I would like to thank Mike Reynolds for giving me permission to transcribe, edit and reformat this work for the Steem Blockchain! This is part 8 of a Biotecture seminar. If you do read or watch this and have any questions please ask in the comments. I am happy to educate and help you to understand this. Biotecture is amazing in so many ways, and even after 20 years I still have not seen a model of sustainable building that even comes close in so many important areas such as performance, carbon footprint, longevity, ease of build, etc... Now you can also come to understand what Biotecture Really Is about!
Commentary
This is the final part in this first of two sessions, so we are now half way through. This first session has been mainly focussed on the global model with a lot of explanation of how they are able to maintain such a constant temperature in sub zero to desert heat in almost any location on earth. This has been achieved through the design of the global model which includes many features such as a a heavily insulated burial of the back side, very high thermal mass using dirt beaten into tires, maximising solar gain (sun energy) through orientation, sloping south facing glass, double and triple greenhouses, the convection cooling engine, and the overall size and dimensions of the entire structure.
In this last part we pay particular attention to the size and depth of an earthship, as well as the recommended sizes of a greenhouse. This is is one of the most important factors to performance, especially in extreme climates. We also compare using hydroponics in botanical cells to grey water system fed botanical cells, and there is QUITE a difference. If you want high food production, even year round fruiting trees then you should provide grey water which has an abundance of micro and macro nutrients that plants need to thrive. When you do this you don’t have to feed or even water your botanical cells as they use the waste water from the kitchen and bathroom sink and shower, and if designed properly will all work via gravity fed pipes.
The Global Model is the corner stone of understanding Biotecture, and if you have read any of these previous parts you will likely understand what they can offer, it is almost a miracle when compared to any other type of building. In the next session we will look more on the systems of an earthship and dig deeper into some of the other details, such as power!
Earthship Seminar Transcription Part 8
(Question:) On the global model you talked about the depths being 17ft or 20ft. If a person is more sensitive to heat so 105 degrees is really hot for some people. Would you suggest having another greenhouse on front to keep the main space cooler?
Well, see that's a good question. 'Cause, see, you're just getting into what everybody's getting into... all the little tailoring tricks to tweak this. I would... Because the economics of structure, spending 20ft or 17ft, I wouldn't go any deeper than 20ft. I would, in fact, stay at 17.ft I would add the green house 'cause not only this green house is a buffer zone for keeping the cold from finding the internal living space, it's also keeps the heat and usually at the summer, the sun is higher, so this thing ends up blocking any sun from entering the first green house and the living space.
And when you block the sun you're in shade. And you can still play the... the convection game out here. We put skylights in out here. And if this green house is in shade, and this one's in sun, and then you close this skylights, open these, pull the air through the whole damn thing, and you still got the convection engine, still got the cooler air coming through the earth, and you got no sun. So your plan with your sun angle and... we're trying to standardize adapt for structure and economic reason. People will say: 'You know, why can't you go 30 ft this?' Well... Then you got to change the whole structure, you can customize to your blue in the face but... there's no real reason to do that 'cause you can stay cool, without going deep.
Sometimes I would consider poppin' out a littler earth room, back on the backside that's... really an inner sanctum, you know... It's a custom thing, but... you know, largely custom is, is... just an additional cost.
We have intentions to bring this technology to Africa, i believe are one of the only are where tyres are only a commodity. What would be the best alternative to using tyres for mass?
Earth! .. Like we're talking, we've been talking for... several years to different factions in Africa, so we obviously thinking of it and... did some stuff in India and talking to more in India. And... tires are, you know... they are in 90% of the planet a thing people want to get rid of. But where they are not available or where they are really using for sandals or all kinds of other things. Then, you don't have to have them, We are... and usually in Africa then, you're looking at not sub-zero freezing temperatures, you're looking at milder temperatures. What we have been leaning toward for some of our builds in Africa that may or may not happen, what we're doing one is Swaziland, but that's gonna be up in the mountains, so it's gonna be tires. But... The wall around the building next door and the wall surrounding the tyre wall out here is just glass bottles. Could be plastic bottles, laid in mud. Mud, sand and straw. And, so, the, again... it goes back to that... original conversation I just started the second half here about the... the structure of these bottles and cans are simply a method of forming, a cement or mud wall.
Take a look at the wall surrounding this building next door. It's a pretty strong wall. Yes, it is on one course of tires to get it up off the rain. But that can even be dealt with. So, mud... We're talking about using mud and glass or plastic bottles now, it's my understading that in Africa and my observation in India that plastic bottles are available by the billions. Because a lot of people drink bottled water. So you should be able to find bottles if not bottles and cans. Not necessarily even aluminium cans. But these... beverage containers that do occur all over the globe, can be used to form mud and you can do... what we did out here, you can't see it because it's covered now, as we did the mud and bottle wall and... we actually had a tyre wall and we filled the inner with pomus. And, of course pomus is not available, straw, grass, whatever. So you can make the mud walls as a sandwich of insulation in between and the insulation can be whatever you find. And in Bolivia we went out and got Paha. You know, from the fields. So, the mass is, the storage of temperature in a.. climate like a lot of Africa not gonna be as serious, because you're just looking for shelter and shade. And so then, the thermal mass storage of temperature is not as important an issue and you can still use the earth to build with.
(Question:) Have you had the opportuinity to work with like any sites where microhydros power is available?
In Scotland we had that and... the other power system, that I'm getting into tomorrow, that we use that we pretty much have invented, does take power from wind, sun, microhydro, and just a subtle a little stream or, or... even a small river, If you got it on your land, yeah. You can put that into the... the kitty. 'Cause a lot of places don't have as much sun as us we have to combine wind and sun. And if you got, yeah... if you got water and no sun then the system will take it from wind, hydro, sun, linegrid or a generator. In other words, it will take all of that and put it your batteries no matter what you're getting hands on. Was there a question over here?
(Question:) The green house, the third. how big can it be made?
Well, it's, it's pretty... you can get pretty big with it, we like to take them big enough to if you're gonna go for that to get trees, citrus. The Phoenix has got citrus trees in it. So, it's... It's a question, if you get way, way out here... here's the answer. 10 ft is a good starting point. Then you get 11,12,13,14,15 to 30 you get out there, the higher it has to get 'cause there's your angle. You have to stay... keep in the wintersun admitting. And so then the volume of it gets so big, that if you get out there a far enought it would freeze. You know, it would get... you know, it's gonna... The perfomance of it, You know, I like for hours at the Phoenix, which you'll see tomorrow, to... I don't like for to get below 50, let's say. Reason being is because I got tilapia at there and the lethal temperature for tilapia in the water is 60. And we lost a batch due to that. So now we're tightening, we've tightened the whole thing up and put a solar heater on the tilapia pond, and... so far so good. we're eating tilapia. But... So anyway, the point is 10 ft is a good beginning, 11, 12 may be okay. Then when you get out there bigger, you just... reducing it's performance and extending it's cost.
(Question:) What about adding a fourth green house?
Well I haven't come up against the situation that would... require that. But somewhere in Canada I can imagine, you're Canadian? *laughter* -
No, but we only eat raw fruits... so we would like to grow trees for all year around, fruit. - Yeah! - from trees, for all year. Would that be possible?
Yes! I would say... I would say still you can do it in a third. Because... look at the Phoenix! You haven't been to the Phoenix yet? no. Okay, this should answer some of that. There's nothing wrong doing a fourth. But I think, in terms of a... I think three can give you. You know, if your house ends up being 80x60x80 ft long. And you got... you got a green house, usually they have a... you got food in here, and you got food in here and some may even have food in here. You got three areas to grow food and that's another cool thing about the Phoenix is... There's so many different areas, you got all this micro climates where salad grows best here, bananas grows best there... as a matter of fact there should have been last night or today or something banana bread from the Phoenix, Just harvest a big fat bunch of bananas. And we always have bananas, people... year around we have bananas all in these buildings. Yeah! All year, one of the house is has got bananas year around and you can... you can, some people say, you can survive on bananas. *reaction* - We do! We do! So you can have a... yeah, you can have bananas year around. I mean, the Phoenix is huge and it's been going on for 3 or 4 years. But it's just beginning to scratch the surface of what we can produce. We're starting to go into layers, and I might get into that tomorrow on the botanical cells with the growing, but... and citrus trees we've got, once you get citrus happening, we got one them that has lemons asides grapefuits and... You know, it's amazing how much food you can produce in your own home... while, you know, treating sewage at the same time. *humming* It's cool... Was there another question?
(Question:) Have you ever used hydroponics as a system to grow food and use the grey water?
Well, our botanical cells, which I'll go into tomorrow, are a sort of a cross between wetlands and hydroponics. So the, we have approached playing with hydroponics but we're trying to go with... you know, stay with simple aspects that people are used to dealing with which is planting plants and dirt, but they still have unlimited access to water, you know, in a way it is very much like hydroponics, Here we're just structuring the plants with dirt rather than hanging them with some kind of structure
(Comment:) plus yiu have a lot of chemicals with hyroponics...
Yeah! Yeah, we're not into playing with that much. We wanted to all be a more of a natural process that we can...
(Question:) So you don't feed the plants in here at all?
When you see the Phoenix, all the Phoenix is the, the sewage system. And the nutrients from that... You know, I'll go into how about it works tomorrow, but that's actually what the thing looks like. The roots go down, they have access to water constantly, What I've observed is that when you water plants with clear water, they grow. When you water them with grey water, they explode. You know, they just go crazy. And so I've seen plants do things that I never had seen do before with grey water. So it's like, they're happy. And they're stronger and more resistant to bugs and stuff like that. There's a whole lot to go into that conversation.
Earthship Seminar Video 2009 - Part 8
READ PREVIOUS TRANSCRIPTS
Part 1
https://steemit.com/ecotrain/@eco-alex/earthship-biotecture-101-learn-with-michael-reynolds-part-1
Part 3
https://steempeak.com/ecotrain/@eco-alex/earthship-biotecture-transcribed-seminar-with-michael-reynolds-part-3
Part 4
https://steempeak.com/ecotrain/@eco-alex/earthship-biotecture-transcribed-pt4-heating-your-home-with-body-heat-in-norway-about-permits-in-usa-and-europe-how-to-get-them
Did you know, I built four Earthships in India as well as being instrumental the creation of the first Earthship in the UK, Earthship Brighton. If you are also on this path and would like to read my story, I have recently published a book. It is not only a great story, but a valuable resource for you to learn from. I had no experience or training when I embarked on my mission, but managed to successfully build a gorgeous home called Earthship Karuna.
You can buy this book with Steem on the homesteaders co-op. Whilst you are there please do have a look at some of the other products as there are all kinds of great things there!
https://homesteaderscoop.com/product/earthship-chronicles-ebook/
If you don't have any Steem you can also buy the ebook and paperback on amazon.
http://mybook.to/Earthship-Chronicles
or
https://www.amazon.com/Earthship-Chronicles-sufficient-luxurious-experience-ebook/dp/B07MYCBXYB
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