Cans of concrete?
written by GTW , October 25, 2006

Why couldn't he just make the walls out of pure concrete or concrete bricks and take the cans to a recycler?

Also I hope his wood burning stove is a bit more efficiently designed than regular wood burning stoves... I can't imagine how anything that burns wood can be energy efficient or tree-friendly than a well designed electric or gas stove. If his isn't... then too bad that people are making a fashion out of this eco/green thing and doing un-eco-friendly/pointless things in the process.

librarians and earthships
written by John , October 25, 2006

(In response to the commenter: Am I crazy or are trees more of a renewable resource than, say, coal-generated electricity? Modern wood stoves are so super-efficient, and so awesome, that they're great for people who live on some land and won't burn more than they can grow.)

Also, there is a librarian who blogged about my book once (she hated it, as I recall) who is building one of these earth ships. They're pretty awesome, I think, if usually very very small.

Toxic tires.
written by rob , October 26, 2006

While using waste products is laudable, I thought that tires gave off hazardous chemicals as they broke down, wouldn't this permeate the living areas?

On a brighter note, the land is very cheap in Durango $62,000 for 55 acres, I think I'm emigrating.

Re: librarians and earthships
written by GTW , October 28, 2006

Why are we talking about coal when every other post on this blog is about solar electricity? And by gas I meant compost gas.

Details
written by Celia , November 10, 2006

Where's the greenhouse? How big is it? Is it bigger than a single wide? Can it stand up to hurricanes and tornadoes?

the offgassing non-issue. Tires are haza
written by earthship biotecture , April 15, 2007

There is an extensive study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison that was presented to us by the state of New Mexico. The cover page of which is here. It can be obtained through the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, 53706. It would probably cost something to get it. In addition to this study, we have 30 years of experience living with the tire buildings. It has been our experience that this type of first-hand knowledge is often more valuable than any study at any price. Tires are Hazardous is piles, not Earthships.

read the report here:
http://www.earthship.net/modul...cle&sid=21

...
written by Matt Lew , September 02, 2008

the use of wood burning stoves, recycled materials, etc. are dependant on the number of people using them. take WVO biodiesel fuels for example. it is a fuel source anyone with a brain can make resulting in free (or atleast cheap) fuel for those using it, but if we all did, there would not be enough fry oil out there to supply the demand, and resteraunts would be selling it at $4 a gallon or whatever the going rate of dinofuels where that day. one of the kids who works for me owns a dodge charger... that engine could run on pure alchihol with a li'l work as many moonshiners could tell you, but if we ran our engines on pure cornjuice, there is not enough farmable land in america to supply the gas demand much less food needs for the US. Wood burning stoves are banned in some areas for the amount of polutants produced, the smog levels in some areas where wood is a common heat source are on par with LA at it's worst.(though in my opinion the wood does not smell as bad) yet bio fuels including wood put back nothing they did not take out of the air. still in the 1900s areas where being deforested faster than they could be replanted due to wood burning. it is renewable only so long as the demand does not outstrip the supply. for that matter what is oil? my highschool science class told me oil and coal where the decomposed remains of plant and animal matter that died millions of years ago. if this is true, then it is a renewable resource as well, but one in which the renewal rate is not going to catch up with the demand for another million years or so. by then I hope we have advanced beyond such needs.

now moving on to the tires. I have read that the average earthship takes about 2000 tires (IIRC) I think I average 2 tires per year personal consumption... my farther on the other hand when he was working as a regional computer tech was putting on a ton of miles each week, and was replacing all four a couple times per year, so lets be generous and say he was using 12 tires per year? someone wanna do the math real fast and tell me how many years of that it would take to build a retirement home out of those tires for he and my mother? I count 167 years at that rate. so obviously demand again can outstrip supply. but the reason to use them instead of taking them to the recycleing center is simply a recycle center is suposed to return our materials to useful service, and this style of construction clearly does just that, so why use all concrete when you can recycle your materials and get the added bennifit to the world around you?

It is not for everyone, but it is still a great idea.

...
written by Matt Lew , September 02, 2008

Oh and a reply specificly for rob... Actualy it is quite the oppisite effect. I used to live next to a former army amunition plant. Needless to say the ground there is quite contaminated with a number of unpleasant things. Some time after the plant was closed down it was decided that it was a burdon on the economy to have so much unusable land, so they decided it was a good place to sell off and use as an industrial plant among other used. When they began researching the possible solutions to the contamination problem, someone presented a possible sollution in tires. It seems that shreading the tires and introducing the rubber into the ground allows the carbon that the tire manufacturers use to make them black (which protects them from UV damage among other things) to serve it's purpose as natural binding agent to toxins. the carbon from the tires is actualy reported to be able to help remove the contaminants fom the soil. Though I moved before being able to find out any of the follow up results, a chemist friend of mine tells me the theory is sound.