Memorial Day Weekend

Thanks to all of those who came out during Memorial Day Weekend to check out the earthship and to help pound tires!

Dave on the left, Cory center (you don't have to swing it that high, really), and Joe, working hard

A row of us pounding all at once: Paul, me (Courtney), Dave, and Cody

Phil visits from New York City!

My brother Connor (the day after his birthday!), my mom Char, and Phil

Glass

The glass for the interior and exterior 90-foot front walls of our Earthship has arrived!

More Visitors and Helpers!

Thanks so much to our recent visitors!  A tire you pound is one we won't have to!

Luke, our math TA at Caroline School, and Lexi

My dad and Michelle came back to earn their "I pounded a tire in the Freeville Earthship" sticker

Groton High School students Reid, Allee, and Ashlee worked hard in the heat!

Thermal Wrap

Chad and I started the thermal wrap these past two weekends.  This 4-inch barrier stands 4 feet back from the tire wall and insulates this area.  Plastic is attached to the outside of the insulation boards as a vapor barrier to keep moisture out of the house.

First we laid plastic down behind the tire wall.

We connected two 2" thick insulation boards for 4" of insulation.

We started standing the insulation boards up and backfilled the area.

Notice the plastic hanging down from the board on the outside.

We insulated the cooling tubes in this inner-area so as not to warm the cool air that will be coming through them.

Done for now!

Next we'll continue with the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th courses of the tire wall.  After about this point, we will continue the thermal wrap vertically and backfill the area again.  The thermal wrap will go all of the way up the back of the house and then tilt in to meet the house back wall at the top tire course.  This seals in the tire wall and compacted backfill to create a "temperature battery" for our home.

Mother's Day

 Happy Mother's Day!
My sister and mom drove down to Ithaca from Rochester so we could spend Mother's Day together.  After a picnic lunch, we pounded tires together!  Even Caitsy the princess helped.

It's Been Rainy!

Rachel

Sorry for not posting in awhile, but it's been pretty rainy these last couple of weeks and it has slowed things down at our site, which now looks like there's a moat around it.  We had some friends, family, and other people stop in to help pound a tire or two on the some-what clear days.
THANKS!!!

Alex

Orson

Kenda-Lee

Happy Earth Day

As a citizen of the earth...

I fully have the right...

to harvest water from the sky

to grow my own food in my own home

to harvest energy from the sun and the wind

to contain and reuse my own waste on my own land

to make my shelter comfortable without the use of fossil fuels

and to harvest what others throw away to construct my own home.

I am willing to die to defend these rights and to spread the knowledge of how to 

achieve them to others.

If six billion other people said this as well...

we would transcend the corporations, the governments, and the federal reserve bank.

We, the people, would always survive.

~Michael Reynolds, Earthship Biotecture

Cooling Tubes

   On Friday, we placed the cooling tubes onto a couple of filled tires of the 2nd course, so that they will be sticking out the 3rd course.  Then Chad's dad arrived with a tractor and he and Ryan Walczak backfilled the cooling tube trenches.

     The five 40-ft cooling tubes will allow air to naturally flow from outside though the cool underground and into our house like air conditioning in the summer.  In the winter, we'll be able to seal and insulate where the vents enter the house.
     Here is a video of Michael Reynolds, the architect/"biotect" who created the earthship, explaining this process:

Curtain Drain

     Sorry it's been awhile since the last post.  Chad and I are both teachers, and returned to school this past week after our April Break.  In the evenings, we spent the little time left in the day re-leveling and re-pounding that first course of tires.  It is important that it is really solid and level, as that will be the base of our whole back wall.  It took a lot of tweaking, but Thursday we were ready to set the line to prepare for laying the next course of tires.  Meanwhile, Ryan and Mack, one of Chad's former students, dug a very deep trench uphill from the earthship and all of the way around to catch groundwater and direct it to the sides of our future house.

Visiting Tire-Pounders

Thanks to several kind people who stopped over and volunteered their time Friday and Saturday, the entire 1st course of tires is already finished (for the most part)!  8 more courses to go!

The First Tire!

Time: 40 minutes

Dirt: 7 five-gallon buckets

Morgan threw a dime into it for good luck.  I told her that Chad and I had already thrown enough money into our house.

Excavation

Wow, a huge thank you to Walczak Excavating (585-721-6316) for doing such a great job with a tricky excavation plan!

Pushing over the topsoil

Still pushing over the topsoil

Digging out the foundation

The layout rectangle with the area for the tire walls tamped flat

Deep trench for proper drainage around the house

Tunnels dug for cooling tubes

The site: our future house!

Preparation

Step 1) Buy land.

Step 2) Collect tires.

(get right into the dumpster if you can for the best bottle finds)

Step 3) Collect colored bottles.

Step 4) Collect supplies for the building process.  (Don't be afraid to put "sledgehammer" on your wedding registry.  I know my husband wasn't.)