Earthships: Living Off The Grid
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- čas přidán 18. 01. 2016
- An Earthship is a home that captures its own water, recycles its own sewage, and produces all its own electricity and food. It's meant to function completely independent of the power grid or any infrastructure at all. Do we need the grid? Can we live off the grid?
Special Thanks to:
Michael Reynolds, Parker Shebs and Earthship Biotecture
earthship.com/
You can rent an Earthship!
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Rob Scallon
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Jason Shaw
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Image/Video Credits:
early 70s Earthship model, By David Hiser, 1937-, Photographer (NARA record: 3651517) (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Earthship in Brighton, By Dominic Alves (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
earthship in taos, nm, By Biodiesel33 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)], via Wikimedia Commons, commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...
Michael by earthship wall, zacharysuhar.files.wordpress....
earthship in siberia, sustainablemindsblog.wordpres...
Person sitting by Earthship, img.welt.de/img/reportage/crop...
Dude. I'm ready to move into an EarthShip right now.
+Dominique Marlow They cost about as much to build as a regular home. If you can afford to build a regular home, an earthship is definitely attainable for you.
+Dominique Marlow You and me both. Im thinking about getting one built :). And apparently you can get tires for free as im finding out
nicosmind3 If you're willing to do the legwork, you can almost always find someone who has large numbers of otherwise unusable tires they'll happily unload to anyone who will pick them up.
Are you also ready to move to the desert? Because that's how Earthships work best.
Ryan MacFarlane An uncle of mine built a house over years just by buying various things he needed as he saw them. It was his hobby and he loved it :)
Lets implement some of these ideas in existing homes. While not entirely off the grid, a hybrid idea is better than nothing.
Even a apartment can go completely off grid. Anything can. The point of off-grid is to be from the grids restrictions of power/water/gas. 90% of needs from the grid are Power and water. Gas isn't really a need, but most people prefer it over just electric cause it's less power requirement. But you can go completely gasless. And you can go almost completely waterfree from the grid. All you need is to build a humidifier water catch system and rain catcher. Then the heat/pump/air/cooking etc are all electric powered. Which you just need solar/wind system (Or thermal if you can get one that you can drill into the ground.) or water system (if you live next to a river bed or such.).
The foods are 2et hand, i mean we buy food from stores all the time. But if you wanna do farming and such. Yea you'll have to move out of a town or apartment place to do that. But normally the first step is unplugging from power from normal power ability and using your own. Like how many people go 'solar', but they are still grid-tied cause sellers only sell the grid-tied option instead of a 'hybrid' system that allows power still active (from a battery bank system) when power goes out.
So start small. Power is first. Then gas, Then water. After that. You're living completely off-grid. And you'll only be left paying for the rent or the house payments + store money for food.
But the biggest challenge isn't the simply just switching to off-grid. It's also learning the Needs. How much water your gonna use, how much power your gonna use per day,etc,etc. Those are the hardest parts, More then switching Power, Gas, Water.
I see what you did there... its not enTIREly off the grid... cause they are made out of tires.
Why do earthships never have wells? I mean, collecting rai water is nice. But as a backup what's wrong with also accessing the groundwater on your property?
@@jonothandoeser I was thinking the same, a well even i got that. btw i saw some australians make their own gas in a small tent of some kind, feeding it with organic waste
Its called the Passive Housing Standard
WOO HOO! I stayed there last summer. The Earthship was fantastic.
I’m going to head there and work on helping build an Earthship. Then I’m going to get a blueprint to build my own Earthship. Totally living in one for the remainder of my life. This is the future!
I am SOOO in love with earthships.
To the nay-sayers, it's hard to justify why we shouldn't build future houses using at least a few of these principles.
Yah we need to embrase the enTire prosses here.
I wish I could build an earthship. It's such a great idea. The biggest hurdle for me is the physical work involved. My back is stuffed. Pounding dirt into hundreds of tyres is HARD WORK.
I've heard about this a few years ago and was blown away. I'm going to take the course this year at the Earthship Academy. :D :D :D
The most condensed and yet comprehensible presentation for everybody
I've been following Mike since the days of Dial-up internet in the early 90's! Excellent advancement in that time!!!
I see lots and lots of people doubting large-scale feasibility of the Earthship concept.
...and I'm just sitting here thinking how this is a damn good proof of concept, and an awesome thing to help people reconsider the usage of things like building materials, renewable energy and rainwater on a house-to-house scale. You don't have to do things exactly the way they do, but it can give you (definitely gives me) lots of food for thought about, for instance, how elements of this *COULD* be scaled up to cities and similar.
So thanks for sharing this with us, and thumbs up to Earthship Biotecture for doing this sort of thing!
EcceJack Agreed my friend, agreed
How can you hate on something so beautiful and evolutionary. When ppl think of the future they always get these ideas of beautiful house that are like this, but no one pays anymind be they think that its 100 years down the future. But this guy did it and proved it to be beautiful, practical, and eco friendly. im amazed like wtf. I know what I want to do when I get older now.
I LOVE the idea about flushing the toilet with shower (gray) water. Fantastic idea!
My wife and I visited the New Mexican village in 2011 and fell in love with Earthships. We stayed in a Global model and Mike's "Phoenix." It might seem hard to contemplate a world covered in Earthships, especially in cities, but I think it is a great starting point towards more sustainable living. A lot of the concepts could be applied and modified for more densely populated areas.
+Adam Keeney I am jealous.
There, I said it.
Have followed the development of these for years, love that you are highlighting them!
All of these controversial topics is drawing a lot of good discussions and attention to this channel. I like it!
Yah as long as people watch the enTire video
"An earthship is like you walking out of a hospital."
Yeah, when one part breaks you're fucked.
+Lazhward Kirmist There's no technology inside an earthship that is especially rare or difficult to repair or replace. You can get just about everything you need to build an earthship from a home & garden store, or the local garbage dump. Any qualified electrician or plumber can work on one.
+Lazhward Kirmist You've never had your power go out, or a boil water alert from a water main break, or a broken air conditioner? The difference is that in that situation you're relying on a system that is proven to be inefficient and outdated, whereas if you walk out of the proverbial hospital, you're making use of recycled material for building, you make use of solar energy, passive cooling, in-house food production. Sure, it would be bad if something went wrong, like it always would be, but for the other 99% of the time, it doesn't sound so bad, especially considering that there are more things that can go wrong when you're still hooked up to the grid, and even more especially considering that when all is going right, you're saving electricity, water, carbon emissions, chemical treatments, etc etc etc.
+Lazhward Kirmist
Houses nowadays are made cheap and need repair. I think Earthships would require less maintenance if any.
I have dreamed of living in one of these since I first saw it when I was younger.. because, I saw the original PBS news cast on the first earthship back in 1980- something..
I have watched a lot of Video's on Earthships and this is the Best explained about the Principles of them.
A definite step up from the Tipi I made and lived in for four and a half years.
This is what we need in Southern Cali seriously! This is awesome!
You guys are great. Hope you'll be able to keep doing such great videos for a long time!
The morning dew provides water for the week. If it's collected properly. Water can be used four times. And the depth of the dirt cools the air.
I love earthships! I'm working on designing a few. I'm hoping to build one someday.
I hadn't heard of these before so this was fascinating.... :)
+Derek MacRannal Check out the documentary _Garbage Warrior_.
How beautiful and liberating! Someday, I will build one of these. I look forward to living more in tune with nature. Thanks for the awesome video!
Earthship is not a catchall solution for everyone, but I can imagine that it would be useful for rural and suburban areas. And the notions of passive heating cooling, garbage for house construction, as well as water reclamation can all be applied to normal houses to make them really efficient.
I had a friend hire someone to teach him to build an earth ship. They gave him an estimated build cost of less than half of what it ended up costing. In addition, it is worth pointing out that these constructions are hundreds of times more labor intensive than other construction methods.
love your show gents, keep it up!
i'm working on building one myself, i bought a F-350 truck for supply hauling, gonna get a travel trailer to live less on grid. and then it's time to save up for land.
Excellent episode!
This is a very rough prototype for some of the technologies we will all use in our homes in the not too distant future.Technology like the new Tesla Powerwall has the potential to turn every home into its own mini power station that is still connected to the grid but not dependent on it.Capturing rain water from your house roof for drinking is already very popular in countries like New Zealand and passive homes are becoming more and more popular in Europe.Using trash as building materials is a noble idea and even though it might not be practical for mass housing projects,it's still amazing to see what can be done with junk and rubbish!
Bravo!
love this!!
Heck yeah! Totally awesome!
loving this!!!!
Really nice video, very informing and interesting topic.
This is amazing!!!
I see a lot of people asking about the feasibility of Earthships in cities, and here is what I think. One of the many reasons why of this type of alternative is sought after is because it allows some people to abandon largely populated cities altogether. One reason people buy land and build close to cities is that the cost to have infrastructure made available where it is not already in place is prohibitive. Let's say you want to build on a dead end street, but the power company does not have a pole close to your property? Power poles are spendy, and having city water made available is usually incredibly expensive! Earthships can literally be built ANYWHERE without having to worry about power and water so naturally, some people would be happy to live a little farther out of town! The point isn't to tear down your cities and build these instead, although I wouldn't complain, the point is to make it more feasible for people to not HAVE to live in a city if they don't want to. Imagine Earthship suburbs!!!
Great video guys!
While I don't believe that this is in itself the solution to save the world, it most certainly does illustrate how we can each remodel our individual lives with incredible creativity and ingenuity... THAT is the brilliancy of the earthship movement, AND other projects like it.
Lol. Other people have already summarized how this wouldn't be practical on a large scale (and how the increased area required would cut into the environment even more). My problem is that I can't think of a design anything like that lasting any time in the area I live in (Washington), or getting nearly enough solar (even with battery banks and lots of panels).
+HisRoyalCarlness They design these earthships to function in pretty much any climate. We saw some in the desert but they have models in the jungle and in Siberia. The design has to be adjusted according to the climate (more thermal mass, more batteries or use wind turbines for cloudier, colder places) but it can function almost anywhere--even Washington :)
+The Good Stuff I am really curious about functionality of siberian one. Being from siberia myself it's hard for me to imagine how self-heating part of them works there in winter. It was -45 C just yesterday and current winter is considered relatively warm. Also, in winter the amount of sunlight is pretty low, especially in northern regions.
+Just Randomdude I'd reckon it would be harder, and other power sources would be required, but not impossible by any means. Also, they may be build in the south of the SFD.
+HisRoyalCarlness Even if it didn't entirely remove you it would significantly reduce your homes impact. Which also means cheaper utility bills without freezing or baking.
+william stern To be fair, I do care more about air conditioning than heating.
The problem with everyone living off grid and in a rural area is that if you took the area of the Untied States, including the cold tundra of Alaska, and divided it evenly among the population of the United States each person would get around 7.7 acres of space for themselves to build a house, grow some food, maybe some cattle, some solar panels, etc... This doesn't even include the loss for areas that you really shouldn't try and live in. I'd knock that number down to around 4 acres when you include all the public spaces needed by a community or culture such as roads, schools, parks, etc.. If you had a family of four then your area would be around 16 acres. You build a house and all the off grid necessities, you add a large garden, a pond for fish, and area for chickens, maybe some goats, sheep, milk cows and such and that area starts to get a little cramped. Now remember that these numbers are for our current population. Imagine a 20% increase over the next 15 years and that area gets even smaller. There are some goods things that come out of centralizing infrastructure and communities. It enables some efficiency that you wouldn't normally get from every home being self sufficient through not only power but also food and water. Just imagine if every New Yorker gets the great idea to go off grid and have a self sufficient home and property. Imagine all those tall buildings being spread out down to single story structures. There are currently 8.4 million people in New York living on 195,000 acres. Calculate that with each one getting 4 acres and that area expands to 33,600,000 acres. That's 172 times the area for the same amount of people. Yes I know that New York gets their food from outside the city from around the world and I didn't calculate that space in but I'm betting that the current arrangement is more efficient considering the number of people. Just some food for thought.
I love this!
This is some really great stuff that you guys are producing that really are making me think about how I could try and influence some people to change the world. This is some really really awesome stuff.
+arun kanthan Thanks!
This looks like something that works well on a small scale, but there are some problems when you try to go bigger:
- You need an enormous mound of dirt behind every house to keep that thermal mass
- Those tire walls are extremely thick, so you're gonna get less indoor space on the same building spot, especially in tight places like cities.
- As soon as you want more than one floor, your energy and water requirements double, whereas your roof area (which determines both the amount of solar power and of water that you'll get) stays the same. Don't even think about typical 4+ floor buildings in cities.
Good Stuff, you guys are awesome!
this looks and sounds great
Awesome!!
Awesome Video!!!!
Beautiful...I hope this becomes the future sooner rather than later! The world needs this!
Well, be a part of the process then! :)
Believe me, as soon as I can I will. Here in China it is not possible for me, I have to move back to my country to do this.
Goodo, as long as we keep moving forward.
this is amazing
I don't care about on-grid or off-grid, connected or disconnected. It's not about independence. It's about sustainable and regenerative living... at least for me.
I'm so in love with the idea of living in an Earthship!
great video guys,I didn't know off the grid homes were getting this good
very cool and informative.
While I doubt anything close to a majority will ever live "like this", I am excited by the prospect of having more and more of these ideas developed and implemented into mainstream architecture and lifestyles. There is a lot of what they're doing that could easily be implemented, if we can just get past the habits of doing construction just the way we've "always" done it.
I like the notion of a distributed system where users create some or all of their own energy and resell unused power leaving commercial power plants to sell more of their power to commercial enterprises.
Great video!!!👍
great job
I'd love to live in an Earth ship or in one of the underground Earth Homes with vegetation on the roof that taps into the Earth's natural temperature. The Earth ships are beautiful though. Off grid living is the way forward.
Awesome, yes I would live in one. I think I just found the avenue I want to take when I get some land and start building.
I would love to live in an Earthship, they are amazing and are great for the earth!
very smart idea...love it...i support it
I would love to see more videos on sustainability from you guys.
This is really cool and a great use of tires which are one of the biggest sources of waste at the moment.
SO COOL
Go earthships, Nice work mike.
Get me high-speed wi-fi and I'm in.
Some of these ideas started in the 1970s during the Energy Crisis. Cisterns go way back. There are reasons people gave these up. We can still revisit and be inspired by them. Underground homes are underated. Go into a full basement during a 90 F (32C) degree day. Can high density housing be created? I am not an engineer, but large volumes have been created quite deep.
Awesome!!!!
An earthship looks like my perfect home :)
oh yeah, i'd live in one of those. they'd be perfect for where i live, in the near-desert of central CA
love it
Wuoahh! That's awesome!!!!!
I'd love to live in an EarthShip. Question is" How much do they cost to build?"
Michael you are BIG!!!
1/4 and 1/2 acre lots available right now. I have 27 assorted lots between Taos and Tres Piedras New Mexico. Good prices.
Super cool
I've been saving back to purchase solar panels and wow does this video motivate me even more into wanting to live a clean, sustainable, recycling-of-resources, type of life. This looks like pure bliss to me.
Plus we all know that our Earth/home naturally provides us with every single need possible for human life. Especially for the type of people who don't feel a strong pull to have all the extra luxuries in life, this is beyond perfect. It's just brilliant, I can't praise this video and concept enough
I think the argument of Earthships vs density and infrastructure isn't helpful. We can make apartment buildings out of sustainable products like Hempcrete. Even in urban single family neighborhoods, houses could be constructed in a similar fashion to these Earthships. With things like the Flint Water crisis in mind, homes that collect and filter rainwater may sound like a blessing to many urban residents. I could see rural America getting huge benefits from Earthships, especially places with cold winters. Recycling wastewater for plants and toilets is also a win to save money maintaining septic systems. I think there are a lot of lessons that cities and rural areas alike can learn from Earthship technology!
Nathan DuPhene they are at the end of each extreme. I think that argument has to exist so people can find some middle ground, like” if all that is possible on the opposite end then maybe I can implement some of this”. Just like you started thinking of a middle ground. I think they are trying to show people that there is more than one way and that infrastructure isn’t NEEDED, opening peoples minds to the idea. It’s illegal to catch rain water in some states now the power over people is getting ridiculous.
I agree with Mr. Michael
Omg.. Amazing!
Thank you
Brilliant
So cool
seems awesome
I would love to see this become widely accepted. The prevalent centralization of everything has some pretty high costs not only in terms of ecologic impact but also on our own well being.
Unfortunately I don't see this becoming a thing anywere in the near future since centralization of water, electricity, garbage disposal etc is the result of our way of life: It's just easier to not worry whether you'll have electricity tomorrow, or if there's a dry season and you might not have enough water to take a shower or flush your shit.
This is pretty cool.
Very cool
Nice !!!
Awesome
I love this idea, though I'm curious as to how well earthships would function in other climates. Could this sort of design really work in Canadian winter, for example?
I think it may depends on the region, but I've watched some earthship in Canada, Sweden, Australia, so I suppose it is doable in Canada
There's actually a video of a Canadian earth ship
I would like to live in an earthship when I retire.
every house should be built using these principles, maybe not burried in earth but self sufficient.
yes I,d love to live in a Earthship, I really want to make one here
Great review -- definitely would love to live in an alternative style house - rammed earth and earthship on the top of the list.
Cheers, Patrick
I remember watching a quick news spot on Earthships. Id personally wait a few years for a new advancement in the setup, but yeah. id live in one.
0:44 I'd like to see him say that here in Washington, where it's cloudy 80% of the time.
they have some in canada, check them out
Awesome video guys. Although I don't think the "Earth Ship" house is particle yet...... it is a good start.
wow that's great, I aspire to live off the grid
It all works great on a small scale. If I were in charge of running a moon colony or Mars colony mission, I would hire these guys to design the building. However, on a large scale, the surface area per person would be too large. It impacts the local environment too much. In big cities, we can take the lessons learned here, by these guys, and turn them into large habitats and industrial areas that collect and produce enough resources to provide basic necessities, but If all 7 billion people on Earth right now lived in Earthships, (assuming 3 people per building, and each building is 7m by 10m, we would live on a third of the land area of the Earth - entirely unsustainable, especially since we would need to constantly repair and maintain these things using materials that must be harvested from the rest of the planet. Definitely good ideas here, but it requires more development for mass implementation.
Yes yes and a resounding yes!