong exterior
walls and load-bearing interior walls
they have a much higher thermal mass
than traditional construction a study by
the colorado school of mines showed an
r-value of 40 for a tire bale wall
that's three times as much insulation as
a standard four inch stud wall other
materials such as cans and bottles are
optional but they can be used as a main
material to construct interior walls
which are then plastered
the second principle is thermal solar
heating and cooling earth ships
naturally heat and cool themselves so
they don't require electric heat fossil
fuels or wood
but that depends on where you live which
i'll get to in a little bit
the tires which i already mentioned are
known as bricks which weigh 300 pounds
packed with soil that incredible thermal
mass isn't just a good insulator but it
can store heat or cold the basic idea
behind heating and cooling an earth ship
is to surround each living space with
those thermal mass bricks on the east
north and west sides on the southern
facing side you line that wall with
windows the sun shines through the glass
warming the mass of the floors and walls
when the sun goes down and the air
temperature drops below the temperature
of the walls heat flows from the walls
and the floor into the living space
it's the same passive solar principle
that's used in passive home design now
for cooling there are cooling tubes fed
through the thermal mass surrounding the
building as warmer air is pulled into
the building through those tubes the
heat is wicked away providing cooled air
to the inside of the building
the third design principle is solar and
wind energy earthships produce their own
renewable energy through solar panels
and wind turbines and this part i'm sure
you're very familiar with but they're
able to provide power to appliances from
solar and wind generation combined with
charge controllers inverters and
batteries to store the excess energy for
a consistent power 24 hours a day but as
you already know solar panel and wind
generation systems like this can be
expensive so to make it more affordable
with a smaller energy generator build
out you typically pair this with super
energy efficient appliances like pumps
lighting and refrigerators together with
natural cooling and heating to reduce
the power demand earthships only require
about 25 of the electricity consumed by
a traditional home
the fourth design principle is water
harvesting and this is one i'm actually
interested in for myself
to further improve sustainability earth
ships collect and store rainwater and
snowmelt and cisterns to supply all
their demand there's a great youtube
channel handyman who lives in arizona
and has done this exact thing a few
weeks of rain during the rainy season in
arizona and he's got water for the rest
of the year
water from the cistern has to be pumped
through a filtering system to treat the
water but you can also use a solar water
heater for hot water and use a pressure
tank to regulate the water pressure
the fifth design principle is contained
sewage treatment and who doesn't like
talking about sewage
trust me this is not gonna be gross it's
all about reusing water to not let
anything go to waste and no i'm not
talking about having to take a bath in
toilet water but the water that's left
over after washing the dishes doing the
laundry or taking a bath this type of
water is known as gray water it's
basically used water that doesn't have
any fecal contamination in it you can
use gray water to feed interior
botanical cells where plants naturally
treat the water until it's clean enough
to be pumped and used for toilet
flushing when you're talking about 40 of
typical water use in a house getting
flushed on the toilet this can be a
significant savings in water usage grey
water reuse is standard practice aboard
the space station
for water that gets flushed down the
toilet and earthship it flows into a
standard septic tank and leech field but
you can also add a line out that
overflows into an exterior rubber-lined
botanical cell taking advantage of the
uh
rich nutrients shall we say that are
contained in the isolated cell for
exterior decoration plants
which leads me to the last design
principle
food production
one of the more recent experiments by
michael reynolds company earthship
biotecture is the use of interior gray
water botanical cells for food
production
and taking all that waste water to grow
things inside the building
in taos new mexico the airship visitor
center features things like herbs
peppers tomatoes kale beets and
cucumbers
again this is all tapping back into that
same concept of reusing and maximizing
efficiency of every single system in the
home
there are several pros that make the
earthship concept attractive they're
highly efficient buildings and don't
rely on the power grid water is
collected filtered stored and reused
many times and for several different
kinds of uses
in addition the earthships are made of
natural recycled materials that require
no hvac systems
sort of
and provide organic food that's healthy
for people
but is all this sunshine and rainbows
let's start with the great question that
usually comes up around earth ships and
one i've hinted at a couple of times can
they be built anywhere
well cooler and more humid environments
like the american northeast and canada
can make it extremely challenging
in general an earthship operates best in
temperate or hot environments with
regular rainfall over 50 inches per year
and a humidity less than 60 percent
orientation is also vital which might
make certain locations impossible a rule
of thumb is to face windows to the
southwest if you need more heat and
southeast if more cooling is needed and
water tanks should be placed on the
northwest if you build an earth ship in
a cold climate to prevent them from
freezing and in the northeast in a hot
climate to prevent overheating
earthships in a very cold climate have
divergent opinions
although reynolds has modified some of
his earship plans to make them better
suited for the cold his buildings don't
have heat pumps to extract heat from the
ground in canada for example the ground
temperature is below 7 degrees in the
winter so keeping the inside warm gets a
lot harder
again it's not impossible but takes
modifications to keep it warm there are
few earth ships i found in the new
england area that had to integrate some
form of traditional heating system for
certain times of the year
another problem of the earthship
self-sustainability is that homeowners
can't grow all the essential food they
want because some food is impossible to
grow inside the earth ship even more
important some residents might not have
the necessary farming experience
i know i don't and regarding water
collection it's hard to have enough rain
water volume in some arid climates i
mentioned that youtuber from arizona
well he's able to do with a fairly
sizable rainwater harvesting system but
that may not be the case everywhere
earthships also accumulate water in the
wall surfaces which might lead to the
formation of molds and algae and the
tires used in the walls can break down
and expel gases into an enclosed space
which could be harmful to the
inhabitants
and then there's the costs but there are
a lot of factors that affect how much it
will cost to build but before i get into
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now back to the cost of building an
earthship house while a conventional
house costs about 100 to 150 per square
foot on average not including the cost
of the land
earth ships cost between 150 and 225
dollars per square foot which is
considerably more expensive but their
cost is not that different from passive
homes which ranges from 166 dollars to
231 dollars per square foot which i
covered in my passive house video
the price of labor is usually one of the
highest expenses when building an
airship since it requires more unique
building methods now if you're gonna do
the labor yourself it's obviously gonna
cost a lot less per square foot but
imagine placing all of those tires
compacting them with dirt to make all
those walls
placing one tire takes about 45 minutes
to one hour and you need to do hundreds
of these
doing this yourself is definitely an
option
just not for the masses
also due to their unusual design an
architect or engineer with experience
and knowledge to carry this out is
usually required and can be expensive
there can also be issues with modern
building codes and permits that can come
up
excavation degrade and level the site
and provide a solid foundation also
brings up considerable costs not to
mention all the soil that's needed for
the walls
but there are plenty of examples of
earth ships out in the world in taos
where earthships are born there's a 600
plus acre earthship community which has
space for 130 homes
far from taos we have the brighton earth
ship in the uk it was built in 2007 by
airship biotecture and the low carbon
trust and it serves as a community
center for stanmar organics in alberta
canada the 1800 square foot kenny
earthship was built with more than 12
000 cans and 800 tires mike reynolds
carried out this project for a whole
summer he brought a dozen workers and 30
volunteers from new mexico to help
complete it
kenny earship produces all of its own
electricity grows much of the family's
food and recycles all grey water
and there are more earth ships in other
parts of the world like scotland
nicaragua south africa and more
i hope it didn't sound like i was kind
of bagging on the concept of earth ships
when i was going over the cons but there
are significant challenges to where you
might want to build one with other
building techniques that can provide as
energy efficient to home at the same
cost with less restrictions it kind of
relegates earth ships to a more highly
motivated more niche option and despite
all of that earth ships are a
fascinating concept that has aspects
that could be applied elsewhere things
that not only benefit the environment
but also give you more independence and
potentially save money over time with
much lower energy requirements it's
another piece of that much larger puzzle
but what do you think do you have any
interest in something like an earth ship
what elements do you think that make the
most sense for a wider adoption
jump in the comments and let me know
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