Earthship Kansas
(Page 2 of 3)
May/June 2004
By Nancy Nachman-Hunt
Definitely not square
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Inspiration for the Millsteins’ modified earthship came in the early 1990s. They had already done what they could with their traditional, turn-of-the-century farmhouse in terms of environmental retrofitting. “We added a greenhouse and some solar collectors, but the house was pretty inefficient,” David explains.
About that time they read about a free-form home made from lightweight Ferro cement, which is used more often in boat building than in home building. “That piqued my curiosity,” David says, because Ferro accommodates curves more readily than conventional, reinforced concrete. “My favorite architecture is definitely not square.” Soon after, a friend showed them an article describing actor and environmentalist Dennis Weaver’s so-called “tire house” earthship in Ridgway, Colorado.
From those two sources came David’s idea to combine the technologies and create his family’s personal Kansas-style earthship. “The vision sort of evolved,” he admits. “I doodled around with a number of ridiculous designs, but things started coming together when we saw the free-form Ferro cement house.”
As with all things creative, there were hurdles to jump, so the Millsteins decided to begin their construction with an outbuilding. “We learned a lot through that process,” David says. Specifically, they discovered that traditional earthship construction wouldn’t work in Kansas. True earthship tire-wall technology, developed in Taos, New Mexico, depends on dry soil and climate to work best. In eastern Kansas, where it rains about thirty-five inches a year, modifications to conventional tire-wall construction techniques had to be made. Instead of berming the tire wall, it was built as a freestanding wall, making moisture-proofing easier.
Construction techniques were also changed. “By the time we were working on the upper layers of the wall, it was like standing on Jell-O,” David says. “We were always having problems keeping things plumb.” The solution was to chink the tire layers with concrete at the end of each day so that when work on the tire wall began the following day, it was rigid enough to stand on. The tires on the upper level of the wall were pounded on the ground, set in place, then keyed into position with some finish tamping.
The Millsteins also found they couldn’t include the graywater systems often incorporated into classic earthship designs (see “Anatomy of an Earthship,” page 56) because of county building codes.
By the time the outbuilding was complete, the Millsteins had a pretty good idea of what they could and couldn’t do to replicate an earthship design in Kansas. They also managed to get county code inspectors to believe in the project. “For about the first eight months, they were skeptical,” David says. “They wanted some engineering done to satisfy their curiosity.” The couple asked John Easley, professor emeritus in engineering at the University of Kansas, to prove the home’s structural integrity. “By the time the process was two-thirds through, the county inspector had developed some faith,” he continues. “Then he got on board and was really enthusiastic.”