Is an Earthship Home Right for You?

If only there were a style of homebuilding that checked all the sustainability boxes. Oh wait, there is! It's called Earthsip architecture and it's pretty amazing. Here is everything you need to know to figure out if this might be the right choice for you.

An Earthship home is a self-sustaining dwelling built out of natural materials and consumer waste that can be self-constructed. Earthsip architecture employs passive solar principles, off-grid design, and location-specific alterations to meet all of a home's basic needs, including comfort, food, water, shelter, and wastewater treatment.

The structure is specific to each homeowner's location and promotes design in harmony with your given environment. They're traditionally designed to grow food, collect rainwater, tap solar energy, and dispose of waste in a closed and sustaining cycle. At the same time, an Earthship allows residents to save money on monthly utilities and building costs while greatly reducing their daily carbon footprint.

This style of eco structure was designed by Michael Reynolds, who has touted his Earthship construction principles as an eco-movement. Since its creation in the 1970s, the Earthship has spread worldwide in many different climates and environments.

Design Principles

Reynolds designed the Earthship in reaction to growing concerns about conventional housing and its impact on the environment and people's health.

Earthship homes are designed and built to be entirely autonomous with minimal-to-no reliance on traditional, on-grid utilities.

The structure itself works to eliminate as much consumer waste as possible from ending up in a landfill or littering the environment by incorporating trash into the actual building. Recycling of water and the utilization of the elements—including wind, water, and solar—generates electricity, produces food, harvests water for drinking, washing, and waste management, and heats and cools the interior.

By capitalizing on the earth's elements, residents of an Earthship can save a significant amount of money in a sustainable way. According to research conducted by GreenMatch, an Earthship home can save the typical U.S. household nearly $6,000 per year on living expenses.

Earthship architecture produces food by allowing a considerable amount of sunlight into the front of the house, which is why the orientation of the home is so important and location-specific. The structure's face tends to be constructed almost entirely of glass windows to create a sort of greenhouse in the front hallway of the building where food can be grown and harvested year-round. The design also makes use of the latest sustainable technology to be able to harvest energy from the sun, filter out rainwater, and construct a closed loop of resources.

A traditional Earthship does not use central heating or cooling and generates its own electricity. the structure also eliminates or reduces the need to rely on water utilities since it is built to collect and store rainwater. This reduces further strain on potentially water-scarce communities. The building also manages and separated black and gray water so that this waste never leaves the property and so that the water is put to secondary use. This cuts down on the pollution of local water sources.

How Is an Earthship Home Built?

The main, load-bearing walls are constructed of old tires, that would otherwise end up in the landfill, packed in with dirt stacked on top of each other and covered with an adobe mud material or cement. The tires are stacked in a running bond like bricks and do not require concrete footing since the tires are so wide and durable. Non-load-bearing walls are made of the same adobe or concrete mud, mixed in with other discarded waste such as soda cans and glass bottles. The glass bottles are a particularly notable feature of the Earthship since many people who make this building implement the bottles in an artistic design to allow more light in and to showcase as a piece of art.

The roof typically uses conventional materials or reclaimed materials and the rain gutters direct water to rainwater collection tanks. Irrigation tubes are installed into the floor of the Earthship to allow greywater to be directed and reused in the front garden section of the house. Blackwater is redirected outside through planter cells. Solar panels on the roof produce electricity to run a water pump from the rainwater tanks and to power the entire structure.

The orientation of the Earthship is based on how much sun your specific location usually gets. If you get sun almost all day, you do not necessarily want to face the Earthship in the direction of the sun. If you get little sun each day, you want to face it directly to allow as much heat in as possible when the sun is out. The sun filters through the front windows to grow food at the front, heat the house, and charge the solar batteries. Opening the windows and built-in cooling tubes act as powerless air conditioning to cool and ventilate the Earthship when it gets too hot. During very cold months, the sun that does shine through will generate enough heat to warm the house due to its greenhouse structure.

Multi-story Earthships are possible but a single-story structure is most common. Earthships can usually be built with proper permits and zoning permissions, but these must be sought in advance prior to building. Especially if you are building your own waste-management system, you must secure the correct permits. Depending on your local codes, you might have to implement alternative materials than what is normally used in an Earthship.

Pros of Earthship Architecture

They're Off the Grid

The construction of the walls and implementation of recycled and reclaimed materials enacts a thermal buffer between the interior and exterior to naturally cool and heat the house and grow food. Solar panels, rainwater collection, and a more ecological waste management system allow the homeowner to go off-grid completely if they prefer and depending on the location. This possibility cuts down on utility costs and greenhouse gas emissions.

They Turn Trash to Treasure

An Earthship uses as many materials as possible that would otherwise go to waste, including tires, cans, and glass bottles. Reclaimed wood can be implemented in the interior and reclaimed windows and glass can be fashioned for the front face of the structure depending on the homeowner's commitment to sustainability.

They're Self-Sustaining

While off-grid and self-sustaining might be considering one and the same, the Earthship is self-sustaining in the sense that it is at peace with its natural environment as much as possible. The orientation of the building is dependent on the sun; how many cisterns are included for rainwater collection is dependent on the location; the structure of the house's waste-management system is dependent on the land; and the amount of food grow and rooms included are dependent on the family living in the home. A key tenet of the building design is similar to the phrase, "Take only pictures and leave only footprints." The Earthship home strives to leave as minimal a footprint, if any, as possible while providing a comfortable home for the homeowner.

What Are the Potential Drawbacks?

Comfort

While Reynolds boasts that the Earthship can be adapted to all climates, some have speculated that in intensely cold climates, the Earthship's heating abilities may be stretched. Also, there have been doubts related to the structure's insulation, with improper insulation causing heat loss. Overheating in very hot climates has also been reported.

Time

The packing of the tires to build load-bearing walls is very labor-intensive. Traditionally, Earthships are self-built by a team of volunteers or friends which can save on labor costs but can end up taking longer to construct. The time investment, however, is likely to pay off given the benefits.

Cost

The technology that allows earthships to run off-grid can be costly and some homeowners might not be able to afford to implement these solutions initially. Also, according to Green Home Building, Earthships can cost anywhere from around $50,000 to a million dollars, depending on how big and elaborate the structure. Since this is an alternative building method, banks might be hesitant to give out a loan to build this kind of house which is something to keep in mind when budgeting.

Real Life Earthships

Once his Earthship revolution gained momentum, Reynolds created Earthship Biotecture which offers training courses and building plans for Earthships. Its headquarters is based in New Mexico. The academy encourages people interested in building an Earthship to learn how to properly build one from the person who invented them.

People who participate in the in-person course usually assist in an Earthship build. Later, when you are ready to build your own Earthship, you can assemble a team of experienced Earthship builders and students to help you with yours. Earthship Biotecture also has Earthships previously built that they rent out for those curiously or unsure of what it is like to actually live in one. Spending a night or two in an Earthship before committing to a build can help you determine if this design is the right choice.