Posts Tagged ‘Earthship’

Our Latest Outrageous Electric Bill

Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in Being Green on February 9th, 2009

I think our utility companies think we have money trees blooming in the back yard! We just got our electric bill for February: $452!!

I suppose I wouldn’t be so shocked if we had the heat turned to 80 degrees and had all the windows open. But with the thermostat normally set for 65 (okay, every once in a while we splurge and turn it up to 67) during the day and 60 at night, I was still shocked. Granted, this year was colder in our neck of the woods than last year by 10 degrees, but holy cow. I can’t even imagine what the bill would have been if we had the heat pump running upstairs (we have a dual-zone system, with gas heat downstairs and a heat pump in the attic): we keep the upstairs rooms warm with radiant heater panels and leave that energy hog off the entire winter. Otherwise we’d have to declare bankruptcy!

So, past the sticker shock, what’s one to do? We’ve done most of the basic stuff, like replacing our lights with compact fluorescent bulbs and programmable thermostats, and so on. But in the short term, there are a few other things that should help:

  • I’m going to finish covering the garage with radiant barrier material, which reflects heat inward during the winter and outward during the summer. I’m also going to look into putting radiant barrier material in the attic, too; if I could, I’d put it all around the house, and it drives me nuts that this isn’t a standard/code practice (for some great info on radiant barriers, check out Horizon Energy Systems).
  • I need to find something to block the cold air coming in from the bloody fireplace in the living room (ironic, isn’t it?), and do the same for the outlets.
  • I think I’m going to make radiant barrier panels to put up in our existing traditional skylights, which are a major source of heat loss in the winter and gain in the summer. We have two in the living room and one in the master bathroom. If I had things to do over, I would’ve skipped those and gotten tubular skylights instead.
  • I’m going to look into installing a timer on the hot water heater. We really only need hot water in the early morning when my wife and I take a shower, then again in the evening when the boys take a shower and we run the dishwasher. The rest of the day it’s keeping that water hot for nothing (and I already have it wrapped in a radiant barrier cover). I’m also going to get a quote this spring on a solar hot water system.
  • Windows. Our windows suck, but replacing them isn’t an option: it’s just too expensive. They don’t leak, but the effect of convection results in a flow of cold air in the winter and more heat gain in the summer (although the winter’s the worst). I haven’t come to grips with this one yet, but at least the windows upstairs that we don’t normally look out of need something, even if some sort of semi-transparent insulation like bubble-wrap!

For us, I think those are the biggest problems. We’ve got fairly new appliances (particularly the refrigerator, which is brand new), so they’re reasonably energy efficient. But this sort of thing is one more reason why I’d really love to build an earthship – just think of all the other things we could do with all the money we’re spending on utilities!! Yikes!

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Why I Want To Build An Earthship

Posted by: Michael R. Hicks in Being Green on February 6th, 2009

While I obviously enjoy reading and writing fiction, an earthship isn’t something you’re going to see on the SciFi channel. It’s something that you can see today, right here on good old planet Earth.

So what is an earthship, anyway? In brief, it’s a self-sustaining – in terms of water and power – structure that is also very environmentally friendly. On top of that, depending on how you build it, it can be significantly less expensive than a conventional home.

The brainchild of Michael Reynolds, the earthship concept essentially takes materials that are currently looked up on as wasted products – used car tires, glass bottles, and aluminum cans – and uses them as the foundation for a structure that is incredibly sturdy, stays cool in the summer and warm in the winter, can supply its inhabitants with water through rain catchment, electricity through solar power, and even provides an indoor greenhouse to freshen your air and even give you some extra food.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDRstVYF7wA

I don’t know about you, but I really hate paying increasingly outrageous electric rates. Water is not only becoming more expensive, but it’s a precious commodity to begin with – and much of the water we use is simply flushed down the toilet, creating an enormous burden on the sewer systems (which means more money spent to maintain and upgrade them).

But with an earthship, all that goes away.

  • Three foot thick walls – tires filled with packed earth – help maintain a pleastant temperature year-round, even in very cold or very hot climates. So out goes the air conditioner and the heat pump (you’ll still likely be required to have a backup heat source – how about an adobe fireplace?).
  • Since you just got rid of the biggest users of electricity in your home, you can get by with a much more manageable solar power system. You have to be reasonable in your electric budget, but wouldn’t it be worth changing your lifestyle slightly to thumb your nose at those heinous electric and gas bills?
  • You can use rainwater caught by your roof and drained into large cisterns for your potable water. Poof! There’s no more need to pay for water or those expensive hookup and footer fees.
  • Waste water from your sinks and shower (or bathtub) can be used to water indoor and outdoor “gray water” planters. So in addition to recycling a precious resource into food or attractive plants, you also just eliminated most of your need for a sewer connection or septic tank.
  • As for the toilet, my personal leaning there is to just get a composting toilet and ditch entirely the use of water to flush away the poo. I mean, really: we use drinking water to flush away our bodily wastes. How dumb is that? But even if you don’t like that idea and want a conventional flush-away system, you’ll only be flushing toilet water and not all the other reusable water.

The earthship also doesn’t require you to be a supergenius with building materials. It’s made out of pretty basic stuff: tiers, dirt, wood, glass, aluminum cans, concrete, and stucco (plus the plumbing, fixtures, etc.). The biggest ingredient you’ll need is labor: you’ve got to pound a lot of dirt into every tire that goes into the walls, and depending on the size of your earthship, there will likely be anywhere from 500 to 700 tires. That’s a LOT of tires, yes, but if you can hire a dozen folks for a couple weeks or so, you can probably get it done (hey, offer a free barbecue every weekend to the local high school football team until the tires are done!).

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TbxhpG-Y4Q&feature=related

And you can build an earthship anywhere you can get the basic ingredients together. There are variations in the design based on the climate, but it can be built anywhere in the world. When I retire, we plan to move somewhere in the southwest and start building one of these puppies!

If you’re interested in finding out more, there’s a PDF overview, plus a few of the many sites that have more info:

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