RSS FeedFeb 06 2009
My Night in The Hut Earthship
Earthship Biotecture currently rents out a couple of their earthships that are currently listed for sale by the night and the rates are quite reasonable.
I decided to stay in The Hut earthship, both because of it’s one-bedroom designed and because I had seen pictures of it in several books and was charmed by many of its interior features.
In particular, I loved the use of the round rooms, the quirky kitchen cabinets, the colorful canvas ceilings, round bedroom, the generous use of banana trees in the planters, and truly funky bathroom.
Aesthetically, the little earthship was everything I hoped for and more. A large planter dominates the main living area, making it feel like you’ve carved a home in the middle of a rain forest. The dining room table attached to a large tree trunk which serves as a support pillar from the ceiling and hand-carved chairs also contributed to the feeling.
I wondered what I was going to think of the DC-based ceiling lights, but I really enjoyed their slightly dimmer light in the evening hours. It almost felt like having starlight overhead. And supplemental AC lights provided more than enough to work and read by after sunset.
The rammed earth and adobe walls provided an amazing amount of insulation to the outside, both in terms of temperature and noise. Other than the sound of a winter storm brushing past the skylights in the ceiling, no external noises made their way into the home. It really felt like I was camping out in a well-equipped little hobbit house, and it was a quite comfortable feeling.
I wondered if the lack of windows in the bedroom was going to feel claustrophobic to me. But there was something really neat about sleeping in a round room tucked back into the earth. I felt like I had my own little burrow. And with the bathroom with windows just beyond, I had natural light when I wanted it.
I could absolutely see myself living in an small earthship designed like The Hut full-time. But let me give you the less than fully positives now…
Probably the biggest negative I experienced was the toilet. There was faint but noticeable smell of sewage in the house the entire length of my visit. If you’ve every visited a rest stop with compost-based toilets, it was about an equivalent level of smell. Not intolerable, but definitely there.
The Hut has the current typical sewage system design, meaning that it runs on greywater that has been filtered from the planters and flushes into a solar-aided septic tank. One of the things I was warned about when making arrangements for my stay is that earthships function there best when they’re inhabited on a regular basis. The Hut, however, only gets visitors a couple times a month. It’s very possible that not enough greywater had been generated recently (through things like bathing, washing dishes, etc.) to adequately supply and flush the toilet system. I’m really not sure and wasn’t able to ask about it before I had to leave the next morning.
And just one more aside on the toilet… I have to confess that it was initally a little disconcerting to try to use a toilet that was built on a platform several feet above the bathroom floor. I’ve heard bathrooms referred to as “the throne room” before. In this case, I think the description is distinctly appropriate.
The other downside to my stay is that the temperature inside the earthship was probably somewhere around 50 degrees overnight. Not intolerable but definitely colder than I was used to. Again, though, I had been cautioned that this particular earthship tended to get colder than most. I think that was probably due to the limited southern exposure. The Hut is tucked directly behind a berm which is obstructing some of the southern exposure. The amount of large trees in the planter probably weren’t helping matters, either. I suspect another contributor to cooler temperature was the kiva fireplace in the living room which seemed to be leaking warm air out through the chimney. If I was to be living there, I’d want to try to determine what could be done to maintain the temperature a little better overnight.
One other incidental thing which surprised me was how humid it was inside the earthship compared to the outside air. I’m sure this is due to the planters. In New Mexico, a little increase in humidity is hardly a bad thing. But I wouldn’t want to be dealing with it if I lived somewhere like Houston or Miami.
All in all though, I really enjoyed my time in an earthship. And I’m excited by their potential to provide sustainable housing for people in the future.
(By the way, if you are as charmed by the photographs of The Hut as I was, it’s currently listed for sale with an asking price of $260,000. If you buy it, however, I want visiting rights!)
Flickr Tag Error: Bad call to display set '72157612943898147'
Error state follows:
- stat: fail
- code: 98
- message: Invalid auth token
Earthship Biotecture currently rents out a couple of their earthships that are currently listed for sale by the night and the rates are quite reasonable.
I decided to stay in The Hut earthship, both because of it’s one-bedroom designed and because I had seen pictures of it in several books and was charmed by many of its interior features.
In particular, I loved the use of the round rooms, the quirky kitchen cabinets, the colorful canvas ceilings, round bedroom, the generous use of banana trees in the planters, and truly funky bathroom.
Aesthetically, the little earthship was everything I hoped for and more. A large planter dominates the main living area, making it feel like you’ve carved a home in the middle of a rain forest. The dining room table attached to a large tree trunk which serves as a support pillar from the ceiling and hand-carved chairs also contributed to the feeling.
I wondered what I was going to think of the DC-based ceiling lights, but I really enjoyed their slightly dimmer light in the evening hours. It almost felt like having starlight overhead. And supplemental AC lights provided more than enough to work and read by after sunset.
The rammed earth and adobe walls provided an amazing amount of insulation to the outside, both in terms of temperature and noise. Other than the sound of a winter storm brushing past the skylights in the ceiling, no external noises made their way into the home. It really felt like I was camping out in a well-equipped little hobbit house, and it was a quite comfortable feeling.
I wondered if the lack of windows in the bedroom was going to feel claustrophobic to me. But there was something really neat about sleeping in a round room tucked back into the earth. I felt like I had my own little burrow. And with the bathroom with windows just beyond, I had natural light when I wanted it.
I could absolutely see myself living in an small earthship designed like The Hut full-time. But let me give you the less than fully positives now…
Probably the biggest negative I experienced was the toilet. There was faint but noticeable smell of sewage in the house the entire length of my visit. If you’ve every visited a rest stop with compost-based toilets, it was about an equivalent level of smell. Not intolerable, but definitely there.
The Hut has the current typical sewage system design, meaning that it runs on greywater that has been filtered from the planters and flushes into a solar-aided septic tank. One of the things I was warned about when making arrangements for my stay is that earthships function there best when they’re inhabited on a regular basis. The Hut, however, only gets visitors a couple times a month. It’s very possible that not enough greywater had been generated recently (through things like bathing, washing dishes, etc.) to adequately supply and flush the toilet system. I’m really not sure and wasn’t able to ask about it before I had to leave the next morning.
And just one more aside on the toilet… I have to confess that it was initally a little disconcerting to try to use a toilet that was built on a platform several feet above the bathroom floor. I’ve heard bathrooms referred to as “the throne room” before. In this case, I think the description is distinctly appropriate.
The other downside to my stay is that the temperature inside the earthship was probably somewhere around 50 degrees overnight. Not intolerable but definitely colder than I was used to. Again, though, I had been cautioned that this particular earthship tended to get colder than most. I think that was probably due to the limited southern exposure. The Hut is tucked directly behind a berm which is obstructing some of the southern exposure. The amount of large trees in the planter probably weren’t helping matters, either. I suspect another contributor to cooler temperature was the kiva fireplace in the living room which seemed to be leaking warm air out through the chimney. If I was to be living there, I’d want to try to determine what could be done to maintain the temperature a little better overnight.
One other incidental thing which surprised me was how humid it was inside the earthship compared to the outside air. I’m sure this is due to the planters. In New Mexico, a little increase in humidity is hardly a bad thing. But I wouldn’t want to be dealing with it if I lived somewhere like Houston or Miami.
All in all though, I really enjoyed my time in an earthship. And I’m excited by their potential to provide sustainable housing for people in the future.
(By the way, if you are as charmed by the photographs of The Hut as I was, it’s currently listed for sale with an asking price of $260,000. If you buy it, however, I want visiting rights!)
Flickr Tag Error: Bad call to display set '72157612943898147'
Error state follows:
- stat: fail
- code: 98
- message: Invalid auth token
composting toilets will always smell unless you get or make a hermetic (air tight) toilet seat.
Trust me, i have lived with the stinky things for 10 years.
The easiest thing to do is to add weight on top of your seat and add a seal- can be one of those sticky rubber door strips or caulk- all around.
One friend added little screw contraptions used to secure things in boating- forget the name.
That is probably overkill.