Hi all: Is there anyone out there who lives in an earthship ala Michael Reynolds kind? Presently I live in an underground home for 20 years and love it. I have always been interested in all types of alternate house construction and the earthship concept seems to be the easiest on the earth. Am considering moving and building one and would like to visit a few already existing ones to see their construction first hand. I know Dennis Weaver ( remember him as Chester on Gunsmoke) has one somewhere in Colorado. I live in upstate NY...can anyone help me? Thanks Layne

-- Layne Rielly-Cosgrove (adirondackwoman@westelcom.com), March 10, 2002

Answers

I live in an underground house...the Michael Ohler type ;-) I have 3 of the books on building an earthship. We decided against it because each tire needs 300lbs. of dirt pounded into it with a sledge hammer. Ouch! On channel 3 WCAX news...CBS for the Adirondacks and Vermont, there was a segment about someone building an earthship in this area.

To do an earthship in our neck of the woods would require a good deal of modifying from his original plans. You cannot leave an earthen wall and the tires must be waterproofed from the outside. We are definately not a desert here!

If you want to see pics of my underground house, check out our web site... http://www.homestead.com/peaceandcarrots/

-- Wendy Martin (wsm311@aol.com), March 10, 2002.

Layne, the Earthship communities that Michael started are a few hours from me over in Taos, New Mexico. They really are well thought out homes. The website is www.earthship.org, you'll see lots of pics of the homes in various states of construction. He also applies the theory to houses built out of other materials, even strawbale construction! Hope this helps.

-- Nik Nikkila (niknikkila@hotmail.com), March 10, 2002.

Hi Wendy. I'm just across the lake from you..20 miles as the crow flies to Burlington..I'm east of Lake Placid in the high peaks area.Can you tell me where the earthship is located in this area as I'd like to contact the people and look at it? Thanks.

PS: By the way, my home is featured in one of Rob Roy's books on underground homes. Layne

-- Layne Rielly-Cosgrove (adirondackwoman@westelcom.com), March 10, 2002.

ARGH!!!! I'm still kicking myself! I had it written down, but spaced out. This summer I spent a couple of days around Taos, and forgot to check out the earthships. My daughter and I spent 63 nights camping all around the US....9000 miles by the time we got home.

Good thing I did that! It was fun while it lasted ;-) I got home from the trip and the pharmacy gave me the wrong meds in the right bottle. Thanks to that, I've had 4 blood transfusions so far and am stuck on oxygen. Grrrrrr......

-- Peace and Carrots Farm (wsm311@aol.com), March 12, 2002.