The VIVUS Earthship Community Project is our plan for land development. The location is Clayton North Carolina and we would like to build an eco friendly, self sufficient mini community of Earthships (google earthships). This will be the launchpad for our organization to help the environment and to send our members out into the public providing food, clothing, shelter, counseling, holistic medical alternatives and much more.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Exerpt From: Earthship Wiki-

 

An Earthship is a unique type of passive solar house that is made of both natural and recycled materials (such as earth-filled tires), designed and marketed by Earthship Biotecture of Taos, New Mexico. The term is a registered trademark of Michael Reynolds.

Earthships are primarily designed to work as autonomous buildings using thermal mass construction and a natural cross ventilation that is assisted by thermal draught (Stack effect) to regulate indoor temperature. Earthships are designed to be "off-the-grid ready" homes, minimizing their reliance on both public utilities and fossil fuels.

Earthships are built to utilize the available local resources, especially energy from the sun. For example, windows on sun-facing walls admit lighting and heating, and the buildings are often horseshoe-shaped to maximize natural light and solar-gain during winter months. The thick and dense earth-rammed tire walls provide thermal mass that naturally regulates the interior temperature during both cold and hot outside temperatures.

Internal, non-load-bearing walls are often made of a honeycomb of recycled cans joined by concrete and are referred to as tin can walls. These walls are usually thickly plastered with adobe. Tin can walls can also be used on top of the tire walls ("can and concrete bond beams") as an alternative to wooden shoes. An alternative to these concrete bond beams are wooden bond beams with wooden shoes. The wooden shoes are made using wooden shimming blocks (of 6x6x8' dimensions) placed on top of the wooden bond beam (the latter is basically just 2 layers of 2x12 lumber bolted on concrete anchors; concrete anchors are poured blocks of concrete located inside the top tyres). Re-bar is used to "nail" the wooden shoes to the wooden bond beam. The tire walls are additionally strengthened by using concrete in the tires on the ends (called "concrete half blocks"). The roof is made using trusses or vigas (wooden support beams) which rest on the wooden shoes (or tin can walls) placed on the wooden (or concrete) bond beams. The roof as well as the north, east and west facing walls of an Earthship are also heavily insulated to prevent heat loss.