And back up again!
I stayed up until midnight last night, reading about one couple's experience building an earthship.
An earthship is a completely self-sufficient home. It's typically built with recycled materials (tires, cans) and earth-friendly adobe or a similar plastering material. The south side of the house has a bank of windows. Water is collected from the roof of the house into cisterns, and all water is recycled within the home--from the sink, to planters, to the toilet, to the outside planting area. Electricity is provided by solar panels or wind. You can build an earthship anywhere. You can learn more about them on Wikipedia or at www.earthships.com.
I love regular homes. I'm especially fond of old farm houses with multiple twists and turns and peaked roofs. I also like log cabins. I'm not terribly fond of adobe-looking houses outside of Southwestern settings. But I'm pretty sure that no other kind of home makes a lot of sense for us.
First off, the cisterns. Cisterns = no well. Huge plastic water containers cost thousands, but we have time to look around, and we can buy one at a time. With cisterns you can collect all the water you need for a house and even the garden and animals. The only setback is that you need a building from which to collect the water. But cisterns give me hope.
The second thing that gives me hope is the pay-as-you-go nature of earthships. First, you have to pay to level and ready the building site. Then you pound tires for months until your exterior walls are done. OR, since pounding tires seems like a really hideous process (though one that would burn a lot of fat!), you can use tire bales. See tirebalehouse.com for pictures. Tire bales consist of 100 old tires hydraulically pressed into a 5' x 5' x 2 1/2' bale and held in place with thin steel wires. They can be used to build really thick walls. They are often free--but you have to pay to ship them to the site and they weigh a ton apiece. Still, to eliminate months of packing dirt into tires with a sledgehammer....
Earthships are typically as expensive as a regular house. You have to buy solar panels, lots of glass, insulation, flooring, plumbing, etc. But once you have that stuff--and, again, you can get it over time and do a lot of the work yourself--utility bills are a thing of the past! You have a comfortable home completely independent of the grid. You have an indoor greenhouse. And this is something that is within reach for Kevin and me (over time).
So it's back up the hill.
Kevin's Memorial Day hell is almost over--just five more days of insane hours. We're taking this weekend to completely chill. I'm taking this Thursday and Friday off, too. Starting the weekend after that, we're going to live at Hot Waffles on the weekend. That way we're putting our energy and meager funds towards our own land. Instead of pissing money away here and there, we'll buy the things we need for the land. We'll need to construct an outhouse right away, so we'll buy a toilet seat (does anyone have a used one we can have?). We'll buy or scrounge the materials for an outdoor oven (can't wait for that!). We'll chop down cedar trees, fix the fence, mow, and try to figure out a way to get the animals out there asap. We'll think about chickens again--and pigs!
Hope springs eternal at Hot Waffles.
An earthship is a completely self-sufficient home. It's typically built with recycled materials (tires, cans) and earth-friendly adobe or a similar plastering material. The south side of the house has a bank of windows. Water is collected from the roof of the house into cisterns, and all water is recycled within the home--from the sink, to planters, to the toilet, to the outside planting area. Electricity is provided by solar panels or wind. You can build an earthship anywhere. You can learn more about them on Wikipedia or at www.earthships.com.
I love regular homes. I'm especially fond of old farm houses with multiple twists and turns and peaked roofs. I also like log cabins. I'm not terribly fond of adobe-looking houses outside of Southwestern settings. But I'm pretty sure that no other kind of home makes a lot of sense for us.
First off, the cisterns. Cisterns = no well. Huge plastic water containers cost thousands, but we have time to look around, and we can buy one at a time. With cisterns you can collect all the water you need for a house and even the garden and animals. The only setback is that you need a building from which to collect the water. But cisterns give me hope.
The second thing that gives me hope is the pay-as-you-go nature of earthships. First, you have to pay to level and ready the building site. Then you pound tires for months until your exterior walls are done. OR, since pounding tires seems like a really hideous process (though one that would burn a lot of fat!), you can use tire bales. See tirebalehouse.com for pictures. Tire bales consist of 100 old tires hydraulically pressed into a 5' x 5' x 2 1/2' bale and held in place with thin steel wires. They can be used to build really thick walls. They are often free--but you have to pay to ship them to the site and they weigh a ton apiece. Still, to eliminate months of packing dirt into tires with a sledgehammer....
Earthships are typically as expensive as a regular house. You have to buy solar panels, lots of glass, insulation, flooring, plumbing, etc. But once you have that stuff--and, again, you can get it over time and do a lot of the work yourself--utility bills are a thing of the past! You have a comfortable home completely independent of the grid. You have an indoor greenhouse. And this is something that is within reach for Kevin and me (over time).
So it's back up the hill.
Kevin's Memorial Day hell is almost over--just five more days of insane hours. We're taking this weekend to completely chill. I'm taking this Thursday and Friday off, too. Starting the weekend after that, we're going to live at Hot Waffles on the weekend. That way we're putting our energy and meager funds towards our own land. Instead of pissing money away here and there, we'll buy the things we need for the land. We'll need to construct an outhouse right away, so we'll buy a toilet seat (does anyone have a used one we can have?). We'll buy or scrounge the materials for an outdoor oven (can't wait for that!). We'll chop down cedar trees, fix the fence, mow, and try to figure out a way to get the animals out there asap. We'll think about chickens again--and pigs!
Hope springs eternal at Hot Waffles.
posted by lulu | 7:11 AM
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