Earthship Youtube Video

Check it out. Low Enviro-impact homes that needs no outside infrastructure whatsoever.

Part 1


Part 2


Another video I found




[edit on 17-2-2007 by sardion2000]

[edit on 17-2-2007 by sardion2000]

Now just imagine how the below technology could effect the building of Earthships.

what do you mean earthship ?

Did you watch the videos? It's merely a catchy name that these types of dwelling are being called.

no I didnt.

for some reason I thought you were talking about an earth orbiting space ship.

Pretty awesome stuff to think about. Good for the planet, the pocketbook and your soul. I'm surprised everyone isn't building one.

I hope the members of the survival forum check this out, it's right up their alley

Yay! Great find, sardion2000!

I want to live in one of those in, say, less than 10 years. It's so simple that you have to wonder why it hasn't been done before. I'd even say it's one small step towards world peace, really. Why? Because it's a natural way of living, unlike those concrete cubicles that we call "homes" nowadays and drive us mad. I wonder though what my computer would say about DC voltage... heck, in 10 years I'll have a laptop anyways :-)

Could somebody help me with a little detail, please? I didn't understand the 4th step of water usage, after it has been flushed. What do they do with that?

Cool concept, although they aren't all that "purdy" I'd rather have a house that was underground, I mean if its gunna be that fugly anyways might as well not have to look at the outside, could have your garden ontop of the land perhaps encased in a greenhouse.

as for computers in 10 yrs I hope my computer is holographic.



[edit on 17-2-2007 by Lysergic]

Could somebody help me with a little detail, please? I didn't understand the 4th step of water usage, after it has been flushed. What do they do with that?

The black water goes into the Septic tank which has a south facing window to speed the anaerobic process and help turn that sludge into fertilizer. I wouldn't use it to fertilize food though...

I actually did tons of research on the Earthship several years ago. They are very nice for what they are designed to do. There is an entire village of them on a south facing mountainside near Taos, NM.

However, try to get your bank to loan you money to build one, or try to get your building inspector to understand what it is and why you are going to use car tires. See how difficult it is to get your rainwater collection system ceritifed for drinkable human use, not to mention handling the grey and black waste water in a way that the Powers That Be™ will approve of provided you can even get them to listen when you attempt to explain it. Even if they do understand it, they will not trust you, the homeowner, to keep such a system in order and working at an optimum level. There is usually more to the maintenance of these systems than just flusing the toilet or turning on the spigot. You will not be trusted with this responsibility.

The Earthship and its accompanying technologies do not participate in the centralized power/resource distrubution and waste collection model that our rulers profit from and would like to keep us dependant on.

Fortunately, acceptance is evolving. The originators of the Earthship concept have gone to great pains to reasearch and test the technologies involved and you can get a lot of this stuff pre-engineered. With enough money or in the right place, you can build an Earthship. Just be prepared to jump through the hoops. There are many.

My $0.05...

Please don't mention government regulations as pertaining to the architecture industry, it makes my neck twitch. It's hard enough to get plans approved for a conventional house in my neck of the woods... it's gonna be an uphill battle for a little while more yet, though with the magic of Youtube perhaps we can help nudge it along.

We need a strong vision of where this technology is going and to help illustrate it, we need to popularize pieces of fiction that will help to galvanize support for these dwellings.

The Unplugged - A Speculative Fiction

The black water goes into the Septic tank which has a south facing window to speed the anaerobic process and help turn that sludge into fertilizer. I wouldn't use it to fertilize food though...

Thanks for breaking that little language barrier for me :-)

Sure, it's a curious thought to use your own... fertilizer for food plants, but if you think about what the inhabitants of the space stations drink - it doesn't sound so strange anymore.

Overall, it's a cool concept. My first reaction was to contact them and ask if it's possible to join one of their crews travelling around the globe, building houses that help save the world... still can't get that idea out of my head!

I wonder how difficult it is to maintain an earthship? The cistern and water filters must be kept clean, for example. And what else?

Another thing that came to my mind... with earth's climate going crazy these days, what do you do to get water in an extreme summer like the one we had 2006 in middle europe?

Check this out...

web.mit.edu...

When that fog rolls in, the Namib Desert beetle is ready with a moisture-collection system exquisitely adapted to its desert habitat. Inspired by this dime-sized beetle, MIT researchers have produced a new material that can capture and control tiny amounts of water.

The material combines a superhydrophobic (water-repelling) surface with superhydrophilic (water-attracting) bumps that trap water droplets and control water flow. The work was published in the online version of Nano Letters on Tuesday, May 2.

It didn't take them long for engineers to come up with a product. I cannot for the life of me find the link right now, but it basically involves using these type of open air tarps over the soil to recapture 70% of the water that evaporates from the soil and that bring with it a near 1/2 reduction in water usage for plants.

As for drinkable water, there are some systems out there that condense atmospheric vapor into drinkable water. They are rather big, bulky and dirty machines(they are powered by an Internal Combustion Engine for one), but the technology is out there.

Pretty cool concept but I'm afraid it will never take off for many reason's.For the main reason people in general don't have the skill's or motivation to do it,it look's simple in the video but I work cunstruction and that's alot of work to build "Hard Work" is something most people in the USA are afraid of.Yes you could hire a contractor to build one but trying finding one that know's how to build one,it won't be cheap I guarantee that.

Another reason is that the large corparate companie's that supply the material's and hardware to build home's will find a way to not allow it because they would loose to much money.The same goes for large Real Estate and construction companie's.

I know these thing's seem great but have there been any of them that have been around for let's say 30 year's?I live in the northeast,and weather can do some bad thing's to home's.I like the Idea's seen in this video but I don't see it catching on.Were still driving around primative petro powered vehicle's that basically havn't changed much in a hundred year's never mind re-inventing the house.Would of been a great idea 100 year's ago but considering how materialistic most of the population is it wont happen,there's no "Bling Bling " involved,lol.

[edit on 18-2-2007 by Samblack]

"Hard Work" is something most people in the USA are afraid of.

This is a very ignorant statement. The USA(and my homeland of Canada) was built and is being maintained by Hard Work. It's just unfortunate that all that Hard Work causes so much Ecological and Environmental damage.

Would of been a great idea 100 year's ago but considering how materialistic most of the population is it wont happen,there's no "Bling Bling " involved,lol.

Yes it would have, but we didn't have the technology back then. We do now.

Another reason is that the large corparate companie's that supply the material's and hardware to build home's will find a way to not allow it because they would loose to much money.The same goes for large Real Estate and construction companie's.

You should watch the last video I posted. There is no way they can stop innovation. They can slow it down sure, but if history teaches us anything it teaches us this: The harder you try to keep the sand from slipping through your fingers, the faster the grains keep slipping out.

So, did your post have any other point then to say "Why bother trying since it'll never succeed?"

Boo Cynicism.

[edit on 18-2-2007 by sardion2000]

i like the construction side of these earthships. it allows for many possibilities, with half the labor of frame working.

if i had my own piece of land i would build a hybrid of their concept.


as for your last video, its just automated pottery right??? im sure it would be cheaper to make your own clay fixtures.


neat stuff

Originally posted by Glyph_D
as for your last video, its just automated pottery right??? im sure it would be cheaper to make your own clay fixtures.

Yup, they're testing two different approaches on a larger scale for buildings. IIRC, one of the systems is coming from India (you may want to look it up on Google). The secret is a concrete that hardens fast enough to support the next layer. You can "print" (or "plot") complete costum buildings in no time with that system. I like the earthship approach better, though... I'd love to live like a Hobbit :-)

[edit on 18-2-2007 by Akareyon]

Originally posted by Akareyon
I like the earthship approach better, though... I'd love to live like a Hobbit :-)

oh Frodo...

yeah the earthships would be IMO best becuase you would make with your own hands.

Sounds good if you are a total hippie that does not mind spending a lot of money on an poor investment. These are mud brick homes that were built for thousands of years until western civilization came around.

If you live in the middle of nowhere, have no life outside of nature walking and contribute nada to the economy, these earthships sound as though they will appeal to you.

I love the concept, but not the price. I visited the website and for a home that was 800sq ft was $250,000. Now I know that over time you would save from having no utility bills but that's not a lot of room for the cost. Plus when something breaks down whose going to have the knowledge to fix it and what's that gonna cost?

I saw a show awhile back where they were making the houses out of a mud type substance. Sounds like it may be a better deal.