in this video I'm going to show you how you can get all the benefits of an
Earthship out of an average everyday house with some simple modifications for
way less cost and work Michael Reynolds an architect created the concept of
earthships and revolutionized home building for people who are eco
conscious and just want to live off the grid with no ties to the municipal sewer
water or power companies he's come up with some stunning designs for
absolutely incredible homes that are completely off grid now while earth
ships are a brilliant design the reality is that an Earthship costs a lot more
than a conventional house of the same size that with some simple modifications
can basically do the same things earthships
incorporates six main concepts energy garbage management sewage treatment
shelter clean water and food earth ships also have the additional goal of
recycling incorporated everywhere let's go over these principles first I've
explored the idea of a thermal dirt battery in a previous video using solar
thermal collectors and a thermal battery in the ground made from clay earthships
incorporate the thermal battery idea into the home itself on the back wall
this presents a problem with heat control especially in climates with cold
winters on any regular home if you have the thermal battery outside the house
you can regulate what heat you want to bring in via a thermostat and have heat
distributed via radiant floors baseboards or a furnace with duct events
this means much more stable temperatures an Earthship just uses radiant heat
directly from the thermal battery the back of the house not allowing for much
comfort control of the temperature for air-conditioning earthships run air
tubes through their back walls to the outside to cool the air the problem is
they don't run the two through much material the heatsink is
small you can run out of cooling in a hot summer my suggestion is to dig down
six to eight feet and run a hundred feet or more of cooling tubes which is just
ordinary weeping tile with a simple fan circulating the air from your house
through the cooling tubes in the ground and back into your house for a much
larger heatsink to regulate indoor temperatures on a thermostat for much
more precise temperature control and this can be done easily on most any
regular home and finally regarding heating earthships incorporate a
southern facing orientation with their windows to get solar gain but neglect to
mention such orientation in the summer tends to cook the interior of a house
unless you have a roof overhang to take advantage of the sun's position in the
summer and winter achieving solar gain in the winter but blocking the solar
heat in the summer overhangs seem to be missing from many
Earthship designs yes vents help but they're a pain to operate and the more a
house can be automated with a simplest technology that requires no work the
better and easier it is to live in self facing windows with a roof overhang on
any regular house work great for solar heat gain and don't add any additional
heat in the summer as for solar and wind electricity the equipment used to
achieve this is the same whether you have an Earthship or any regular house
there's no real advantage or disadvantage to either type of home
garbage management is a major goal of an Earthship recycling is key and the big
Earthship idea is recycling tires but tires are being recycled into other
useful things now as well Road shingles artificial reefs etc Earthship walls
aren't the only thing we can do with old tires personally I think Earthship tire
walls are a huge waste of time money and labor when you look at the amount of
labor to build an earth entire wall it's staggering unless you have free labor
and a lot of it because making an earth entire wall is weeks of back-breaking
laborer with a sledgehammer for a team of people the idea of an economical
earth and tire wall is just stupid I believe one should just insulate your
walls well like most houses and keep the earth in battery outside in the ground
recycle the dirt your backyard into an earthen thermal battery and you get heat
on a thermostat factoring in labor costs an earth and thermal battery will cost
you a lot less and work a lot better as for the garbage we generate every day in
our homes how we recycle that is no different no matter what kind of home
you live in good ship or bungalow shelter is an easy one an Earthship or
any modern home pretty much do this equally sewage treatment is an elaborate
thing with an Earthship some people do composting toilets others use a bunch of
expensive systems to break down the human waste into something useful for
their gardens honestly I don't want to use recycled human waste directly on my
food commercial greenhouses are banned from using this material in most areas
for a reason not only is it just gross but there's a serious bacteria risk
sewage is easily treated and recycled into the groundwater by a septic tank
and a septic feel rule houses have been using these systems for decades and
honestly there isn't any reason to reinvent the wheel here it works and
it's environmentally friendly you don't have to ration water with a well
whatever comes out of the ground goes back into the ground treated via your
septic field you can have high flow toilets big bathtubs and long showers
with fresh new water and no real environmental consequence and no
recycling rainwater from your shower to your sink to your toilet and so on
elaborate hippie septic systems designed to put your poop back into your food
growing plots is just a scam that will waste your money and possibly poison you
earthships all praise the idea of saving rainwater filtering it and then after
using it in one place recycling it to the toilet to use to flush down you're
number one in you're number two all well and good but every time I read about
this I cringe and ask why don't these people just drill a well most locations
can drill a well and get good clean unlimited water fifty to four hundred
feet down way less cost than installing multiple cisterns to hold rainwater no
need to recycle the well water from shower to toilet you just use a septic
field system and all the water recycles back into the ground imagine the cost
savings of not having five to six cisterns as holding tanks for water and
never having to worry about your water running out if it doesn't rain for a few
months that's how a well works funny most every rural acreage operates like
this and has for over a century but earthships designed a system to use
rainwater that costs ten times as much so they can feel environmentally smugly
cyclic rainwater that has to be highly filtered from the roof the last topic is
food it's really cool that earthships incorporate growing food into the square
footage of your home it looks great but reality is when you increase the square
footage of your home most municipalities also massively increase your property
taxes the cost of the greenhouse is exponentially higher per square foot of
growing space if it's part of your home versus a standalone tent type structure
beside your house a greenhouse can be made with double wall air inflated
paulien insulation on the north wall and classified as a tent something that
isn't taxed much in any municipality and you can have a much larger greenhouse
separating it from your home for way less cost you also avoid all the bugs
and humidity associated with the growing of an abundance of plants in your house
a few houseplants as all one needs to get that oxygen eyes to feel in the
house a full orchard growing foods is an invitation for insect infestation in
your home not something anyone ever wants that's it a few simple changes to
most any home and you can get all the benefits of an Earthship without the
cost or the worry if the building inspector for your municipality will
pass the plans for an Earthship and even allow it to be built earthships are
beautiful but the reality is you can modify most any regular house to be
off-grid and just as environmentally friendly as an Earthship for way less
cost
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for watching see you next time!
Check out other Youtube channels for full earthship tours like Exploring Alternatives and their video "Man Living in a Sustainable & Innovative Earthship Home - Full Tour" or CBC News channel's video "Ontario couple built this eco-friendly earthship home for $70,000"