Earthship New Zealand

Living for tomorrow, today...

Monthly Archives: October 2014

UPCOMING COROMANDEL BUILD

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We invite you to join us on our 8 week intensive Earthship workshop, starting Mid January. The workshop will cover all facits of Earthship design and construction. We have 40 special places to learn from our core crew. The dream team of experienced Earthship builders from around the globe are passing on their knowledge to build a fully approved and functioning Earthship. We will be covering many topics such as Thermal, & Solar Heating & Cooling, Building with Natural & Recycled Materials, Water Harvesting, Storage and Filtration, Natural Flow Sewage Treatment, Finishing Options and techniques including cob & hempcrete, Permiculture design and food production. Solar Electric Systems, as well as the plans and the permitting process and much much more. During this time we invite you to camp on our land and become part of a community. With two tipi on site providing a classroom and communal dining. We have two vibrant chefs destined to prepare the high energy and nutritious meals required to sustain us. Topped off with a deep crystal clear river for daily renewal and a mountain hut climb finale, we hope you will join us on this amazing construction adventure.

 

REGISTRATIONS ARE OPEN! please click here for an online form. 

For more info contact Rosa at rosa.scarlette@gmail.com

Sloped versus vertical glazing

Ironbank ESWe’ve been taking note of some of the modifications Martin Freney has made to the global model earthship design for the Ironbank earthship project in Adelaide Australia.  Martin is doing PhD research on earthships and has done computer modelling of their thermal performance so we think must be good reasons behind the design changes he has made.

A few departures from the Mike Reynolds earthship design of note are:
1) Vertical glazing instead of sloped glazing on the north face.   Vertical glazing more easily allows the installation of blinds or shades if required, to exclude the worst of the mid-summer sun.  Vertical glazing is also cheaper and simpler to install.
2) Use of skylights which double as vents, in the sloping area of north facing roof, along with fanlights over the interior doors.  These are considered essential to get light to the back of the rooms which would otherwise be quite dark, even with a light/white ceiling.  
3) Use of solar fans to vent the greenhouse area, and circulate air between the greenhouse and room behind. 
 
 Any comments on these design aspects welcomed.

Bottles for underfloor insulation

bottle floor

glass bottles as underfloor insulation

One of the key features of earthship is their use of waste materials in construction such as tires, bottles, cans etc. In the Waiheke earthship we are going to use bottles as underfloor insulation.  We haven’t heard of any other earthships doing this, however it fits into the whole earthship ethos so I’m surprised that its not part of Mike Reynolds approach.  The bottles will be laid on their side in a bed of sand over the  damp proof membrane.  Another layer of sand will cover the bottles and the spaces between them, and then a concrete pad poured over the top.  On top of this we are going to have an earth floor for a more giving and comfortable feeling underfoot than a hard concrete finish.

According to our architect Graeme North, preliminary calculated R values for 100mm thick concrete floors insulated underneath with bottles laid in dense sand is approx. 1.65 m2oC/W  and with bottles laid in pumice sand is approx. 2.06 m2oC/W.

This ignores the R value of the earth underneath the slab which varies according to floor perimeter length and with any edge insulation.

These figures have not been fully checked, and are calculated first order assumptions only, with considerable margin for error.  The  actual insulation values can only be proved by testing.

 

Waiheke earthship update

w elevationMany of you may be wondering if the Waiheke earthship is still going ahead. We’re pleased to say that after a period of regrouping we’re now moving ahead with the detailed design and hope to have building plans ready to submit to Council in the new year. We looked into the Kickstarter project for a NZ version of the global model earthship however after review and assessment of interest from the ES community we realised this would cost more than we’d be likely to raise through crowdfunding and not worth the effort. So we are going ahead with our own custom design which is a split level 3 bedroom earthship. The lower level is a standard global model with greenhouse on front but the top level is more open with a rear tyre wall but no greenhouse on the front. That’s because we want the living area to have large sliding doors opening straight out into a deck. This will reduce the thermal performance of the building in some ways however with Waiheke’s mild climate we’re willing to make that compromise. And if additional heating or cooling is required we also have some very innovative and first of it’s kind alternative technologies to draw upon from Dana’s energy company, Energy Alternatives. We’ll be posting more regular updates from now on as we make key design decisions and look to having a building schedule posted early in the new year.