Can Earthship building techniques be used in main stream construction.

[billi]

Exactly billi.......now have a look at the figures for slate (stone) and soil (rammed earth).....unless i am reading it wrong or going the wrong way up and down the scale

Its all about location and budget and space and labour ... so individual somehow .... beside the state of our globe  

I like to ague as you and that is good , but i am not a politician to sell a book , more some kind of a thinker/dreamer with hands on

what i like about this place here is to get new ideas , individuals  their ways to do things and to provide my brain and my ability as well my nonsense and sometimes my moody parts  

I should come up with a concept for building , but at the same moment i buy cans of beer or concrete blocks (only occasionally 
drive a van and my footprint is not ideal ....

I did choose to live now in Ireland and couldnot get an old ruin to buy (or didnot want to buy one for double the price then a newbuilt home ) , but what were the costs of building old houses 2-300 years ago and the carbon footprint ?

If we translate that history to our modern times , what does that mean in peak oil times  and a whole of rubbish that we produced in ca 100 years ?   In my opinion we have to recycle everything possible to other material/ideas  instead of burring it or fire it  and ban materials from now on that are hard to recycle or poisonous .

But on the other hand find a way back to use free local  material (i know labour intense ,but if it makes a living   ) that is provided by the land  and that can be rammed earth ,straw, stone, sods,willows,reed, clay, trees,  and transform these materials to a form of modern living combined with of our ability  of new technology and the recycled/reclaimed products

Sure modern building products specially ecological sound are good  and i would like to buy all of those , but thats not every bodies  budget , as well not to lorry (   ) them around , so every local idea welcome may it be natural resource or  recycle

Real passive houses (let it be massive or light weight timber construction)  in Germany cost about 10-15% more then low energy houses and you still need heating and electricity

If you have the cash go for a passive house idea (if you like ) , but for the same money you can built a low energy  house with photovoltaik  and solar  and donot pay for electricity and heating at all (better option then a passive house with no renewable input IMO and still pay for electricity and heating  )

Or build a house with clever ideas and reclaimed and local cheap available products  and save the cash for more PV -windturbine or lifestyle ...whatever

But sure that's primary for one of houses , and housing or housing schemes or new developments should go much further ...

Billi  





 

[daftlad]

Earthship Fife is a demonstration building. Therefore it is not occupied as much as an office or house would be and does not get the heat gains from people/equipment either would get. It is occupied during the day, though not normally every day. Despite this low level of heat gain it remains remarkably warm, though in winter it would be a bit chilly for some. With a better floor, better roof (now sorted I believe) and more occupancy I suspect it would be fine, though probably still not over-heated in winter as many buildings are.

Hi David
Does the Earthship Fife have any other forms of heating? The Brighton Earthship has a pellet burner which will also do the hot water. The fella that took us on our tour indicated that the burner was needed, although he didn't say how much.
I think what would help would be some thermal blinds and a little more use (with more people)
laters

[noelsquibb]

Theres too many links for my little head on this thread from the greenbuilding forum, regarding 'annualised geothermal storage'.
Build it right and theres some really neat ways to collect, store and move heat around that do not require electrickery, sensors pumps and gizmo's.

http://www.greenbuildingforum.co.uk/newforum/comments.php?DiscussionID=2227

Wish I'd known about all these ideas before I built but I think theres a danger of getting so deep into the research that the project always remains 'in the future'  - we refer to those trapped in perpetual planning as 'gunners' (-;

Regarding plaster being inflexible, cob wall builders know that any coating has to be weaker than the cob substrate, so they use lime putty as their base material, sometimes with reinforcing added. Lime mortar only semi sets, freezing it does not stop it semi resetting once thawed, it seems happy to expand and contract with the underlying material and the occasional flood does not seem to trigger the rip it all out and start again approach.

I wonder what the carbon footprint is for a modern house flood damage repair ?

[billi]

Lime mortar only semi sets

 - clay plaster is another option for staying flexible and green  

[Amy]

One earthship i read about in france got too hot in the main summer months and needed shading

[David]

Does the Earthship Fife have any other forms of heating? The Brighton Earthship has a pellet burner which will also do the hot water. The fella that took us on our tour indicated that the burner was needed, although he didn't say how much.

No, and yes.

Other than sunlight and people, energy comes from hydro, wind and solar panels. These charge the batteries. When the batteries are charged electricity is diverted to heat the hot water cylinder. If that is up to temperature then the energy dump is an electric panel heater within the building. That doesn't come on too often though.

The hydro is a deviation from the original desert design. Lots of water and hills suitable for installing small turbines are not common in deserts.

[billi]

None of the plasters you mention are any good inside a house because it is too dry they would just dry up ...shrink and crack........thats why they still use gypsum cause its cheap and easy to apply

 gypsen  

Thats why they bring clay plasters , clay plasterboard, clay unburned bricks into these paper box style houses to regulate the humidity and make these houses a healthier place  

http://conluto.de/index.php?id=51

or did all these fail here with their clayplaster ?

http://images.google.de/images?hl=de&q=lehmputz&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Billi

and integrate a wall heating idea into the plaster

[djh]

The only house, that i am aware of, that was claimed to be heating free was a burried house in Cumbria that featured on grand designs. They claimed on a "revisited programme" that the house temperature could be maintained above 16 degrees

The minimum winter temperature in the Hockerton houses is 18 C, without heating, AFAIK. That's tolerable but I'd like to see higher - I don't want to be shivering when I'm ill or old. Hence my search for a Passivhaus that's done it - the min temp in a PH is 20 C.

[daftlad]

None of the plasters you mention are any good inside a house because it is too dry they would just dry up ...shrink and crack........thats why they still use gypsum cause its cheap and easy to apply

I have lived in a house in France with lime render finish on the internal walls and guess what...... The only cracks were where the walls were falling down.
Rupert, Progress is achieved by trying new things, lime clay etc are not new, they are tried and tested, it is just that we have forgotten how to use them. Why have we forgotton? because cement is cheaper and easier but it is very damaging to our environment so we need to work out alternatives, it seems to me that the past is a good place to start.
The old ways with a dose of modern thinking might be where progress can be made to replace the current idiotic housing designs.
laters

[EccentricAnomaly]

The only house, that i am aware of, that was claimed to be heating free was a burried house in Cumbria that featured on grand designs. They claimed on a "revisited programme" that the house temperature could be maintained above 16 degrees

The minimum winter temperature in the Hockerton houses is 18 C, without heating, AFAIK. That's tolerable but I'd like to see higher - I don't want to be shivering when I'm ill or old. Hence my search for a Passivhaus that's done it - the min temp in a PH is 20 C.

I was told 17 °C as the minimum by a Hockerton resident.  Whatever, a bit chilly for my tastes, too.  The only heating is a woodburner in the conservatory which is used a few times in the winter (e.g., at Christmas) when the extra space is wanted.

IMHO, Hockerton's an old design now and much better use could be made of solar thermal today and perhaps even of the thermal mass in the berm on the north side.

[daftlad]

One earthship i read about in france got too hot in the main summer months and needed shading

I think that would be bad design, here is some pictures (good and bad)

http://images.google.co.uk/images?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-GB:official&channel=s&hl=en&q=passive+solar+heating&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=P8gdSpr9Jp-OjAeW0fiHDQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&resnum=4&ct=title

Picture 1 shows proper shading to keep the high summer sun off the windows.
Picture 5 shows a long row of roof windows with no shading, that sunspace will get very hot indeed, it will need a lot of ventalation in the summer.
so correct shading is essential.
laters

[billi]

just a link  about wood framed houses and clay .... We are all learners  http://www.solar-aktivhaus.com/solaraktivhaus/en/sonnenenergienutzung.asp

Billi