For us it is clear that something needs to be done to sustain our way of living and one of the huge impacts on our environment is the way we put a roof over our heads.
In order to create a clean personal environment and to minimise our footprint we build “green”.
The goal of our adventure is to be as neutral to the environment as possible. We want this to reflect in everything we do. And our house is the largest and longest lasting part of the project. So it will get a lot of attention.
Earthships. A short personal history…
You may well be aware that for a long time we’ve had the intention to build an Earthship, hence the name of the blog. It completely fulfilled our needs the first time we laid eyes upon it.
And our needs at the time were getting off the grid. Earthships are capable of doing just that. Not all the systems they use and the way they’re integrated are completely original, but an Earthship is more than the sum of its parts and the combination works.., beautiful buildings can be made. I even made a floor plan based on the Trott’s Earthship.
But, as time progresses so do plans evolve. We meet people, read books and educate ourselves. Ironically, or maybe it’s just the way of the Universe, we met a young woman during a volunteering week working on an Earthship who studies to become an architect specialized in sustainable housing. Isn’t that brilliant? And isn’t that one hell of an opportunity, even our time-lines kinda match.
So, what are we going to build? Honestly.., no idea…, yet. The house still has to be designed.
But I can tell you some of the criteria, and obviously it has to be build as sustainable as possible:
Materials
The materials are, of course, very important, they define the building. As a consequences the choice of material is paramount to anything else, thus they have to be:
- locally purchased (getting it close saves on carbon)
- recyclable (for when the house is torn down, or rebuild)
- from a renewable source (minimizing our carbon and resource footprint)
- non toxic (we do not want to poison ourselves or the environment)
- recycled (mind you, a lot of stuff is already being recycled, disrupting existing recycle chains might do more harm than good)
They can’t, of course, comply to all of the above, but when all materials apply to at least one of the points we win something. When more can be applied even better. Getting our wood, for instance, at a local mill would tick of three of the criteria: locally purchased, renewable, recyclable and non toxic, ahh.., that’s four… not bad.
Not Expensive
Well, this is a cheeky one. Off course we don’t want to spend to much.., one of the reasons is, we don’t have that much to spend. Another reason is an exemplaryone. We’d like to show that people can build a self sufficient and sustainable home.
Off the Grid
As mentioned before, we’d like to be off the grid.
It is possible to buy “green” energy from the utility companies, but you’d still be depended on them. I would like to suggest that anybody who wants green power should choose that option, not everybody can go off the grid, or completly self suficient. I know we can’t in the house we live in at the moment.
So, in conclusion: We still have find a piece of land. After that we start designing the house. But, work is in progress, the architect is investigating possibilities and we are still searching.
Don’t forget to read the previous episodes: Process of Elimination and Off the Grid.
Comments and/or questions are welcome…
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
have you looked at how angelsnest/worldsnest-people are using windturbines,solarpanels to run their hydrogen electrolysis, then store it and use the hydrogen for electricity? it could be an interesting modification for an earthship (they’ve got an earthship which vortexes its own water and generates its own hydrogen, etc, and the water that you drink is actually extracted from the respiration of the plants, so its as pure as you’re gonna get it..) just wondering.
We are still bouncing around ideas, nothing is set yet. After we bought land the designing can start in earnest. I came across it recently and it did catch my eye. I wonder how expensive/efficient it is. Remember, nothing is for free… Go see for your selfs: http://www.worldsnest.com