Jake vs the Earthship Final

5/20/2017

The mass wall of the earthship did not survive the Tennessee winter mud season. I covered it as best as I could but there was just no way to keep all the water out. Where the water got into the wall, it slumped and began leaning forward into the building and became unusable as a building component. I believe if I would have amended the soil with sand and lime and installed it into the bags with a more consistent moisture content, it would have worked out better. I've also discovered that I did in fact order non UV treated bags. I had no choice but to take it down as it was making me nervous just to stand near it.

The failure of this building was a large time sink and direction change for the project as a whole. I've been hesitant to release the video partly because I wanted to have a more clear direction of what I was going to do moving forward and also this video was made during a stressful time of uncertainty and does not reflect my usual optimism.

Unfortunately, I do not have the resources (time,money) to put into another experimental building. Since the making of this video, I have pushed the mass wall into the ditch to form a dam wall with a fairly large body of water. I re-graded the site and have concrete forms up for a pre-fab steel shell building which will be well insulated and have radiant floors fed by solar water heating panels and will still incorporate the cooltubes and a solar chimney effect with clerestory vent windows. I may revisit being off grid with electric power at some point in the future.

7 Comments

Rena Halvorson

5/20/2017 07:32:25 am

I'm just sick for you! I just received my bags 3 days ago and got my plans from Howard Schweitzer and M starting my build here in a couple of weeks. Can you email me back with suggestions.
Thanks Rena

John Eklund link

6/1/2017 02:53:53 pm

Rena,

Please see my comment below and check out the page I linked there. My name in this comment is also a link to the page.

Sounds like you may have already purchased some plans, but in case you want to see what a true sustainable house should look like, I urge you to check out the page. I go over most of the current issues with the Earthship-style house and then my design was created specifically to combat these problems.

$162,000 total furnished build cost, not including cost of labor and contractor. 2,111-SF with 476-SF being a 4-seasons room. 764-SF 2-Car Attached Garage. 373-SF Attached Greenhouse. Utilizes all Earthship concepts and more. Holds 35,000 Gallons of Rain Water and 7,500 Gallons of Pure Distilled Water (automatically distilled for you by use of Solar Stills). 28-kWh energy storage (2x Tesla PowerWalls) and generates up to 10-kW peak (20x 300-W Solar Panels and 2x 2-kW Wind Turbines). Enough water to last a family an entire years worth of drought and enough energy to go 1 week without sun or wind. Both of the scenarios are likely to never happen.

Much more info on the page. Sorry for the long comment. This topic gets me really excited.

-John

Robin C Rutschman

5/22/2017 10:47:56 am

Dear Jake,

I too am heartbroken for you! It is hard for me to believe the dirt bags failed so quickly. Your plan "B" sounds much safer and should still work for off grid usage. Thank you for all your hard work and I look forward to hearing more from you on your new developments! May GOD bless you and your family.

David

5/25/2017 12:49:21 pm

Why dont you use some metal post, cables and a winch to pull it back into line, check out Mylittlehomestead they had the same exact situation and it solved it right up for them

6/1/2017 02:42:36 pm

Left you a comment on your latest YouTube video, but then noticed this blog and thought I'd leave the info here as well. Sorry for the copy/paste, but it truly is good info well worth reading.

Have you looked into simply using Rammed Earth Walls? You can make a single form to create 3ft to 4ft thick walls using a 95% dirt, 5% cement mixture. Then you buy sand to make stucco for some easy siding that you can add directly to insulation you wrap around your walls, also use it for the roof instead of shingles. Besides this being an ancient building technique (thousand year old buildings still stand today with rammed earth walls), it also allows for your Earthship to look and feel more modern. You will have straight walls with 90 degree corners. You can build plumbing and conduit directly into the walls, try doing that with tires or earth bags. Buying sand, cement and used crushed concrete (can sometimes find for FREE, but definitely cheaper than buying gravel) in bulk is fairly cheap. When it comes to concrete work, almost 50% of the cost is labor, so if you are able to do it yourself, you can do it for cheap.

I heave created a much more Cost-Effective Earthship-inspired Sustainable House. The plans can be found here:
https://www.gofundme.com/new-earthship-sustainable-housing

No need to donate to that fund, I am simply using it to supply a ton of information to anyone who is looking into sustainable housing.

One major rule that Earthships break is not using a concrete foundation. They can get away with this as the design was originally created for desert-like climates plus the house is supposed to collect rain, not repel it.

Also, please never go the tire wall route. Tires were only added to the Earthship design because back in the 80s when the design was new and had built up hype, landfills were indeed full of tires. Today, 90% of all tires in all landfills nationwide have already been recycled. We used ground up rubber from these tires to now pave roads and make playgrounds safe. Using tires, cans and bottles in your house is no longer "saving the planet" you are simply relocating, or I like to call it "landfilling", the trash right into where you live. For all those who spent the time accumulating these recyclable materials, they should have simply dropped it off at the correct recycling center for it to be recycled properly. Simply building and using a sustainable house is saving the planet.

I really suggest reading my GoFundMe page. Like I said, I don't expect a single dollar to be donated to that. I am simply trying to make the Earthship better by making it eaiser to build, by using common building materials, by utilizing a sturdy foundation with proper drainage into your septic leech field and it looks more like a conventional house. All the info is there. My current designs are there as well. I am turning my current design into a 3D model. Projected pricing is there, which I grossly overestimated everything.

Justin p

10/17/2017 01:01:06 pm

Oh Man!! What a terrible surprise ending to this movie. I loved your concept, and I'm totally disappointed in the end result. I'm fascinated with the earthship design, but there are a lot of things I dislike about the tire walls. I thought this seemed like a very workable solution, and I feel your pain. Incidentally, maybe the time you waited to post this video helped, but I commend you on your positivity. There is no way I would have remained as composed... 'guess I'll just use the dirt for a pond instead'. Nice. Good luck to you. I'm sorry for your loss.

Sue Young

1/10/2018 12:35:04 pm

Just watched your videos. I'm sorry for the hard luck you had, but thankful for your guidance. I live in Maine and want to do a hybrid round cordwood structure,using earthship principals. I was going to use the bags but my land is on ledge. (Not much dirt)
Thanks for taking the high road and giving us the opportunity to learn from your experience. Hope the next ones will be great.

Jake vs the Earthship Final

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