Experimental Earthship

I believe this was the first photo I took of the project which is kinda crazy since it is so far along into it. Frankly at this point much of the hardest labor was done. I’ve got the basic shell of the wall mostly done. As I was starting the build for this my next door neighbor hollered over to me that he had a couple long steel I beams he was going to sell for scrap if I was interested. I declared I was certainly interested if he would help me place them with his big log loader when the time came. This photo is just after those I beams got placed. They are mighty heavy! I recall needing to shift one a couple inches to get them more parallel after my neighbor had left. I was completely unable to lift one end at all, or even just slide it a bit without lifting it. One day another friend was over and I had him lift up as hard as he could, still not lifting it, while I shoved from the side to slide it. With the combined effort he was able to take off enough weight for me to nudge it.

Here’s a photo of the same thing, but with a younger version of me inside to give a better sense of scale. I opted to make this building about 199 sq/ft because the code in my township stated that “a single story, detached accessory structure with a floor space under 200 sq/ft” didn’t need a permit. It just made things easier for everyone as I had talked to the code guy and he had heard about these and thought he could get info for them, but he hadn’t ever had to deal with it.

If memory serves me I used roughly 300 tires to build my studio. What I find kinda scary was how easy it was to get that many. In my tiny village there is a single tire dealer. When I first asked them about getting some old tires they had just emptied the semi-trailer they stashed them in until it was full and ready to go to the dump. I thought it would then take forever to get enough and I might have to go to the next town, requiring a lot more driving to get the tires all home in my hatchback car. As it turned out within 2 weeks I had all the tires I needed! I got them for free too. I had asked if they would pay me a small amount to take them since they had to pay a larger amount to dispose of each one. However, there had just been a scandal in the region of someone taking scrap tires from dealers for a reduced fee then driving all over the county dumping along the sides of the roads! So getting paid to recycle their scrap was not looked on too favorably at the time. Oh well, free was still a good price.

The basics of all this was getting a bunch of old, used tires and using them as the form to ram dirt into, packing them tight to form solid, heavy “bricks”. Like with bricks I would lay down each layer staggered from the one before so there wasn’t a running seam going straight up the wall. The hole in the bottom of each tire was blocked with scrap cardboard to keep the dirt from falling through while they were being pounded full. Obviously cardboard isn’t a long lasting material, but in this case it only needed to hold things until the wall was finished and the little “v” spaces where the tires meet got packed in. You’ll see that part in a later photo.

The catch with staggering each row of tires is that at the ends of every other row you get a half tire space that needs to be filled. These were a bit of a pain to make, but not too hard. I would use some expanded metal lathe, or cardboard and make a form at the end section then fill it with broken concrete chunks and/or rocks to take up some space. The remainder I then filled with a bag or two of redi-mix concrete. In this photo you can see the concrete half tire sections at the ends of the wall.

Let me add in an extra image here that wasn’t in the original material documenting this project. This is a photo of my earth ramming “hammer”. In his books Michael Reynolds recommended using a sledge hammer to pound the tires. I tried that on a couple initially. It’s a bad idea. In fact, in the years since I completed this project I’ve heard people recommend pounding a tire or two with a sledgehammer as a way to dissuade someone from building an earthship. Doing it with a sledgehammer is a tremendous amount of work!!! I’m not saying it isn’t still a tremendous amount of work with the sort of hammer I made, but it’s much less.

I believe the sledgehammer recommendation was because that is the best sort of commonly available tool one can buy for this sort of job. One like mine you have to make yourself. As I say though, if you don’t have the ability to make your own pounding hammer then you probably don’t have the ability to make an earthship!

What I did was grab a solid piece of scrap wood for the handle. Then I drilled some screws part way into it down at the bottom. Drilled a few holes at the bottom too and wove a bit of old electric fence wire though. All this was to form some metal reinforcing and a stronger bond of the cement section to the wood handle. Next I took an old 1 gallon plastic pot, taped up the drainage holes, held the handle down into it, and filled it up partway with cement. The final dimensions of the end of hammer head were about 8 inches in diameter and 3.5 inches thick.

This size, shape, and weight worked much better to pack the dirt into the side walls of the tires. It also functioned nicely for tamping down the middle sections. The problem with the traditional sledge hammer is that the head is too small, concentrating the force of the blow onto too narrow a face. I found I would be breaking up almost as much dirt as I was packing in with each swing when using something with a face that small. The wide cement disk end of my hammer would simply pack everything into the curves of the tires.

Doing the lower layers of the wall went much quicker than the higher sections. This was simply due to the process of getting the dirt into the tires. Closer to ground level I could just shovel it in, then pound it tight, adding more dirt as it packed down until I had a solid mass of rammed earth tire. Once the wall got to a certain height though I had to start filling 5 gallon buckets with dirt and hauling it up the ladder to the top of the wall in order to fill each tire. That was a ton of extra work. Actually I suppose that was literally several tons of extra work since each layer of tires was over a ton in weight once rammed full.

I will say though it was fun to be able to climb right up on top of my wall as I was building it and walk around. Because the tires are so wide it was quite stable.

Traditionally the top layer would be bonded together with a concrete bond beam. I didn’t want to bring in a cement truck due to the cost (I was still fairly impoverished at this point). I also didn’t think I’d be able to mix up enough by hand quick enough. So I chose to do a wooden bond beam that was mentioned as an option in the books, though concrete was preferred. In order to reduce the direct contact of the wood to soil I laid down a layer of some scrap vinyl sheeting I got somewhere for free. Then I screwed wood boards through this into the rubber of the tires. It’s not the strongest of bonds, but it seems to have held up fine over the years.

Here’s a view from the top of the wall looking down. The tires aren’t actually all pounded and in place yet at this point. I wasn’t documenting this too well as I went along, but after the I beams were placed I did two more layers of tires to fill in the spaces between the beams and bring it all up to the same level. Then I created a second wooden bond beam along the top of everything, including the steel I beams. It is this bond beam that I would secure my 2×12 rafters to, which I placed 12 inches apart. Yes, my goal was to overbuild this so it could take a lot of weight on top!

In this shot you see the roof decking of 3/4 inch plywood in place. I was protecting it temporarily from rain with some plastic sheeting. Much more of that sort of thing to come to form the “umbrella” over the space.

This view is from inside looking out after I had closed in the south facing front wall. It was designed to have the south wall pretty much all windows to get as much passive solar gain as I could. The many tons of mass in the rammed earth tires will also be inside the insulated envelope, thus acting as a temperature moderator, helping to keep it warmer or colder depending on the season. Basically the mass wants to hold whatever temperature it is at.

This front wall is roughed in with 2×8’s so I would have some space to get several inches of solid foam insulation board in it. Also, I never photo documented it, but there is a “short” tire wall along this south side buried 3 feet down into a trench and then back filled. I wanted to have a foundation wall there below the frost line. In the other areas I’m going to berming dirt up to keep the foundation below the frost line.

In this photo you can see the front wall after the windows, and door are in and the cement stucco applied. I’ve also got the roof decking on along with a layer of plastic around the walls. The plastic is right now mostly just offering some protection from rain washing out the mud/dirt crammed into the exterior “v” shapes formed between the tires.

Here’s another view of the finished exterior of the front wall. It will be a lot of work before I can finish any other sections of this project.

This is a fun shot taken from the roof of my trailer which I happened to be doing major work on at the same time. Here you can see the top plywood decking after I have applied several layers of roof coating goop. My goal was to make it waterproof at this point in an area where I hope that water will never actually reach. It’s that final barrier a leak will have to get through. I’m happy to report that thus far all these years later I’ve never seen a single drop leak through!

In this photo you can all see the dump truck loads of fill dirt starting to literally pile up. As I noted earlier, my property doesn’t have a hill I could work with for this project and I’m too close to the water line to safely dig down. So I had to build a hill instead.

This is another view of the loads of fill dirt getting piled around. I couldn’t have the trucks dump it right up next to the wall, both for fear of mishaps with tons of dirt piling out forcefully and because I still needed to place my exterior insulation along with the even more important “umbrella” layers of plastic.

I should note that I have very cool next door neighbors. They allowed one massive 18 yard dump truck after another to drive across their property as the easiest way to get the dirt to the back side of mine. I don’t remember for sure but I believe I had 500 yards brought in initially, which was a lot of heavy truck traffic.

As I was getting loads of fill dirt brought in I also needed to get lots of rocks to built the front retaining walls. Being on a very tight budget at the time I was searching for ways to get rocks cheap. The fellow who owned the business that was doing my UPS shipping at the time was totally cool. He had agricultural property that included an old pile of rocks pulled from the fields over time which he offered to let me take. He also had a heavy duty flat bed trailer and said if wanted to load up the trailer he’d tow it to my place and I could unload, rinse and repeat. That was some hard labor and dirty work, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I seem to have been playing with rock piles ever since.

In this photo you can see some of the piles of fill dirt and one of the piles of rocks intended to be used on the front wall. You can also see in the background where I’m starting to build a roof over for the trailer I live in.

Part of the experimental nature of this project was to use straw bales for insulation. As if that wasn’t “alternative” enough I also wanted to bury the straw bales. Absolutely nothing I’d read in all my research suggested this was a good idea. I wanted to try it though, so I did.

First I needed a bunch of straw bales. A local farm a couple miles away sells the straw so I had them deliver me a couple loads. Needing a good, dry place to store it until I was ready I decided the interior of the Earthship studio would work. I filled it right up!

In this photo you can see the very beginnings of the work insulating and back filling the studio walls. I needed to keep the straw bales dry if they were going to both last and have any insulating power. My plan was to carefully wrap them with plastic sheeting, making sure the seams were set in such a way that water would have to travel uphill to get in. An added problem though was that the straw could poke through the plastic if I wasn’t careful enough. I expected that would eventually result in failure. So I first wrapped the bales in scrap cardboard which the straw couldn’t puncture. Then wrap the cardboard covered bales in plastic. To deal with the height of the walls it made the most sense to do two levels of this wrapped bale technique. Here you see just the first level.

Here’s a shot from the front after I’ve progressed a bit further with the manual back filling.

Now a view from the back as I work my way around the building.

Here’s a shot from the other side. There was a lot of wheelbarrow and shovel action involved in all this! At this point too I was still thinking I would do all the back fill by hand.

I began building the front stone retaining walls at this point too as it seemed necessary for me to keep piling the dirt up.

Now the second layer of wrapped straw bale insulation was put in place.

The view from the other side.

As I began back filling this second layer of insulation the full magnitude of the height and volume of dirt I’d have to move began to dawn on me. It would easily take me another summer to complete.

I recall it was hard for to me to do at the time, but I relented to the notion that I should hire someone with a bulldozer to come in and do the major earth moving for building my hill around the studio. I remember the cost was $90 an hour and I really didn’t know how long it would take. There were some serious fiscal concerns, but I went ahead and hired someone.

In the end it was good I hired them because I also found way more dirt was needed that I had first though. If memory serves me we ended up trucking in an equal amount to what I had already had brought in! The dozer was needed just to move the existing piles around to make space for the 18 yard dump trucks to bring in more.

I still didn’t want the bulldozer to be pushing the dirt right up against the more delicate layers of protective plastic sheeting for fear of something ripping through. So the plan was to have him pile the dirt up close but then I would be running around with my shovel doing the last bit to more gently pack it against the walls. So that day I was in a race with the bulldozer to try and keep up!

Here’s a little action shot taken from the roof of the studio as Gene, the operator, was expertly moving all the fill dirt around. I was highly impressed with how skillfully he maneuvered everything around in what was really a pretty tight space, putting it all just exactly where I wanted it.

To make things more “fun” for me that day I not only had to keep up with the carefully back filling by hand right up against the walls, but I also needed to get the insulating bales of straw in place on the roof. This was so I could have the umbrella layers of waterproofing plastic sheets seamlessly going across the top and down over the sides before it all got buried.

In this photo you can see some of the layers that went into the roof insulation sandwich. I first laid down a full sheet of plastic, being careful to never puncture it on anything. Over this went a layer of cardboard so the pokey straw bits wouldn’t poke through the plastic. Then it was hauling all the remaining bales of straw out from storage in the studio and up onto the roof. Whew! I’m getting tired again just thinking about all that.

Here you can see a view of the progress from the front. The plastic draped down will eventually be folded back over the top of the cardboard and straw bale sandwich. It did make it more challenging to get in and out of the studio though. You can see on the left side where I had the plastic held back a bit from the door.

Here’s one more view of all this also showing the single 18 yard mound of fill that was dumped in front of the studio. The goal of that pile was to form a little bit of a privacy berm for the winter time when all the leaves have fallen leaving me in full view of the road. I couldn’t make this berm too high though because I wanted the winter sun to be able to stream in fully for as much passive solar gain as possible. So I had to consider the sun angles at each time of the year to make sure there was clear passage in the winter.

Now I’ve got the top insulation all put on and you can see how the dirt was being piled up on the sides. The plastic pile in the front section of this photo was, I believe, one of the layers I would use over top of this to then tuck down into the sides, directing water away from the studio roof and walls.

In this close up shot of the roof insulation sandwich you can see how it was designed to sit on top of the side wall insulation sections. Sheets of plastic will still be going over this, but I wanted this extra overlap to make it just that much harder for water to find its way down into the walls or roof.

Here you can see the studio hill from the back after most of the dirt moving was completed by the bulldozer. As I recall this work took place over a couple days, but in terms of billing there were breaks while waiting for things, probably more loads of fill to be brought in. In the end my fear of the cost wasn’t warranted. It seems like the dozer fees amounted to 5 hours at $90 an hour, or $450 for what would have taken me easily another full summer to do! My bill was still much higher due to all the extra fill dirt brought in. I recall thinking where did this “dirt cheap” phrase come from!

This view shows how the fill was piled up along the sides. He could only get it so far. The rest I needed to do by hand as I built the stone retaining walls.

It’s hard to get a good sense of the steepness of the hill from these photos, but one of the last things the bulldozer operator did for me was take the pile of top soil I had excavated by hand at the very start of this project and push it into a bit of a ramp up the back side. While this ramp was still quite steep it wasn’t as bad as the rest. I added some temporary boards as well near the top. This last minute addition of a ramp was a huge thing later on as I was working to get the soil onto the roof itself since it meant I could use a wheelbarrow instead of relying only on 5 gallon buckets to move the dirt.

You can also see where I have some back vent pipes coming out of the studio and through the straw and soil layers.

Here’s a better shot of the vent pipes coming out. Needless to say these created another challenge when doing the dozer back filling. They had to be done by hand too.

The purpose of these was to provide some temperature tempered ventilation for the studio. As I recall each of these 3 inch tubes was 8 feet long, or was it 10 feet? Anyway, that gives you a sense of how thick the walls are if you count all the soil around the whole thing.

They come out from the back side of the studio up near the top of the interior ceiling. I had to carefully lay them so there was just the barest slope downward to the exterior so that any condensation would drain out of the studio rather that into it. Yet, I couldn’t have too much slope or the warmer air would be unable to freely move up and out the top side of the tubes.

I chose to try these vent tubes out the side because I really didn’t want to complicate my roof waterproofing by making an opening in the solid sheets of plastic. I could sneak these tubes out under the side instead.

In hindsight this part was probably the worst design element I did and should have been done another way. My biggest complaint with the studio is that it is so well sealed there is little natural turnover of interior air, esp. in the winter when the windows are closed.

This little grouping of poplar trees got partially buried in the hill. I worked to dig out around them some hoping to be able to save them. Most told me they would likely die. In the end 2 of the 3 did eventually die. The last one is still going strong, with some other trees taking root there now.

After the bulldozer had done its work I took on the task of getting a couple layers of sheet plastic to umbrella over the whole thing. As I recall I did carefully dig back down a bit along the sides so I could lay it with enough of an overhang to be directing all rainwater away from the building.

In this photo you can see some of that along the side edge. As I was dumping the fill dirt carefully on the roof sheet plastic I was also extra cautious that it was just fill sand, without sharp rocks.

After I had a bit of soft sand on the top I laid down 4 foot by 8 foot sheets of 1/4 inch plastic I had scored earlier as free salvage from a friend. These were overlapped in such a way as to again direct all water off and away from the roof, sort of like really big shingles. My thinking with these sheets of solid plastic was that they would offer a bit of puncture protection should someone ever try digging with a shovel into the eventual green, living roof.

I hadn’t originally planned for these sheets, but in retrospect I’m really happy they happened along at the right time to be worked into the project. I don’t think they were needed, but I feel more secure with them. As noted before, thus far I haven’t had any leaks at all inside the studio!

In this shot from the front of the studio you can see the layering going on as I just start the real work of adding the top layer of soil.

This image shows things as I’m getting closer to having the whole thing buried. You can see where I’ve gotten the front edge overhang done. I believe this photo was originally documenting the first of many wall collapses for the dry stacked stones. While building it I had each tall side collapse 4 times as I was learning how to do it! Eventually I got them where they held for roughly 10 years before this left side fell again. I documented the rebuilding of it at one point on my ArtistHomestead blog. It fell again a while after that in heavy rains. I have since rebuilt it using mortar which I was trying to avoid despite the fact that NO ONE recommended building a dry stack fieldstone wall anywhere near this high. The recommendations were to not go over 4 feet. This is 11 to 12 feet high at the highest point! I really should have just mortared it to begin with, but it felt like more than I could handle at the time. I think it was also extra expense I would have struggled to afford back then.

After I finished building the front rock retaining walls I took a lot of the smaller stones I had and terraced out some garden beds on the back side. The catch was this was all fill sand so I’ve had a lot of work bringing in and building up actual soil in the beds during the years since to make them functional for growing food. They still suffer a bit from the problem that the fill sand is so easy for varmints to tunnel in that they just LOVE it. Extra bonus for them when they run into garden goodies while tunneling! I’m now working to get various perennial edible plants growing in this area which should do better over time in this challenging zone.

I don’t seem to have other photos of it, but in the corner of this one you can see part of the small solar array I put in on the back hill, just off the actual roof of the studio. (Again, trying to avoid any complicating mountings on the roof that would make waterproofing harder.)

When I began this project, which took over 3 years to complete, I didn’t have the money to do an off grid solar system for it both because I had more limited means and because solar was significantly more expensive. I actually ran a conduit under the walls initially for bringing power in from my main pole where the grid fed my property. However, once I got to the point of doing the power work I realized I could afford to make a small off grid system. I never finished bringing that underground conduit all the way up and into the studio, which I regret now. It would have been nice to be able to easily tie it into my current, large off grid array through that. Oh well, another lesson learned.

Anyway, this small solar system was cobbled together using six 45 watt kits from Harbor Freight, adding in a real charge controller and pure sine wave inverter with 500 amp hours of batteries. I later added another couple hundred watts of panels.

In this photo you can see a bit of the unfinished mess that was the interior of the studio before I set to work on that part.

I don’t have a full documentation of all the interior work. Parts are missing just like the exterior work. I believe I first started filling in the “v” spaces between the tires with rocks and mud, trying to use dirt that had a heavier clay content. Then, what you can see in this photo, I ran conduit and boxes for the electrical work that would be buried into the wall. Over this went chicken wire to help bind the final layers together, a wimpy rebar of sorts.

In the next few shots are images of progress as I added the layers of mud and cement stucco to the interior walls. It was a big task, cheap to do, but labor intensive. I don’t have much to say about them but offer them up for your viewing pleasure. It was just dig up the dirt that had a heavier clay base, get it wet enough, and keep building it up on the walls. If I had taken more care when selecting and pounding the tires to make them all of the same size and nicely even this would have been simpler. As it was there were areas where the higher tires would overhang the lower wall section complicating the build up of wet mud so it didn’t collapse before drying to a solid state.

For the battery bank I built a little section up in an odd space between the back I-beam and the curving back wall. The wires were all brought in through the vent pipes I showed earlier.

So far about 12 years later I’m still running on the same battery bank in the studio. My entire property is now off grid utilizing a larger system and bigger battery bank. I’ve just had to change that one out after around 7.5 years.

In my studio I really don’t use much power, so I don’t stress the batteries much at all, hence they are lasting much longer. I like that because new battery banks are expensive!

As part of the interior finish work I used some old weathered boards to close up the space around the I-beam and battery bank. I did make access hatches for getting into the circuit breakers and such though, which you can see in this photo.

Mounted on the underside of the battery bank box is my pure sine wave inverter. This is what transforms the DC power of the 12 volt batteries into 110 volt AC power like you get out of any normal power outlet. Having AC power lets me run all my normal tools as long as they don’t draw too much. However, it isn’t as efficient as if I did everything off DC power since there are losses in the transformation.

I did leave myself the option to wire up a few different type plugs to utilize direct 12 volt DC items, but other than one light I’ve never done this. The nice thing about that one light though is that I don’t need to turn the inverter on to power it up, so it’s nice when I go out there at night wanting light immediately so I don’t stumble around too much.

The photos you see here are of the original 1500 watt inverter as seen from the front and back. After it was in I discovered that even with the extra start up wattage it allows for, the unit couldn’t power my industrial belt sander. There was just too much current draw to get the sander motor going, so I had to move the sander back out to the old metal studio that was on grid power, and now is on the much bigger inverter for the off grid system.

A few years ago this small studio inverter died and had to be replaced. The costs of the pure sine wave inverters had come down quite a lot so for less money I was able to replace it with a 3000 watt pure sine wave inverter. I should be able to run that big belt sander off it now, but alas, I no longer have the space in the studio for the sander. Funny how much stuff one can accumulate over the years!

For the south facing front wall that I had framed in with 2×8’s I filled all the empty spaces with solid foam insulation. I specifically used the larger lumbar size so I’d have more room for insulation. This was then later covered with expanded metal lathe and a cement stucco. It was a bit of a pain in the butt filling in all the spaces between the rafters.

Oh, I also caulked everything up good since I was still looking for the best air tight seal I could get. In hindsight it wouldn’t have been bad if I had a few small air leaks in this wall to get more air turnover.

The floor was initially going to be just a hard packed dirt floor. I thought it would stay dry and work well enough for a studio. It turns out plenty of moisture likes to wick up through the ground anyway. I realized I really needed a vapor barrier down there, and some insulation wouldn’t hurt either. So, not seen in these photos are all the work digging up the floor, down about 6 inches, laying a sheet of plastic for the vapor barrier, then some solid foam insulation, and pounding the dirt back down, trying to get it even again. For this job I did hire a friend’s son who was looking for some work. He did most of this while I was busy with my art business trying to make some money.

Then, what you see in this photo is me doing a thin layer of cement over this rammed earth floor to get a more solid surface to apply tiles to.

Due to the unanticipated build up of the floor with the insulation and vapor barrier I ran into an issue around the door which was set for the original level. When the floor got higher the door wouldn’t be able to swing inward. It’s hard to see in this photo, but what I did was ramp down a small section right by the door. I forget now if there is less insulation or less rammed earth in that zone, maybe both. It’s a quirk that lets you know this was not a professional build!

Once I got the floor’s cement layer done I went and did the cement stucco layer on the walls. Originally I was thinking I would carefully make it all smooth and even, but once I engaged the project and the severe irregularity of my walls that idea changed. I went with a rougher, irregular look. I’ve since gotten multiple compliments on the look from visitors. I rather like it too.

In this photo you see the supplies brought in to do the next step of tiling the floor.

It was nice that at the time I was looking to do this a buddy of mine happened to have a professional tile saw he could loan me. While I could have used cheaper ceramic tiles I felt the look of the place needed real stone tiles. It hurt my wallet but I paid the extra money, though I did go with slate, the cheapest of the real stone options. I love the look though. The varying colors fits in with the various types of rock in the field stone walls outside.

Here’s a photo of the finished floor as seen on a sunny day. The interior has never been this clean and open since!! It probably never will until my carcass is hauled off this property and it gets cleared out in an estate sale either.

One thing I can say about laying tile is that it goes quick when you don’t have to make a bunch of cuts, like all the weird ones that happen around irregular circular walls. That said, I did spend almost as much time cutting all the tile pieces to do that down slope by the door as I did for the entire rest of the floor!

Here’s a shot of what the building looked like upon completion, but before the vegetation got established on the roof.

This is what the neighbors got to see from the road. They were curious as to just what I was up to over the course of all this. I got to have many nice chats with people who stopped to inquire. Everyone seemed to think it was pretty cool.

Here is an image of the studio in one of the early winters all snuggled in with the snow. I have found that it doesn’t get as warm through solar gain as I would have liked. To be fair, I live in one of the worst places in the US for solar as I’m in a “gloom belt” during the winter. The proximity of Lake Michigan to me results in a long band of clouds regularly forming throughout the winter months right over my region.

Still, even with this I find it never freezes inside without me adding any extra heat. Usually it goes down to around 44 degrees F. and holds there. Chilly, but I can work in that with some layers. I can also get out a small propane space heater and quickly raise the air temp if I need to, though I have to make sure to leave the door open to get enough replacement air due to how well the building is sealed.

This is a later photo several years after completion. I need to add in a current photo to show how things have really grown up recently, however at the moment I’m away from home and unable to just grab a new shot.

It was a ton of labor to make, but I’ve never regretted doing it, though I would have done a few things differently. In the process I learned not only about the rammed earth tire construction, but solar systems, tile work, stucco work, building stone walls, and on and on. I can still recall some of the hottest summer days when I would be out pounding tires. I was drinking 1 or 2 gallons of water each day and I swear as I chugged down a glass I could feel it streaming straight out of my pores. At the end of the day I could literally wring the sweat out of my jeans. I was certainly getting my exercise!

I recall that my initial costs, not including the solar system powering it all, was about $3000, most of that going toward dirt. I used salvage and scrap materials as much as I could. The solar system itself cost about $3000 more though one this size could be now be put together much cheaper.

I still have idle dreams at times of building a full on Earthship with all the interior systems like the cistern and interior greenhouse/grey water system. Though I’m also pretty happy with my homestead as it is too. It provides me the basics of life, shelter, energy, and food. It’s a good thing. I’m also glad I’ve never had to use the earthship studio as a severe storm shelter, but it’s nice to know it’s there if I do.