So I just learned about this type of home yesterday called an earthship. It is a pretty neat take on building a house. It can be done yourself with minimal special tools or skills (LOTS of labor though...) and is mostly self reliant in that heating and cooling costs are almost nothing, most designs have a water collection system, greenhouse, and solar and/or wind power.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship
It seems like they can be built just about as big or small as you want.
General design diagram:
Diagram of the natural airflow of the design for heating and cooling:
A couple pics of some of the neat ones I've found:
Pretty neat! I kinda want to build one for myself now, though it looks like permitting can be tricky depending on the area.
Seemed like something some of you all would like, and I could even see some of you crazies (in a good way) actually building one.
I pass by one every day. It’s very similar to the one in your first photo. I remember watching them build it and I’m guessing that it’s probably about 30 years old by now.
Pretty neat. Wouldn’t work at all in my climate. Like virtually any part of it. I suppose somewhere in the southwest it may work alright. You need mild temps, the right soil, yet enough rain to fill the cistern ... where exactly are these the most viable?
I remember my mom and dad wanting to build one of those in the 80s.. They never got around to it, but it was always "the goal."
We have some partially submerged homes here in the NorthEast. The ground helps keep them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Solar heating though, that would be tough.
pinchvalve said:
We have some partially submerged homes here in the NorthEast. The ground helps keep them warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Solar heating though, that would be tough.
probably, all though you can get pretty close...
Sounds like an awesome retirement project.
Or, take some ideas and meld them to your existing house (things like large glass windows/skylights on the south facing wall open in winter covered in summer, build inside items like countertops, fireplaces, walls, floors with earth and stone products to increase the thermal mass of your house, get smart about airflow, etc).
Would be really easy, for example, to collect sink drain water into a garden.
What I think would be really cool would be to scale the ideas for a large city building.
Robbie said:
Sounds like an awesome retirement project.
Or, take some ideas and meld them to your existing house (things like large glass windows/skylights on the south facing wall open in winter covered in summer, build inside items like countertops, fireplaces, walls, floors with earth and stone products to increase the thermal mass of your house, get smart about airflow, etc).
Would be really easy, for example, to collect sink drain water into a garden.
Retirement project / home would make a lot of sense due to the lower utility cost.
As for incorporating some elements into your current house, I also just found out about these yesterday as well: Rocket Mass Heater Heat only, but seems like a really cool, doable idea.
Robbie said:
What I think would be really cool would be to scale the ideas for a large city building.
I believe the guy that invented them is currently building a school. ;)
They are really neat. I love the contrast between the organic flowing architecture of the basic structure and the hard industrial shapes of the doors and windows. The off the grid self reliant part of it appeals to me as well.
The big downside for me is the greenhouse component. I've been in two of them and in both the high humidity and the plants really messed with my allergies. It's possible that careful plant selection could fix that.
STM317
SuperDork
3/7/18 10:16 a.m.
Not too different from a passive solar design. You have to pay very close attention to position of the sun throughout the year and let that determine the position/location of the house which may or may not have negative drawbacks.
I like some of these ideas. I'm curious to know more info on the air intake. What materials are used for that duct? Is there anything to increase surface area to speed up the cooling effect? What length is commonly used? How is the very end protected? How is it cleaned or serviced over the lifespan of the house? In a more traditional home could I bury the air intake duct underground to accomplish something similar?
The thing that I'm not a huge fan of is that it seems like a lot of the house is a delicate thermal mass balancing act... which would work very well, but if you have a week long cold snap or heat wave it berkeleys everything up. I would want heavy insulation with thermal mass retained inside of the insulation.
Also I would think with the right overhang (or adjustable) over the southern windows you could utilize the heat when you need it (winter) and avoid overheating better in the summer. Might not work as well for the plants though.
Grand Designs is a really cool home building show out of the UK (and AUS). They've showcased a few homes that have used some or all of these features. Pretty interesting how they use air flowing through the earth to cool and heat the homes to keep a stable temp. A lot of the homes are either built or engineered by the homeowner.
RossD
MegaDork
3/7/18 12:07 p.m.
Net Zero building is the more commercial side of the same equation but with less dirt walls.
In reply to crankwalk :
It works best in really cold climate. Here in Minnesota if you go 5 feet underground the temp year around is 55 degrees. Expose the south facing side to the sun and you pick up solar gain during the day and the thermal mass will gain heat. Even during the winter.
Its easy to supplement the 55 degrees with a wood burning stove. That can also be used for cooking.
I went to the EarthShip site outside of Taos, lots of huggers and Mercedes diesels. 30 years ago I may have considered sledge hammering a used tire full of dirt about 4,000 times to make a wall, but ....
frenchyd said:
In reply to crankwalk :
It works best in really cold climate. Here in Minnesota if you go 5 feet underground the temp year around is 55 degrees. Expose the south facing side to the sun and you pick up solar gain during the day and the thermal mass will gain heat. Even during the winter.
Its easy to supplement the 55 degrees with a wood burning stove. That can also be used for cooking.
Our ground is frozen 5 months a year, 4.5 hours of twilight only for part of it so solar isn't super helpful except for April to September, precipitation would be snow and energy used to melt it and keep it liquid. I have a job and stuff so I can't stay home with my wood stove to help supplement heat so I have to use either natural gas or heating oil in a Toyostove.
I get building a house in to the ground, sod houses used by natives are ancient and pretty effective it's just all the other components to make that balancing act work just don't see easily achievable unless you are in a narrow climate range.
It seems like you almost have to be an eccentric millionaire eco activist to pull this stuff off in a large scale and normal feeling house or just try to live off the grid and have lots of time to juggle making your house have an acceptable stasis.
In reply to crankwalk :
I think Alaska is a little different than the lower 48. Most places in the lower 48 would work for one of these houses, I would think.
dculberson said:
In reply to crankwalk :
I think Alaska is a little different than the lower 48. Most places in the lower 48 would work for one of these houses, I would think.
But would it? Granted I know I'm an outlier but would the upper midwest? Desert southwest?
Maybe a swath of the middle of the country would have the right soil/weather etc to be able to do this without being as in "involved" but I bet most still have to aid it with the traditional creature comforts to make it feel like a normal house.
frenchyd said:
In reply to crankwalk :
It works best in really cold climate. Here in Minnesota if you go 5 feet underground the temp year around is 55 degrees. Expose the south facing side to the sun and you pick up solar gain during the day and the thermal mass will gain heat. Even during the winter.
Its easy to supplement the 55 degrees with a wood burning stove. That can also be used for cooking.
There is a pretty big swing 5 feet down. For example 47-72 deg on this chart for something with a mean of 62. Minnesota appears to have a mean around 45deg, so imagine a swing of 30-55 deg.
