Earthships

Earthships
I was telling some of you about Earthships this past week. I've recently been researching these self-sustaining homes, and my fiancee and I are very interested in this technology. We'd like for our next home to be an Earthship. Here's the website for a company that will design and/or build an Earthship for you.

http://www.earthship.org

Here are some fast facts if you don't want to check out the website:

- The cost of building an Earthship is the same as new home construction if you have it built. If you do most or all of the building yourself, the cost is significantly lower.
- It can be completely off the grid. It generates its own electricity and water, and disposes of sewage.
- Electricity is generated by solar panels and wind power.
- Rainwater is collected and stored for use. It's first used for sinks, shower, dishwasher, and clothes washer. This now becomes gray water, and is filtered through plants and used to flush toilets. Finally, it's filtered once again through plants outside and is dispersed as nitrate-free sewage water (it's clean at this point and does no harm to the water table).
- There are no heating or cooling costs, because the home is self-heated and self-cooled. It's designed to capture and trap the heat of sunlight during the winter months, and interacts with the earth for coolnees during the hot months.
- Earthships can be designed for and are successful in any climate, anywhere on Earth.

There are a couple of Earthship communities near Taos (this is where these all started, about 30 years ago). My fiancee and I are going to take a trip next Sunday to check them out. They have a model you can check out (and even rent on a nightly or weekly basis!) and you can see how the systems work. I'm very excited about having a home that is self-sustaining, does not harm the environment, and will save you tons of money in the long run (no utilities!)