Exploring Off-Grid Earthship Homes - Ultimate Efficiency?

What elements of an earthship do you think make the most sense for wider adoption? Special thanks to privacy.com/ - go to privacy.com/mattferrell to get $5 free money!

If you liked this video, be sure to watch Exploring Massless Energy Battery Breakthrough: https://youtu.be/7rJf_n3bc0I?list=PLnTSM-ORSgi7UWp64ZlOKUPNXePMTdU4d

The tires are NOT packed with soil as soil contains organic material that rots. They're compacted with subsoil which is inorganic and never rots/shrinks. Great video though Matt! Glad you took this subject on

Even if you're not building an Earthship, using some of the concepts seems really beneficial.

I pet sat at an earthship-ish house and loved it! The house was recessed into a hill, with the southern facing windows. Both summer and winter, whatever they made the walls and ceiling with, kept things comfortably cool. The interior was a modern home with high, curved ceilings. Years later I still think about this house and I would love to live in something similar!

There is a male nurse here in Amarillo who did build his house out of old tires. He would work his shift, come home and change, go get the tire or tires he needed and go to the site and start packing the tires full of dirt and then stack them accordingly. He would do so many and then go back to the apartment and get some rest before his next shift and this went on for 2 years I think. He also built it into a hill to get the radiant energy off the dirt that surrounds 3 sides of his house. He has rain gutters that feed into a black tank with 4 kinds of water filters that make the water so clean he drinks it every day. The gutter system at the lowest point has a, what I call, a junk tube for like sticks and leaves can go to so it does not go into the water tank. The land is paid off and he basically lives rent free. He has 2 solar panels (then, some years back when I went there) and 1 battery, he does not leave things plugged in, if he needs to use them, then he plugs them in and when done unplugs the devices. He has a compost toilet and the house sits at a slight angle to catch the early morning sun in the winter to help heat the house and an overhang on the roof to keep the heat out in the summer. No propane, just an electric house

An amazingly well-balanced look at Earthships. They are awesome, but as you point out, not perfect or for everywhere/everyone.

My buddy owns one out in Utah. I’ll actually be staying there again next month and have enjoyed my past trips there in the past. He has a lemon tree inside and never runs the heat!

As someone who has lived & helped build Earthship’s there are far more pros than cons. Living in one creates a very harmonious relationship with one’s self & the earth. It is a way of life. But beyond it all it goes back to balance your are reducing waste & consumption. Those two factors alone is what has caused so many issues in our environment world wide. Mike is one of the most incredible human beings I have ever met in my life. I’m so proud of what he’s done.

I've always felt a bit iffy about the tires in the walls ever since I learnt what an eartship was. For a community so focused on healthy living I've always thought of that as a glaring flaw... but their impact on sustainable living has been notable, even though the inner circle is a little bit too hardcore for the most of us. I look at the earthship community a bit like pioneers that pushes the boundaries so others can follow in a safe manner

I wish in future we will see a lot more:
Systems managing toilet water locally, turning it into usable fertilizer. Basically mini water treatment plant.
Secondary water system re-using grey water (for toilet flushing mostly).
Highly automated indoor gardens.
Geothermal heating / energy.
"Undecided with Matt Ferrell" episodes.

Just as an FYI for the Kinney earthship it was built in an area of the province that sees the largest percentage of sunlight in Canada, is one of the windiest areas and affected by Chinooks all winter giving it a very mild winter climate most years to operate in compared to the northern end of the province.

I think having a solar/wind driven pump and geothermal heating/cooling system would be a far better option for most of the prairies than just relying on passive heating and cooling like the earthship does. A dehumidifier in an underground home can also outlet to the grey water system, preventing mould and providing a bit more water.

I'm thinking about building a traditional home, but with an attached large conservatory/greenhouse.
Insulating the foundation and have a huge well insulated thermal mass to force air from the conservatory in through to heat it up.
Adding cooling tubes in the ground like the earthship for a cold thermal mass.
Then use these thermal masses to pre-heat/cool the air and mix it with outside air going to the heat recovery system of the house. Hopefully removing the need for air conditioning in the summer and helping heating up the house in the winter months.

This has the added benefit of extending the months of the year you can be outside. A great party space, since weather isn't an issue and probably the most important part. Since I'm ginger it would be nice to not worry as much about sunscreen all the time, because of the UV protection glass can provide

My mother made an Earthship after seeing the PBS special of Dennis Weaver's Earthship in the early '90s. Many hurdles (including fraud from a contractor) made the build take 10 years, but she is in it now and loves it. I helped with packing many of the tires. It does NOT take 45min-1hr to pack one tire. Maybe if you are counting the stucco and finishing, you might say that. With two people, one shoveling in dirt and one packing with a sledge, it takes maybe 5min-10min, maybe a bit more. It's been a lifetime ago when I did it so I could be wrong :-). We had a DIY-made pounder, a metal fence pole stuck in a flower pot that was then filled with cement. While filling and pounding the tire with the sledge around the edges, you used the bigger pounder to pack the middle and finish. It's extremely labor-intensive. It is an excellent workout if you are in shape (or want to get in shape). Also, off-gassing has always been a talking point, but my mom has had it tested (a few times I think) and there has never been a problem.

My mom could not afford to make this completely off-grid with solar panels and whatnot, so it is mainly a seriously efficient house with HVAC and a gas fireplace. My mom is a cowgirl, and she loves the ruggedness of the home as well as the efficiency. Also, she is an artist, and as you can see in the video (linked below) there is a lot of room to make the design your own with this kind of house. Also, being in Florida means there is a ton of humidity, and the HVAC helps mitigate that.

This video is when she had it mostly finished about 14yrs ago. Near the end of the video, you can see where it is not quite finished yet, and there are exposed tire walls. That is all finished now. I seriously love the concepts, but I would probably build one so modified (I live in UT) that it would not be considered Earthship anymore.

Here is the video I made eons ago when my mom finished the main part, and we visited for Christmas.

https://vimeo.com/6238648

Been a key follower of Earthships and the Permaculture movements since their advent in the 1970's. Never had the chooch to do one myself though. Need lots of youth, energy, and commitment!

I LITERALLY lived down the road from the earthship community outside Taos. And had friends who were self building an earth ship there. Reynolds got mad at them because they wouldn't angle their front glass wall as is the nearly iconic look of an earth ship. They can get too hot angled as they are, sometimes even in the winter. Affecting not only comfort but possibly plant growth.
Many of the other homes have sun shades on their front glass walls for that reason. So siting and these eventual issues definitely can be critical.
My friends eventually finished the home and it was beautiful and functional.

There's a lot of good ideas that going into building these which are essentially niche artistic endeavors. They absolutely will not be a good standard for most homes, but are a good inspiration and test bench for more efficient homes. Hopefully we'll see a lot more ideas like this in the future, where the goal is to use as little energy as possible to keep a home comfortable and safe.

Love your content. This is a perfect cross-over opportunity for you and a bunch of my favorite YouTubers... Kirsten and her family at FairConpanies and Dave at Just Have A Think. Keep up the excellent work!

I was aware of the Earthship concept back in the 70's-and '80s when I was old enough my parents started taking us on vacations. We looked at many mostly out west in Nevada, Utah, California areas. My father ended up building an underground house. It was under 6 to 8feet of dirt that kept the house at 55F year-round. at almost 6800sq ft it was incredibly easy to heat. You only had to raise the temp about 15 degrees in the winter, even if it was below zero out. and summer it was natural air conditioning. We brought warm outside air in to bring up the temperature in the summer.

Excellent video. I’m a student of the “Earthship Biotechture Academy” In Teos NM. It’s my hope to one day soon ; to bring this technology to Côté d’Ivoire Africa. I’m told that there’s a family group trying to grant me land to begin this important project.🖐🏿

A good friend has an Earthship home. Totally off-grid. I've stayed there overnight. Extremely comfortable. He built his and his wife's 3 BR, 2 BA berm home for $17,000 in 2006. He had an abundance of solar pv, so after adding a few more batteries to his battery bank, and switching to LED lighting, he swapped out his propane range/oven and dryer for electric ones, and found he still had plenty of power to spare. After replacing his gas hot water with electric, he STILL had enough power to spare, so these days, his last 500 gallon load of propane is down to 430 gallons over more than a decade, primary feeding his outdoor grill and fire pit. He says he'll be dead before exhausting it.