Earthships Chronicles
Part III: A Month in an Earthship
Sitting at around 6,970 ft (2,124 m), Taos, NM, has a high altitude desert climate. They get an average of just around 12 in of rain per year. November 2022 was colder than average and saw temperatures more typical of December with highs in the upper 40s F and lows in the 20s F; though it did drop down into the single digit a couple of nights. Earthship Biotecture (EB) is located on The Greater World in El Prado — about a 20 mins drive NW of Taos downtown.
Mike Reynolds, the founder of EB, acquired the 634 acres property of degraded sage brush land back in 1998 to be an outdoor laboratory to experiment and develop his earthship building design and construction. It is the largest off-grid legal subdivision in the world. Over the years it has drawn those seeking to live off-grid. This was where I spent my month living in an earthship while attending Earthship Academy.
My earthship was a Simple Survival model design that I came to refer as my “hobbit hole”. This model was designed to be the most affordable and simplest to build. My particular simple survival was slightly different than what is shown in the video below — but more or less the same.
As advertised, the inner “comfort zone” temperature did stay pretty constant at around 70F, even when it got as low as 8F outside. The thermal mass of the dirt pounded tire walls + earthen berm beyond works! The outer “buffer zone” greenhouse, where the graywater botanical cells (BCs) are, can get pretty hot and balmy (as high as 80F) during the day if it’s sunny. Daytime temperatures can be in the 30s or 40s F outside, but if it’s a cloudless sunny day, it’s hot and humid in the buffer zone. But because there were no insulating curtains in the buffer zone, all the heat immediately escapes through the glass panes as soon as the sun goes down. This made it freezing cold to go to the toilet or take a shower at night because these were located in the buffer zone. The one drinking water faucet was also placed at the sink in the bathroom, and so I had to go out of the comfort zone when ever I needed water for cooking or drinking.
As it was November and cold, I was not opening the cover to the cooling tube, the transom, and skylight windows initially in order to retain the heat as much as possible. Evidently, this happens to be the only way one could ventilate and get fresh air into an earthship. In the hot summer, this would not be an issue because one is likely to be opening the cooling tube, transom, and skylight windows a lot. So, the air inside in the winter time can get pretty stagnant. After the first couple of weeks I decided to activate my earthship passive cooling system in the middle of the day for just 5–10 mins at a time to get in some fresh air.
Though I didn’t do a huge amount of cooking, whatever cooking I did meant that all the smell and steam stayed in the living space with me unless I ventilated the space. In tropical climates, one could choose to have a covered outdoor kitchen to avoid such issues.
The adobe plaster ceiling and walls also shed constantly and so it was always dusty even if you are cleaning the floor and surfaces frequently. However, there are non-toxic sealants you can apply on top of adobe plaster to minimize the shedding issue.
None of the food plants were yielding any fruits for me at that time of year, but I was informed by a previous occupant who stayed there back in September that he got to harvest quite a number of figs. The plants in the outer greenhouse created quite a bit of humidity during the daytime when it heats up. I had a lot of condensation build up on the inside of the glass panes of the outer greenhouse, which is probably only an issue in the winter because one is not opening the skylight windows as often.
The graywater pump turning on each time one flushes the toilet is a distinctive feature of living in an earthship, but something I got used to quite quickly.
The natural lighting effect in an earthship is also quite unique. Because the back and side tire walls are completely packed in by earthen berm on the outside, the only source of natural light is via the south-facing greenhouse glass panes that runs the entire length of an earthship. This just means that natural light is only coming in from one direction.
I also became hyper aware of my water and electricity consumption as I knew that these resources were scarce in my earthship. Water is harvested from precipitation on the roof into the cisterns buried in the earthen berm behind the back tire wall and all the electricity I had were from the solar panels and battery storage. I would be conscious of doing most of my electronics charging during the daylight hours when the solar panels were actively collecting power and tried to limit my usage at night time when I was solely dependent on the batteries until sunrise the next morning. No microwave, coffee machine, hair dryer, nor electric kettles were permitted as these are energy vampires. I had to boil water for making coffee in a saucepan on an electric induction stove top. I also made sure to be as conserving as possible with my water usage. Any extra water left from boiling for coffee was saved for drinking. When I was waiting for the hot water to come in at the shower I would collect the cold water in a bucket to use later for hand washing my clothes or mopping the floors. Several nights I had wanted to go outside to see the stars (actually did just once to see the full lunar eclipse), but it was so cold out most nights and I didn’t want to lose any of the finite heat I had in my hobbit hole by opening the front door.
It’s interesting what you start to think about and how you change your behaviors and habits to adapt to living situations where resources are scarce. It didn’t feel that cumbersome having to do these things though, and with time I would probably just get use to it. I would say that our on-grid conventional homes in industrialized countries have given us the false sense that we have unlimited supply of electricity, fuel for heating and cooking, and water just from a flip of a few switches; which are becoming ever more unreliable.
Of course this is the Simple Survival type earthship so it’s not to the scale of one of the full sized homes like the Global, Encounter, or Unity, where they have rooms with separate kitchen and living area and other amenities like washing machine. However, it was enough for me to get a feel of how the passive heating and cooling, water, and off grid electricity works. Off-grid doesn’t necessarily mean having to go without any technology nor modern amenities entirely.
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Read other blogs in my Earthships Chronicles series:
Part I: Why I went to Earthship Academy
Part II: Earthships: Design & Build
Part IV: Earthships and Beyond
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Resources:
Earthship Biotecture website ; Design Principles
Earthship Biotecture’s YouTube channel — tons of videos explaining how earthships are built & function
Garbage Warrior — 2011 documentary about Mike Reynolds & his earthships; http://www.garbagewarrior.com/
New Earthships capture more energy, water and food at lower cost — Kirsten Dirksen YT channel
How to build Off-Grid Earthship homes with TRASH! — Belinda Carr YT channel
Earthships — America’s Off-Grid Community — Off the Cuff YT channel
The Off Grid Guru YT channel — lots of good info. on this channel created by a guy who went through the EA himself and spent some time at the Greater World.
