6 Dec 07

Constitucion Day

Wow it's been a busy week. And this time we really have finished the tyre work on the main hut. After re-reading the books we realised that we needed to allow for the pitch of the roof so another row of tyres was needed on the back. That's one thing that's really nice about this project, it's going at a slow enough pace to allow us the time to think, research and triple check.

Sunseed volunteers came to help us even though it was a national holiday day, thanks guys, we really do appreciate it. Hopefully lunch in our living room was up to standard!

Forgetful? moi?

I'm good at remembering faces, but tell me a name and it goes in one ear and straight out the other (guess there's nothing in between to stop it). So here's the Sunseed team and I apologise to ___? for not remembering his name.

From the left: Simon, ___?, Dave, Freddie and Adrian, with da girls Anita and Fran at the front.

Talking of research, thanks Adrian for the lend of the book on insulation. Dave's been walking around the house mumbling to himself ever since starting to read it. All I ever catch is "R60" "not possible""30cm""help!". He got into a terrible tizz this morning so I've stepped in and administered mouth to mouth (just kidding). It would appear that the recommended R60 for 8" of insulation given in the Earthship 1 book isn't possible anymore. We don't know if this is because new research has changed the R values since the Earthship books were written so we're going to contact the earthship team to see if they have any up-to-date info on insulation.

We'll put up the conversion from American to European R values when Dave's head stops spinning.

Aljibe house

Almost forgot to mention. Whilst we were out and about on Friday looking into windows and doors for the growing area we met a lady who has built a house 5 metres into the ground. She said the idea came from seeing a house in Majorca that was made out of an old water tank, an aljibe as they're called here. They liked the idea so much they built one themselves. She was kind enough to take us to see it.

All that can bee seen at ground level is a windowed wall no more than a metre high with a door to the side. The door leads to a staircase that runs all the way down one side of the area. Halfway down is a landing leading to a large bedroom taking up about a third of the width of the whole space. The ground floor has a kitchen and living area, a bathroom in one corner, storage under the stairs and the other two bedrooms under the main bedroom. The light floods into the living area from the windows above and the temperatures remain constant.

We're still sold on earthships, but were very impressed by this house and the innovation of it.