I've seen some claims on social media that Earthships don't work in northern climates. Our Earthship has been providing for us for well over a decade, located north of 54.5 degrees latitude (1 1/2 hours north of Edmonton). With that much experience with these structures, allow me to share our observations so that people looking at building Earthships can do so based on actual observations rather than conjecture.
Our climate is extreme. Over the past five years we experience several seasons where we had snow on the ground for six months. Our winters will drop to -40C/-40F or colder. This past winter we had six weeks straight of -30C/-22F to -38C/-36.4F. Summers are short and hot, with top temperatures reaching over 30C/86F but averaging in the low to mid 20C/68F. Where we built, we experience 88 frost free days or less, depending on the season.
Our climate here is shifting and it is common to have frost in June and August which makes growing crops challenging. Building structures that perform well in this environment without external support is equally challenging.
To manage expectations: If people are expecting earth rammed buildings to maintain 21C/70F all year around, then go live in a traditional build home. Alternative housing is not about maintaining room temperature all year long, but rather allowing the building to breath and adapt to the environment it is built in without being attached to the grid. This is about living within the ebbs and flows of that environment.
We started our project in 2007, building the first of two earthships on this land. In 2008 we started the second home, which is the one we are living in now. At the end of the season we were unable to complete the building before winter set in. We had the tire wall done, the south wall framed and the roof was up. We put up a sheet of 6mil plastic on the outside and inside of the wall plus we had plastic up for the ceiling. No glass or insulation was installed. A traditional build home would have froze within days and reached bone chilling temperatures reaching -40C/-40F.
The coldest temperature I recorded in our earthship that first winter was -4C/25F. On sunny days, the sun that could get through two layers of cloudy 6mil poly still managed to heat the building to +10C/50F, despite -40C/-40F temperatures outside. Please remember that these temperatures were achieved with no glass or insulation of any kind. The thermal mass was doing all the work to regulate the temperature of the living space inside.
In 2009 we put insulation into the attic, installed the windows and got the building into a position that we could live in it. It takes about two years to 'charge' the thermal mass, which required burning wood to help with the charging process. Thermal mass stores heat like a battery stores electricity. When we build thermal mass buildings, we need to pump heat into the thermal mass until it finds equilibrium. Heat travels slowly through thermal mass, which is part of why they work so well. The ambient temperature of the thermal mass within our earthship now sits around 17C/63F through the winter and 19C/66F during the summer.
Ambient temperature of the air within the earthship is dependent upon the temperature of the thermal mass and the outdoor temperatures. During the winter, we only burn wood during the day and we only do that to increase the air temperature to 21C/70F. At night we let the fire burn out and the temperature within the earthship will drop to about 15C/59F. We let the heat stored within the thermal mass do its job and it does it brilliantly! In fact, it works so well that our cisterns are buried at the east end of the building and the corners are exposed to these extreme temperatures. While we get ice inside, we have always been able to draw water from the bottom of the tanks. We have never had our water pipes or pumps freeze.
On some crystal clear winter days when the temperatures are below -40C/-40F, we will find the solar gain into the earthship to be so intense that our internal temperatures have climbed to +27C/81F with no wood heat. We open the windows and doors when most think we are crazy.
Technically, if all hell broke loose in the world and we could not to burn wood at all, our earthship would not freeze and it would keep us alive all winter long. There is no other building technology that can make such a claim. Every other building, whether it be traditional stick built, straw bale or even hempcrete buildings would all freeze without other heat sources. Some in a few days, others would take a few weeks, but they would all freeze putting the occupants in danger and risking their lives.
During the summer, the temperatures within the earthship will rise to about 24C/75F, but will drop back down to 19C/66F during the night. We never suffer during the summer heat wave where traditional homes struggle to cool off and they need air conditioners to cope. Earthships and other thermal mass buildings draw in that heat and automatically cool the air within the living space. During the summer, we always sleep with blankets while our neighbours are awake, nude on top of their sheets with fans and windows wide open.
These numbers that I just shared reflects an earthship that is not even complete. The design for northern climates calls for an atrium, which provides a buffer between the earthship and the extreme temperatures outside. We anticipate that when the atrium is complete, the differentials between the highs and lows within the earthship will shrink considerably and further reduce our desire to burn wood during the winter time to make things more comfortable.
Our Atrium, partially complete
We do this without electricity, natural gas, heating oil or other grid provided services.
While the goal and expectation of grid homes is to maintain 21C/70F constantly all year long, don't expect off grid homes to perform the same way. If you do, then you will be disappointed. These buildings are meant to ebb and flow with the changing seasons. Modern society is so disconnected from the flow of seasons that people have no idea how to reconnect. Earthship temperatures fluctuate with the seasons. The temperature of the thermal mass changes between 2-4C from summer to winter while we experience interior temperatures shift 10C while outside the swing is an astonishing 80C/139F.
That is what thermal mass buildings are designed to do. They are meant to significantly reduce the swings in temperature within the living space, not keep it at a constant 21C/70F. If we decided to not burn wood within our earthship the interior swing would be about 20C. If we completed the earthship and decided not to burn wood, we anticipate the swing to be as low as 10C from summer to winter. In my opinion, that proves these buildings do indeed work!
For us living off grid, these temperature fluctuations are more than enough to consider the earthship the most valuable tool we have. It not only allows us to maintain a healthy living environment, but it also provides water, food, power and waste management on top of all the other features. The biggest bonus is that during an emergency, especially during the winter, we would survive and be able to keep all our food stuffs from spoiling in the process.
I challenge anybody to try and come up with an alternative building structure that can do all this, in extreme northern climates without the need for external grid connected services. To claim that these buildings fail due to the extreme cold ambient temperatures of the earth in these environments, is blatantly false.
I know of other thermal mass buildings made of cement blocks rather than tires, and those buildings perform spectacularly as well. Don't let people who have never lived in these buildings suggest that they don't work.
What an awesome testimonial! I have been interested in building earthships and other natural material buildings... But everyday, every time I read something like you just wrote, I am more and more convinced that is the type of home I want to live with!
Thanks for the great info, we are in a cold climate too 😁.
I'm glad that it was helpful.
I don't think people really get how bad ass an earthship can be. Great post. Upvoted and followed.
I agree. Lots of hard work, but they will literally loo after you and save your life if the grid or the whole system ever failed.
Amen. Totally agree.
Highly rEsteemed!
Thanks for your support.
It's so great to read such detailed info on Earthships that far up North, in such extreme climates (especially on the Steem blockchain!) At the Earthship academy we kept hearing about special designs for an Earthship in Sweden, which in the end never got built, which included an additional greenhouse. Is this what your 'atrium'is?
I suppose you must get a lot of sun in Alberta. My friends' Earthship I've been helping out with on Vancouver Island has just the opposite challenge: moderate temps, but mostly cloudy skies in the Winter. Also, for reasons of the rain curtain, the windows have to be fully vertical, with a considerable overhang of the roof. That may seem counterproductive for an Earthship, but once again, the solar gain is already compromised by the weather, so it may not make a huge difference... We'll see. What I find super exciting, though, is to see that these amazing structures do perform in so many different climates.
How does your latitude influence your windows? Are they really slanted? Does the snow ever have to be wiped of externally?
Thanks again for sharing all this cool information!
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Our windows stand about 16 degree off vertical, so they have a slight angle to them. The sun is so low in the sky in the winter time, that is what it worked out to be. We build our roof to over hang the windows of the atrium to help keep the rain and hail off of them. But in the winter, we do have to sweep the snow off of them. Yes, the atrium is the greenhouse in the front of the earthship. When they are done, I anticipate the performance to improve. We have many months of cloud during the late fall and early winter. But the earthship stores so much heat through the summer that we don't start burning wood until most other people have turned on their furnaces for the season. I hope this helps. Thanks for dropping by and participating in the conversation. Peace to you.
Beautiful construction! Thanks for sharing, I love the tires in the walls; take others refuse and turn it into a home!
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Building out of garbage. Wonderful way to go. Thanks for dropping by and commenting. We love our home and I'm glad you love it too.
There's a place called the Hockerton Housing Prokect in the UK which has no heating and the min indoor temp in December is 16 degrees.
Those houses were built 30 years ago.
Off grid works period, it has done for generations!
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Yup. Even on Turtle Island thermal mass heating for homes was around for thousands of years. Colonization enticed us to walk away from those concepts, but the time is now to return.
Excellent report! A few questions: What is the best link to start getting educated on your type of building approach? How large is your building (floor space)? How many tires did it take (roughly), and what did they cost? Finally, what did you use to fill the tires (which I assume is the thermal mass of the building)? Thanks for sharing!
hey jd.. ive been writing a LOT this year on Earthship Biotecture, happy to share a few links here .. some GREAT learning opportunity here!
https://steempeak.com/ecotrain/@eco-alex/99-reasons-why-earthship-s-are-fuc-ng-awesome-compilation
Biotecture Transcribed is a big series for some in depth learning
https://steempeak.com/ecotrain/@eco-alex/final-earthship-seminar-transcription-table-of-contents-incredible-earthship-video-to-truly-educate-and-inspire
The Latest Movie : Dont Flush Your Freedom
Hope that helps! <3
Michael Reynold's website www.earthship.com is the best place to start. However, there is lots of material on line as this type of building modality is taking off. He also produced a film called 'Garbage Warrior' which I believe is still on youtube. Our building, when complete, will be 2200 square feet. Too big for just the two of us, but when full of kids, it did well. We used about 750 tires and they can be collected for free. However, we paid $150 a ton for them when we started in 2007. We used earth from the build site to fill them. The thermal mass is the earth in the tires, the earth behind the tires (6 feet) and the whole floor. I calculated for our build we have about 2 million pounds of earth regulating the temperature of about 800 lbs of air.
Excellent! Thank you for the response.
That's great they work so well.
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We agree with you! lol
Reading this post is my first exposure to what an earth ship actually does, ...thanks for taking the time to explain the purpose and function @wwf. Great photos to illustrate as well!
I have many posts earlier on in my blog speaking about the build. You are welcome to revisit them, or I may just re-post some of the more popular ones. I'm glad you enjoyed the post.
The ground temperature at -4" or greater generally stays between 40 - 60 F. It's a lot easier to heat from 40 F than from -20 F, so this saves wood. This is what I hope to do one day, but of course government frowns upon its slave building under ground and they regularly try to use scare tactics such as radon gas (which may or may not be a problem in your area). This is because gophers are exceptionally difficult to raid.
I want to comment about the ground temp comment. I'm not sure where you live, but around here the ground will freeze several feet, more if it is run over by vehicles. That is how they make ice roads in the winter. We have to build here to account for frost lines in excess of 2-3 feet. While we can receive some heat from the earth herself during the winter, it is not enough to keep a building from freezing. We need solar gain to keep the building warm. However, with that said, if we build a root cellar deep enough, it will keep our food from freezing during the winter and acts as a natural refrigerator during the summer. Thermal mass can do some amazing things.
I'm the guy with the 70 acres in upstate NY you once sent a procedure to obtain an allodial title to because of the strange situation of the estate belonging to someone who's been gone for 40 years. Land has been in the family since the mid 1800's.
I don't recall making a procedure to obtain allodial title. I've not done the procedure myself yet and I don't typically help people with things I've not done myself. I have theories as to how to do it but we have land issues here ourselves due to multiple persons on the title. How is it going with you?
You didn't make the procedure, you just sent this link. I haven't done anything about it because the fact that the land is in estate is a certain protection in itself that forms a gridlock as long as the extortion fees are paid (which would be the case no matter what status the land has in NY).
I'm doing fine. Still taking care of my father. Feel like things will be coming to a head by the early 2020's in the USA over financial collapse. Stocked up on food, water filters, and ammo like 99% of this area already is... The Amish have land on all sides of this property, so we will be OK as long as Nine Mile point doesn't melt down.
Ahhhh. That would explain why I did not remember. Well, to be fair, I don't remember the link either. But I'm glad that you are getting ready and I would agree with your land assessment. The trick will be keeping it in good standing after the collapse. That is when people will be kicked off the land, for failing to pay those extortion fees. The Amish will definitely help you.
Please forgive me as my memory is still struggling. That was the whole point for me to start blogging here a couple years ago. I'm glad you found me again. As we chat, I'm starting to recall your story. Bravo to you for getting prepared. I feel it will happen sooner than later.
This is where my plan for bitcoin comes in (a trade for the tangible in exchange for the intangible). Most of us will eventually be kicked off chain due to the high transaction fees (@anonymint says that this is by design). Bitcoin (BTC) is a store of value, but the protocol has ossified to the point that it will likely never be a good medium of exchange. As for the transparency of it all (and lack of privacy), transactions on chain will likely be > $1000 USD and be primarily between nation states and elite bankers. @anonymint says that's what it was designed for and it will likely pan out that way.
If you aren't aware of the potential of the segwit donations attack, you can read about it here and here.
Radon gas has not been an issue for us as air is constantly flowing through the building. It is not air tight like traditional homes that pay for their heat. As a result, those homes try very hard to hold onto as much of it as possible. They live in a scarcity model, where this is a prosperity model. As such, air comes in and out regularly which means that deadly gas cannot accumulate. This gopher likes living under ground. lol
Love this post, of course ;-) Very happy to see you giving some solid information .. and tried and tested first hand! The latest ship in the UK works like a dream.. and with an official negative carbon footprint..
People do need to understand that Biotecture is evolving, and especially in northen europe.. there were some that were done badly.. but when adapted properly they perform like NOTHING else, without even needing to heat it! THankfully as more people do this themselves we have more examples to show..
Congratulations! I just stopped by to say that your post has been selected as a daily Featured Post of my personal curation project! You can find the daily Featured Post HERE.
I upvoted your contribution and I put it on the list because to my mind your post is what I call a quality content!
manual curator that shall make available all his Steem Power to authors deserving of support. Let's make STEEM great again!
Have a nice day and keep up the good work! I am @miti, a
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