Article 8756 of misc.rural:
Path: bigblue.oit.unc.edu!concert!news.duke.edu!eff!news.umbc.edu!haven.umd.edu!ames!koriel!lll-winken.llnl.gov!overload.lbl.gov!s1.gov!fastrac.llnl.gov!usenet.ee.pdx.edu!not-for-mail
From: tellner@cs.pdx.edu (Todd D. Ellner)
Newsgroups: misc.rural
Subject: Re: Earthships
Date: 25 Apr 1994 19:18:22 -0700
Organization: Portland State University, Portland, OR
Lines: 66
Distribution: na
Message-ID: <2phtle$st1@cs.pdx.edu>
References: <2phi2p$a73@cnn.acsys.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.pdx.edu

In article <2phi2p$a73@cnn.acsys.com>, Dave Sims <sims@usa.acsys.com> wrote:
>Hi, has anyone heard of the so-called "Earthships" found in Northern
>New Mexico?  I visited Taos, New Mexico (a small ski/artsy town in the
>mountains of Northern New Mexico) this weekend and discovered a book
>in the local bookstore called, _Earthships, Volume I_ by Michael
>Reynolds, Solar Survival Press, 1990.
>
>The book describes how to build your own self-sufficient, passive
>solar house (Earthship).  What intrigued me the most about the book is
>that:
>
>(1) Reynolds preaches self-sufficiency -- ideally, the Earthship
>should provide all its own energy, food, water, sewage, heating, and
>cooling.  In other words, the Earthship isn't connected to the local
>power grid or utility company.
>
>I thought that was neat.  At the very least, I'm interested in
>building a house that has zero or almost zero heating and cooling
>costs.
>
>(2) The Earthship (house)'s foundation is built on *discarded
>automobile tires*.  (I never thought someone would build a house on
>old car tires! :^) I know Reynolds didn't originate the idea of
>building house foundations from rubber tires, but he certainly
>popularlizes it.
>
>Anyway, I'm going to visit one that has already been built in a week
>or two, but I wanted to know if anyone online had any experiences with
>them.


I've had friends who tried this approach. The pluses are pretty much as
you say. The minuses they have encountered so far are:

1) The county. If you want to do wierd construction you have to get your
   plan approved by the county/city/state. If you can't convince them (and
   they are fairly conservative) you are out of luck on this side of the law.
   We've had enough tsoris with concrete earth-sheltered construction.

2) Fire safety. If any of these tires catch fire your are really fucked. not
   only are they highly flammable, the gases produced by burning tires are
   incredibly noxious, opaque, and toxic.

3) Outgassing. No one knows how much the tires outgas over time and what the
   health hazards are from those gases.

4) Labor intensitivity. Packing each tire with rammed earth is very labor 
   intensive. Just how much is your time worth compared to the cost of
   building with concrete, concrete block, or wood?

5) Legal issues. In Oregon you have to get a recycling licence to build with 
   tires. This has its own problems which may or may not apply in your case.

6) Erosion. if water gets into the earth in the tires it can cause all 
   kinds of problems. This is a serious problem in the NW, perhaps not so
   great a difficulty in NM. 

There is a variety of solar, earth-tempered designs for housing. The earthship
style is not the only one.

Hope this helps,
Todd 
-- 
Todd Ellner            | Your 'reality' Sir is lies and balderdash, and I am
rigel.cs.pdx.edu       | happy to say I have no grasp of it whatsoever
                       |       -Baron Munchausen


