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.
8 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.
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6/1/2017 02:53:53 pm
Rena,
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Robin C Rutschman
5/22/2017 10:47:56 am
Dear Jake,
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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
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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.
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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.
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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)
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1/29/2020 06:24:19 pm
I hope that all the experimental stuff you are making will have a positive result. I know that you have been wanting to get the result you've been wanting, but it has become really hard since there are unseen factors that are happening in the middle of your experiment. Well, you need to note all these stuff because these might have huge bearings on the study you are trying to make. By the way, you need to be patient, I am sure that everything will fall into place as soon as possible!
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