Earthship experience: 8 weeks, 650 tires, thousands of pop cans
DONNA HEALY Of The Gazette Staff | Posted: Sunday, February 21, 2010 12:00 am

Tucked into a bluff above the Yellowstone River, an architect known as the "Garbage Warrior" built a home with walls made from cast-off tires and empty soda cans.

The home's south face, an angled wall of glass, rises over a greenhouse bathed in sunlight reflected off the snow-covered hills east of Miles City. Its other three sides are sunk into the hillside.

Last summer, a work crew and volunteers rammed dirt into tires to create 650 steel-belted "bricks," which were stacked in rows, nine tires high.

Empty soda pop cans and beer bottles cemented side by side and covered with adobe mud became the interior walls of the eco-friendly home built by longtime Miles City residents Scott Elder and Karla Lund.

The two-bedroom house, built in eight weeks last summer, is the latest prototype of an Earthship, a form of self-sustained housing built by Taos, N.M., architect Michael Reynolds. Reynolds, a white-haired hippie, was dubbed the "Garbage Warrior" in a documentary film portraying his iconoclastic approach.

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Full story here:
http://billingsgazette.co...002e0.html

i just read those articles and now i really want to build one of those homes!

If I ever build a home, It will be made with recycled wood and things like that, along with having the roof covered completely with solar panels to cover the cost of my electricity usage..


But knowning me, I will probably get into a small studio apartment with a huge glass window and a loft bedroom...

Or a Frigidaire box.

What an inspirational story! Having grown up in the middle of absolute NO WHERE w/o running water, I can appreciate the having to be aware of how and how much water ~ and by extension electricity ~ you use. This was a perfect winter for Scott and Karla to see what they'll be up against. If they were able to stay comfortable through all this, they've got it made.

Oh, and to Bob N.'s remark on Josh living in a fridge box..yeah, but it'll be behind a Long John Silver eat your heart out!

From the Gazette article:

Elder pegs the cost of his prototype Earthship at about $200 a square foot, about the same as new, conventional home construction.

That seems really high. Most of the new construction here in Gillette is running $130 / sqft. The earthship looks like a nice place.

Anyone interested in hands on experience? Contact me as the weather starts to warm up.

Most of the new construction here in Gillette is running $130 / sqft.

$127K for a new 14x70 trailer house sounds a bit expensive to me.

Nice try. There are some pretty fancy houses being built here.

Tucker - do you need any more bottles or glass? We have been stockpiling all of our glass in hopes that EMI would accept it again someday. So right now we have beer bottles, wine bottles and just random glass items.

Let me know. I would much rather give it to you than run it to the landfill.

And I guess another question: does anyone know who takes glass to be recyled? We've checked in Billings but maybe we missed it. Any information would be appreciated. Again, I'd much rather run it to someone in Billings for recyling (unless Tucker takes it) than throw it out.

Thanks!

Having built a bunch of houses, the price per square foot is higher for smaller houses than larger ones. I didn't read the article though, I seem to have a short attention span and a problem with clicking and/or Googling -- unless I'm forced to.

This is the house I'm most proud of building. I designed it so the daylight basement fit the slope of the hill, as there was no lower floor originally in the plan. It was about 4,500 sq. feet.

Before ...



During ...





After ...



I have better photos, but those were easiest to upload right now.

Nice larry! That looks like one hell of a home. Are you living in it now?

This house won the most awards, it was a tour home, took the most of all categories ... it was pretty nice. About 2,300 sq. ft.

Like the previous, I have better photos, but these were easiest to upload.

Stamped concrete (the garage floor was pretty cool too) ...



Yeah, that's under lighting on the floor there ...



That's pine ...



Etc ...

Josh Rath wrote:

Nice larry! That looks like one hell of a home. Are you living in it now?

No, those houses are in East Wenatchee, WA. I live in a crappy 1700 sq. ft. house in Snohomish, WA.

Jeeze. You should upload some current pics.

..jumping on the, 'bring back old threads' bandwagon..

I see the DIY network (channel 157 on cable) is doing a show on Michael Reynolds tonight at 6pm. The Earthship in Big Sky, MT will be featured.

Is this the Mike Reynolds that used to be the Principal at SHHS?