HomeMy WebLinkAboutCOM 0842.003 2010-2012 by Peter Sur
Hawaii Tribune-Herald Staff Writer
MOUNTAIN VIEW-- Somewhere, deep in the forest, rises the House of the Future.
That's the promise of the Earthship, a self-sustaining structure that proves you can build a
home without relying on water lines, an electric grid, sewage system or building -permits.
Last week Saturday,I visited a dozen ecology-minded citizens from Taos,N.M., who
were turning old tires and beer bottles into walls and windows.
The building is located about a mile down a bumpy,muddy road.This made me wonder:
"Will the Roads of the Future also look like this?" And: "If Kilauea is the nation's top
producer of sulfur dioxide,why build an Earthship here?Wouldn't it make more sense to
plug the volcano?"
Earthship Biotecture founder Mike Reynolds has been building these houses for some 35
years. Saturday,he was pounding dirt into a tire, one of about 1,000 "rammed-earth
bricks encased in steel-belted rubber" that will be used in the construction of the
Earthship.
Reynolds says the building heats and cools itself naturally via solar energy, gets power
from the sun and wind,harvests water from rain, contains and treats sewage, is built with
"society's byproducts" and produces a significant amount of food.
"It's a house that will take care of itself in spite of the infrastructure," Reynolds said.
"Because the house is made from rubber, there's no termite problem,no hurricane
problem,no earthquake problem."
Reynolds says when the basic house is erected, "people from California" will live in it
and complete the structure, which may take months or years.
He's asked whether all the permits have been completed for the Earthship.
"Not necessarily," he said. "We're demonstrating this concept, and from the design people
will see what, if anything,they need to get a variance on." Reynolds asks that the exact
location of this dwelling not be revealed,for that reason.
Also working at the site is Kirsten Jacobsen,who's setting "glass bricks" into a concrete
wall. I would call the bricks "two glass jars,held together at the open end by duct tape,"
but this is the House of the Future.
Jacobsen explains that building an Earthship takes more labor than a conventional home,
but the cost of materials is lower.That makes sense; how many people does it take to
raise a tire-- er,a "rammed-earth brick" -- above your head?The tires were set into the
wall with generous globs of concrete, which were pocked with hammers so that the
plaster could "bite" into it when it was added. Someone also sets into the wall an empty
Gatorade bottle.
While trying not to consider the redemption value of the beer and soda cans that were
being placed in the wall, I promised to come back later, and did some research in the a
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meantime.The Earthship people feature an 11-minute video on their Web site that
explains the concept.
"Earthships demonstrate a way to live in harmony with the planet by encountering natural
resources without depleting them.An Earthship is a passive solar home made of natural
and recycled materials," says Reynolds, the narrator. "It is off-grid, getting its power
from its the sun and wind,its water from the rain and snow,and it reuses, contains and
treats its own wastewater with a combination of wetlands and hydroponics."
Water is used four times. It's funneled from the roof into a cistern,filtered, pumped and
pressurized for use in the sinks and showers. Passing through a grease and particle filter,
the water enters a graywater treatment,used for growing plants. The cleaned graywater
enters a toilet tank, and after flushing enters a conventional septic tank.The treated septic
tank water features a line out to more planters outside the home.The water heater,
lighting and the refrigerator will run on direct current from the solar panels.
The Earthship concept was starting to look more plausible, with one catch-- all the
examples shown were from New Mexico.This is the first Earthship to be built in Hawaii,
and I hope the owners are aware of Mountain View's climate.
Thursday was the Earthship Biotecture crew's last day on the site. In the short time,the
builders were nearly finished with one module and were hard at work on the frame of the
greenhouse."The second module has just been started already," Jacobsen said. "Eight
days; that's a lot for eight days,for sure."
Jacobsen herself lives in an Earthship in Taos, where she runs a visitor center.The
"Greater World Earthship Community," as it's called,has 50 homes spread out on 650
acres of land near Taos. "I would say the majority of Earthships in the world have been
built by their clients."
Damian Larsen of Taos was putting a final coating on the module's rain gutter. He was
asked how he got involved with Earthship Biotecture.
"It's just something I feel in, I believe in doing. At the end of my day,I feel good about
doing," he said. "It feels like something positive every day.We could all be doing frame
houses,but we're doing this."
The immediate benefits of an Earthship -- no water or electricity bills,for example-- are
obvious. It also addresses the long-term concerns about survival after the world's oil
supply runs out, or when the next hurricane strikes.
But would you live in it?
On the Internet: www.earthshipbiotecture.com.
Peter Sur can be reached at psur @hawaiitribune-herald.com.