So guess what folks...we got ourselves an earthship in Freeville!! Yes we actually have one 30 minutes away!! I'm so excited about this because while earthships are very revolutionary in design, they are not very common to build, and we have one! Also, after talking to Chad Devoe, one of the inhabiters of this earthship (along with his wife and new baby!), there's ANOTHER one being built in Brooktendale, which I had no clue was happening...and as he said, these two are the only earthships he knows of in New York State. I did a bit of research and I found one currently being built in Adams, NY, and there are plans to build an earthship in NYC (sounds crazy, but here's the link explaining how it will work. http://ecobrooklyn.com/earthship-project-york/), but other than that, we have 2/3 of the earthships in NY state right on the outskirts of Ithaca. That says A LOT about how progressive this town really is and makes me ever more grateful that I live here. Thank you parents for letting me grow up here!
A little prerequisite information:
-Chad has wanted to build some sort of sustainable home since college. He and his wife were originally going to build a strawbale house, but then, when he found out about earthships in 2008, they just had to build one. They mainly researched earthships online, because the books were outdated at that point, and still are.
-The ultra-cool thing, in my opinion, was that Michael Reynolds and a building crew of about 10 people actually came out here 3 years ago to help build this earthship!! He was actually here!! I wish I knew about these earlier so I could've met him when he was in central New York. Chad got the blueprints from Reynolds (they built the global model, but with a few tweeks), and after Chad and Courtney started building some of the easier stuff, Reynolds and the crew came out and helped deal with a lot of the technical stuff, like the catch water system, the solar panels, etc.
-850 tires, 3000 glass bottles, and 15,000 cans were used to build this house. They got the tires from a car shop in Dryden, which they didn't have to pay for. However, they did have to pay for the cans that they got from the dump. I mean I guess that makes sense, if they were planning to make money by getting rid of the cans, they can't give several thousand away for free. The Devoes are off grid, different from Carrie & Mike.
-Here's the list of bills they pay: Mortgage, internet (connected to Clarity Connect), cell phone, propane ($200 a year). That's it. Nothing else. My dad has to pay at least $300 per month for his NYSEG bill, and that's saying something.
-Chad's daily duties include changing the water filters (monthly), washing out the water filters (weekly), watering the greenhouse plants, and in the winter time, brushing off the solar panels.
1. This can+cement fixture mainly just serves as a filler. The cans help to take up space so they don't have to use more cement.
2. This is the water organizing module, but Chad usually just calls it the water pump. The grey water is filtered twice through the first two pumps. Drinking water is filtered two more times in the last two pumps.
3. This is just some beautiful stone work in the bathroom. All tile is recycled
4. Now THIS is how to repurpose glass bottles. All of those colorful circles are made from glass bottles to provide a stain glass effect. This is in their guest bedroom
5. This is the green house, where a good portion of the plants grow. They have an avocado plant, a lemon tree, lettuce, and many other plants. It also stays fairly warm in this part of the house because this is the front face of the sunlight that hits the house, and since it acts as a greenhouse, it has to stay warm. This never gets below 42 degrees, even in the winter time.
6. Here's an example of what some of the walls look like with the combination of the cement and tires. Chad plans to plaster this over the summer.
7. Just some cool tile artwork on the back patio.
8. Up above, those seemingly green things on the ceiling, can be opened up to let a breeze in, since this greenhouse area gets so hot.
9. This is the roof. It's more flat than most earthship roofs, but you can see it's metal and slightly slanted so all the water can flow off of it easily. Also, you can tell from this that half of the house is earth bermed.
10. The little pathway leading up to their roof
11. These are where the cooling tubes begin. They have about 5 total, and this is what cools their house in the summer
12. Those two green things are called scuffers, and they catch all of the water and allow it to drain under those two brown things. Since we have a lot of rain here, they often have an excess of rain water (which isn't the case in New Mexico where most earthships are built), so during a thunderstorm, Chad often closes the drains (which they are now) so the water can just drain into the surrounding field. They have two cisterns they can fill up with water, which is plenty
13. That little gray pipe on the right of the gunnel is a glycol heating tube, similar to the one at Carrie's house. This is placed in the gunnel so the rain water has no chance of freezing. This also melts the snow that falls
14. Here's the front view of the house! Notice how the solar panels are positioned at a different angle than the windows. This is so they can get maximum sunlight. The windows don't need to get maximum sunlight all the time, as there would be overheating.
15. This is the inside of the separate greenhouse they have. Another great portion of their plants are grown here, such as rice, lettuce, basil, etc.
16. Here are some hens!
17. Here are some cute duckies they have in their inside green house!! The ducks are actually used for slug control, not just for pure enjoyment, as one might think.
17=8. This is the view from the front of the house. Pretty incredible, right? Yes.
Here's the link to the earthship biotecture blog about this earthship's build.
http://earthship.com/blogs/2012/08/ithaca-new-york-build-week-3-day-13/
And here's the link to Mr. Devoe's own blog about his continuous earthship building/touching up experiences
http://freevilleearthship.blogspot.com
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