Dan's Nogal Earthship

Friday, October 23, 2009

Looking at the West entry (front door). Sorry Rory, I took down the rough sawn siding. With the drip edge taking up more space, I figured keeping with the plastered theme made sense. And that wood would take a lot of abuse from the long duration of sunlight on the West side.

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Lessons Learned

Collecting & storing "recycled" building materials:

I had read on a web site of the Zuni earthship that having a shed in place at your site is highly recommended. I had a couple existing small areas to store materials, but it was limited. This resulted in me putting off collecting as much of the cans and cardboard as needed for fear of it getting loose and blowing around the neighborhood. I definitely recommend putting up a good storage shed, getting a storage/shipping container or building a garage that you can use for storage prior to house construction. This will allow you to collect and store plenty of bottles, cans and cardboard safe from the elements. There is nothing worse than running around frantically looking for these items when the Earthship Crew arrives.

When I first started collecting tires I was only concerned with R14's, R15's and R16's. However, the "Golden" tire size is theR15/235. Since most folks around here drive trucks, R16's were the most readily available. The crew managed to work with my large sized and varying range of tires but it was not ideal for them. To do it over, I would take my time and be more choosey with the tires. My house took about 450 tires with about 45 tires in each course. Therefore I would have been well off collecting R15/235's for the first 6 courses, 1 or 2 courses of R15/225's, 1 or 2 courses of R15/215's and 1 or 2 courses of R15/205's. One course of R16/235's at the base and one course of R14's on the top are fine, but it seemed like the major preference was the R15's.

Collect more materials than you plan to use. Having extra tires allowed the crew to avoid undesirable tires (size/condition) and still have enough for the walls. I fell short on the amount of cardboard, bottles and cans as previously mentioned which added to unnecessary stress.

Cost:

One misconception of earthships is that they are nearly free since tires, bottles, cans, cardboard and dirt used in construction are generally free. Earthships are very cost efficient, however they still require a lot of money, time and labor. If you go into the planning of your earthship project knowing that everything will cost in your time, money and/or labor, then you will not be disappointed. The trick is finding what things you are best at accomplishing through which means: time, money, or labor. For example: I saved money by obtaining logs for vigas through a friend with a local tree removal business, but spent a lot of time & effort peeling those logs myself. On the other hand, I paid for a crane operator to lift and place the 16 huge vigas into place rather than get the entire crew to push & roll each one up on the frame (that crane was well worth it!).

Specialty items will always raise the $ cost of an earthship (solar/ wind power systems, water tanks & filter systems). Of course most of us interested in earthships see this as a long term investment.

The rule of thumb I have heard from Earthship Biotecture is that the cost of the earthship is about the same as a traditional custom built house. Of course the earthship is built to take care of you in ways that the traditional house is not.

The earthship design has evolved considerably over the years to make them more efficient as well as meet conventional building codes. Therefore cement, rebar, lumber, glass, insulation, metal roofing and other equipment & materials are used in earthship construction like any other structure. I found it comforting to see the combining of natural & recycled materials with the produced construction materials that were utilized in a way that makes my structure "bomb proof".

Labor is a big factor in the construction of an earthship. There seems to be two ways that people go. One is to use lots of your personal time (years rater than months) and labor to bring down cost. Mimi & Jeff of Capitan and Georgia and former husband of Nogal have done this successfully. I have heard many others try this and give up part way through. It definitely takes commitment and stamina to see it through. Mimi, Jeff and Georgia are very strong people! The second way is to host a large crew to accomplish the intense physical labor quickly. This is what I chose although I was fortunate to have a substantial amount of the crew come as volunteers. It takes a bit of money initially, but the result is getting the basic structure up in a couple weeks. The Earthship Biotecture veteran crew-members, interns and volunteers worked harder than any construction crew I have ever seen. The only thing I have seen to compare is a Hotshot crew battling a going forest fire. The overall atmosphere was what I imagine an old fashion "barn raising" was like with lots of: hard work, food, drink, fun, and genuine feelings of community & passion for the mission at hand. Needless to say it has been qite an exciting life experience for all of us. I am very impressed!

Interns:

Earthship Biotecture interns are more than volunteers. These folks have been selected over many others by E.B. to serve in their internship program. They all brought some kind of knowledge and experience (architecture, engineering, construction, carpentry, etc.) to the program. They are hard working and focused on learning and perfecting the particulars of earthship construction. I think their work combined with the E.B.'s crew oversight was a significant contribution to the quality construction of my home.

The use of interns from E.B.'s program seemed to just evolve during the planning discussions with Michael Reynolds. I had one group of interns the first 2 weeks and another group for the third "hit". To do it over I think I would have planned with E.B. to do 4 weeks in a row scheduled to use one group of interns. Ben from NY did manage to come to all three E.B. hits and I believe he got the BEST experience seeing the project go from dirt pad all the way to outer structure completion. Having the same group throughout the project benefits the smooth construction as well as the interns' learning and sense of achievement.

Area professionals / resources:

Phil at Clodcroft Tanks, 1-800-603-8272. Supplier of water harvesting tanks and filtration systems. Also has personnal knowledge and experience with photovoltaics.

Tim Beyer, Dirt Work located in Capitan, Honest and skilled backhoe operator with an understanding of the earthship concept, 575-937-1764.

Earthship Biotecture, Taos NM, Michael Reynolds is the creator of the Earthship concept,http://www.earthship.net/ has extensive information on sustainable living.

ENMU-Ruidoso,http://www.ruidoso.enmu.edu/ has community education classes for: Green Building Basics, Rainwater Harvesting & Grey Water Systems, Basic Xeriscape Design, Recycling, Backyard Composting, and more.

Georgia Stacy, custom designed doors, woodwork for interior spaces, ceramics and mosiacs, Art for Living, 575-354-4206
http://www.strengthinmotion.blogspot.com/

Steve Shaffer, Shaffer Crane Service, 575-258-9027, Ruidoso. Steve did an excellent job of hoisting 16 Vigas into place on the earthship. He was quick and smooth in crane operations and very cost effective.

City Bank of New Mexico for a fair and open minded source for financing possibilities. Although I have not taken out a loan (yet) for constructing my earthship, Carl Bartley, bank manager & personal friend has been there for sound advice as well as help with getting things done in the construction process. Carl has tons of knowledge & experience with building houses as well as financing. His bank has financed a straw bale home in the Ruidoso Area and as long as you have a valid design plan, building permit and sound credit the bank will be very open to financial options for you.

Thank You!

Thanks to everyone involved in launching my earthship this Spring:

Michael...Taos

Jonah...Taos

Phil...Taos

Rory...Taos

Seth...Taos

Damion...Taos

Jimmy...Boston/Taos

Joe...Chicago/Taos

Paul...Boston/Taos

Benjamin...New York

Ben...Louisiana

Ann...Boston

Erin...Boston

Jennifer...Boston

Matt...Boston

Oliver...United Kingdom

Russell...Australia

Kat...Scotland/Mexico/Taos

Astrid...Chile/Oregon

Phil...Michigan

Georgia...Nogal

Larrie...Nogal

Lisa & Carl...Alto

Mimi & Jeff...Capitan

Tim...Capitan

Steve...Ruidoso

Roy...Ruidoso

Phil...Cloudcroft

Liz, Andrew & Emily...Wildlife Crew/Ruidoso

Chris...Belize

Catrina...Italy

Brian...Mississippi

Bryan...Chicago

Karen...Nogal