Earthships. The very name conjures up an image of otherworldliness, but there are more earthships around than you might think. Whether you have no idea what an earthship is, or you are an earthship guru, hopefully you can enjoy the following moving pictures (“talkies” as the old-timers say), and maybe even learn a thing or two about these mystical structures.
Earthship Video Uno
Earthship Video Dos
Earthship Video Tres
Dang, now wasn’t that informative? If you feel that your brain can handle yet MORE information about earthships, then head on over to Earthships 101.
One night in Bangkok and the world’s your oyster. But what about the rest of Thailand? Journey with me, if you please, 370 miles to the north-east of Bangkok to the Wat Pa Maha Chedio KaewSisaket temple (nicknamed Wat Lan Kuad, or “Temple of a Million Glass Bottles”).
Wat Lan Kuad monks started collecting discarded glass bottles way back in 1984 so they could decorate their buildings. Apparently, their creativity with how they reused the glass bottles inspired tourists to start bringing bottles to the temple. Today, their seemingly fragile (yet actually pretty sturdy) temple is infused with over a million reused glass bottles! Hot dang!
I’ll leave you with some pictures of this magnificient temple. It’s purty cool how they used the glass bottles and even the metal caps of the bottles. ¡Disfrute los fotos!
I found out about this from good ol’ Been-Seen, who in turn found out about it from some Yahoo page that don’t exist no more.
Right, let’s “cut to the chase”, as “they” say. There’s a stray cat that roams our neighborhood (not Gimpy the stray cat, a different one), and me and Tiff have been feeding him/trying to adopt him for a while. So far he’s not ready to stay in our house, and since the weather is ’bout to start getting chilly, I decided it was high time to build him his very own homemade cat house from reused materials. Luckily I still had a bunch o’ materials left over from our kitchen remodeling, even after making a kitchen cart from reused materials.
First, I cut the floor and walls from some old wood I had from our kitchen remodeling. After some screws n’ glue, this is what I had:
I had some carpet left over from mi casa, so I cut out a lil’ chunk and oh-so-carefully fitted it to Charlie’s cat house.
This made the front page on Care2, vote for it with all yer might!
When many people think about a “green” house, they picture a small hut made out of mud where people sit on dirt floors, desperately trying to not use any energy. But by doing some careful planning and designing, and paying about 10% more on construction costs, this family’s home uses 50% less water and a whopping 90% less electricity than a similar-sized “normal” home.Some of the things they did are:
capturing rainwater and snow melt to flush toilets or water the lawn
“recycling” heat from hot water to help the water heater
If you’re thinking about building a home in the near future, and you’d like to cut the water bill in half and the electricity bill by 90%, then here’s how. I plan on one day following some of the tips in the video to make my house as cheap (and eco-friendly) as possible, while maintaining that normal home look.
Earthships are houses made with discarded tires, bottles, and cans, put together with lots of dirt. Many of them are self-sufficient, creating their own energy, and capturing their own rain-water. Since they’re made from reused/free materials, and supply their own electricity, heating, and water, they help conserve natural resources while also saving chunks of money. I’m down for anything that helps the environment AND saves me some dinero.
But I digress. I now present to you, courtesy of Earthship.net, “Earthships 101″.
Amory Lovins, who won a MacArthur Genius grant back in 1993 (and an Eco-Hero Award just right now), has been living in a house he built since 1983. It looks like a very nice and comfy house, especially when you consider that, despite living 7,000 feet up in the Rocky Mountains (where it gets pretty dang cold), he pays $0 a year on his heating. Not only that, but his house actually generates more electricity than he needs — so he sells the surplus energy to the power company for some extra cash. Here are three ways to cut your electric bill like crazy.
His secret (one of them) is that he designed his house to be very well insulated. His walls are 16 inches thick, and his large super-insulated windows (made with special glass that insulates as well as 14 normal panes of glass) mean that his house can retain heat quite well.
Passive and Active Solar Heating
Lovins’ house is heated in two main ways: both from sun-rays passing through his many windows, or by means of Amory’s solar panels, which supply his house with more energy than it even uses.
Energy-Efficient Appliances
Much of Lovins’ house is naturally lit by the sun. Besides that, motion-detector lights and energy-efficient bulbs help to cut down on electricity use. His fridge is thickly-insulated, which reduces its energy consumption by quite a lot. His dryer is solar powered, and looks like it uses no electricity at all (watch the video to see how).
Amory Lovins’ home took some extra thought to design and build. It also cost a little bit extra ($6,000). But by cutting his power bill to zero, the extra planning and money spent were easily worth it. If more and more contractors start building this way, you could kiss our “oil prices” and “energy crisis” problems good-bye.
There’s a new craze that’s sweeping the nation. Tiny houses. Many of them even smaller than this converted bus. Instead of living in a big, energy-consuming, resource-using McMansion, some people have chosen to live in small houses of about 100 square feet. It might sound crazy, but after looking at pictures and video of them, a tiny house doesn’t sound too bad.
Martin House-To-Go has finished their 2008 tiny house model, and they call it Fresh Start. At $29,900, it only costs as much as a nice car, but offers all the modern comforts of home. Their tiny house includes these following features:
11′ high ceilings!
solid bamboo floors!
no toxic, gas-emitting materials used in construction
Anyhoo, it’s worth taking a look at their galleries. Marvelous, they are.
Moving on, we find Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed. He’s been building (and living in) tiny homes since 1997. Most of his tiny houses are about 100 square feet. He claims that the reason he started living in small houses is because he hates sweeping and vacuuming big houses. Also, since they use less natural resources (both in construction and in upkeep). Without further ado, I present Jay Shafer’s guided tour of his tiny house:
One day I might have to take the plunge and live in a mini-house. They look cool, are cheap, and are environmentally responsible. What more could ye ask for?Thanks to Tiff for telling me about this here thing.
