Archive for December, 2007
Earthship construction: Day 5
Friday, December 7th, 2007We were greeted this morning at the site by two teams of oxen pulling wagons. We have been using a back hoe to generate dirt from a nearby site, but we needed a more efficient way to get the dirt to the Earthship rather than having the back hoe trundle down with a scoop at a time. So we hired the ox teams.
They worked non stop all day, bringing load after load to the site to back bury the building. It was fun to watch the well trained beasts maneuver about and then wait patiently while the guys shoveled the dirt off.
Working in the bottle factory is a little removed from where the real action is, but at least we get shade and an occasional trip to the beach to collect materials. We (and when I say we, I mean all the Nica kids who stop by – ages 2 on up to my right hand man, Faustino, who is 62) have been manufacturing bottle bricks from discarded plastic and glass bottles found on the beach, the streets and trash cans. We cut off the tops and join the bottoms to create colorful mini windows which, when laid in a concrete wall, give the appearance of a stained glass window of sorts.
Every time I deliver another basket of completed bottle bricks to the site, I’m amazed at the progress. Mike finished his bottle wall in the living room hut and together with Rory, Tom and their local helpers, managed not only to form the bond beam today, but also to pour it.
Photo courtesy of MyBootsnMe taken on-site.
Chris is heading up the team in charge of the bottle walls in the bedroom. It’s looking like she should be able to finish the walls on Monday. Ted and Demian, working with Frederico, have completed the framework of the rebar birdcage to go on the big hut. They’ve begun wiring the mesh onto the frame that will help maintain the shape of the dome throughout the first coats of plaster.
Inside the living room hut, Phil and Seth have got their wooden tower far enough along to erect the first two spokes of the inner dome. These connect the inside of the bond beam to the lower part of the skylight unit in the living room. It’s a tedious job, getting the angles just right, but they hope to have them all up on Monday.
And Justin started assembling trusses today that will support the greenhouse roof. After carefully figuring out the first, he was able to crank out five more.
Besides the major milestones noted here, countless other tasks are simultaneously being performed: finishing the tire work, packing out the tire work, shuttling concrete, shoveling dirt and back burying the building, cleaning the ends of bottle bricks, mixing cement, mixing cement, mixing cement, shuttling to town to retrieve sand, gravel and other supplies, and Dave, quietly coordinating deliveries and store runs with a smile on his face, despite the frustrations.
Photo courtesy of MyBootsnMe taken on-site.
And then there is Jo and Lydia, behind the scenes cooking for all of us – one in the morning for lunch and the other in the afternoon for dinner. I haven’t had a bad meal yet. Good grub. Thank you!
(Post contributed by Amy – Bottle brick factory worker)
Earthship construction: Day 4
Thursday, December 6th, 2007Each day a few of the Carizal kids from the surrounding community eagerly wait at the river crossing for the construction crew to arrive holding a small collection of bottles and cans. A good portion of the crew enjoyed the local night life the night before, so morning arrived quickly for some. By 7:00 am we were all on-site and busy at work.
The crew broke up into their specialties; Seth and Phil started carpentry on the hub for the inner dome structure, while Demien and Ted (and Brooke) started construction of the rebar outer dome. Rory cut rebar stakes and drove them into the top course of tires and began to lay out the bond beam for-work.
The primary focus for the day was on getting the inner dome structure and outer dome framework erected so that plastering can begin on Monday. Justin and the Nicaraguans worked on finishing the last few courses of tires, while Mike Reynolds worked closely with two locals on the art of bottle laying in cement mortar, then grooming them with plaster to give them a finished appearance and bottle detail. The colored bottles are artfully organized among the windows and archways allowing for entry of natural light and a stained-glass like finish.
The day cruised right along, and lunchtime each day seems to come at the perfect time. There was a momentary scare that a load of lumber may not be arriving on time but in true Nicaraguan time it arrived.
More bottle bricks were made today by three adults and 8 Nica kids were excited to help with the unusual activity. The tire work is nearly done on all areas of the main house and we are prepped with enough cans and bottles for the following days work on the bond beam.
After months of collecting used tires and bottles, the house is finally taking shape and the excitement among the community is growing. More volunteers showed up today, one from Florida and two from Alaska. It is an amazing experience to demonstrate to new people the process of Earthship construction and for them to share their backgrounds and knowledge.
The crew will get the weekend off and there has been discussion of a friendly sports competition. The Nica’s want to challenge the Americans. Since baseball is the most popular sport here in Nicaragua, we may have to take them up on a game this weekend.
Earthship construction: Day 3
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
Work started at 6:00 am when the temperature was still cool. The back-hoe was found with a flat tire which was quickly fixed. Tire pounding resumed with a sense of urgency and good camaraderie among the locals and foreigners alike.
The back-hoe was busy bringing dirt from the next Earthship site, for which excavation began yesterday. Mass quantities of earth are used in the process of tire pounding and burying the building to achieve the thermal mass quality of an Earthship.
Wine bottles were cut in half by an older community member, then cleaned and reassembled to form bottle bricks for interior wall construction. Brooke Rundle rounded up a legion of local children from the surrounding Carizal community and ventured into and through San Juan del Sur, cleansing the riverbeds and alley ways of all trash suitable for bottle bricks. Mike Reynolds spent a good portion of the day laying the bottle bricks in cement mortar on a concrete footing.
By the completion of the day, the wall was approximately five feet high and the arched openings they framed were starting to be defined. As the sun moved across the sky, light glowed through the freshly laid bottled bricks. Stained glass by any standards.
A water truck showed up to fill the two cisterns up half way so we could check the plumbing connections before they are buried in the berm of the house. In true Nicaraguan style, the water was unloaded by a bucket brigade, liter by liter. No leaks were detected so burial of the cisterns began.
By noon it was time to take a break and eat lunch which is being prepared by the caretakers of the land. It was a family affair and an opportunity to sit in the shade and practice Spanglish.
Tire pounding continued after lunch. By the eighth course of tires, the walls were high enough to capture a view of the ocean. As the wall got higher, the tire wall received its first “pack-out”, a process which consists of thick concrete thrown by hand into the crevices of the tires. The remnants of the cut bottles were then pushed into pack-out to take up space so a lesser amount of cement is used.
The remainder of the day was spent finishing up the tire work on the large room. 11 courses of tires and they are nearly complete.
Cervezas arrived, the crew cleaned up the site and we all looked back at the growing building and planned our strategy for the next day.
(Authored by Ted Elsasser, Earthship Foreman)
Earthship construction: Day 2
Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
Today the cooling tubes arrived. Cooling tubes are usually 20 foot long galvanized metal pipes, 10″ in diameter, that are buried in the earth and enter each room through one of the first few courses of tires.
They arrived just in time.
We are pounding tires at a rate that requires constant back bury. The galvanized metal tubes that we had originally found got held up in Costa Rica. So instead of four reasonably priced thin metal tubes, we ended up with two very thick, and expensive, steel tubes that took 15 people to lift.
They’ll work great, and will pay off quickly when one considers the price of electricity to run air-conditioning. It will be nice to have more time to arrange for a less expensive tube, even if we have to deal with importing it. The tubes really should be metal, although a thin plastic would work, to conduct the coolness of the earth.
We pounded at least four more rows of tires all the way around. So far, Mike Reynolds has taken to teaching the local Nicaraguan crew while the other ten from Taos have hammered out tires at an impressive, albeit expected rate. The Nica crew, made up of 13 community members, has been keeping a good pace with the Earthship professionals.
One of the two 10,000 liter cisterns arrived today. Even though we receive 130″ of annual rain, San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua is essentially a desert for five months a year, so we’ll need two cisterns to carry this one bedroom home through the dry season. It actually doesn’t seem like that much water, but when you consider that an Earthship will recycle its water several times, it becomes more than reasonable.
The quest for larger tires (R15s and R16s) is tricky down here. In fact, finding any tire is slightly complicated due to the fact that the tire places are required to dispose of discarded tires immediately. Discarded tires collect water which creates a breeding habitat for mosquitoes. The problem is that when these tires are discarded, they are immediately burned amongst plastic bottles and other human byproducts at the municipal dump.
Today our last shipment of tires arrived. By the time this first house is complete, we will have saved nearly 1,000 tires from cremation.
Morale is good despite the heat and the skills transfer between the teams is working well. There is a great deal of pride in this project from both the Taos Team and the Equipo Carrizal (the local trainees). Tonight we had dinner at the “Chicken Lady”. There is nothing better than a cold beverage, gallo pinto (local rice and bean dish), sweet bananas and chicken cooked on a wood fire grill.
All in all, it was a pretty solid second day.
Earthship construction: Day 1
Tuesday, December 4th, 2007The crew arrived with sledgehammers, picks, shovels and tires in hand to help build Casa Llanta. This is day one of a project to build a house out of tires which cools itself passively, creates its own power and harvests its own water. Joining the American team of Earthship builders is a group of Nicaraguans who are being trained on how to build with this method.
Today the group started pounding tires. To do that the building had to be laid out according to the blueprints. With that done, the first tire was placed on the ground and filled with earth that was excavated from the site when it was leveled. A back-hoe was working all day to provide tire pounders and shovelers with earth, “dirt”, to fill and pound the tires.
By midday the crew of Nicaraguans and Americans learned to communicate with simple yet ludicrous hand signals and monosyllabic spanish grunts. Luckily for most of the Americans the local Earthship team speak Spanish fluently and do the real conversing.
Almost three courses of tires, approximately 175, were pounded and leveled by lunch. The local land caretakers cooked some great local Nicaraguan food that kept us going for a few more hours.
After lunch some much anticipated materials arrived. Sand for concrete, the cooling tubes for ventilation, rebar and one of the water tanks for water catchment. About 20 people worked together to move one of the cooling tubes. Not exactly what we wanted but as with any project in a new place adaptations must be made to suit local availability.
The heat rose throughout the day and took its toll on the crew about 3:30 pm. We all took a shade break for fifteen minutes. The last hour was spent pounding tires and filling in “half blocks” with concrete.
We cleaned up the site and celebrated Day 1 of the Earthship Construction with cold cervezas (beers).
(Authored by Ted Elsasser, Earthship Foreman)
Can you build an Earthship in 16 days … in Nicaragua?
Saturday, December 1st, 2007The construction team is congregating and getting ready to build an Earthship in 16 days on a beautiful Nicaraguan hillside with a view out towards the Pacific ocean. Dave Kniffen from Earthship Biotecture in Taos is leading the construction of Casa Llanta, or “House of Tires” as it is locally known.
Earthships emerge from a bold vision led by Mike Reynolds, founder of Earthship Biotecture:
“. . . the Earthship is probably the model of a sustainable home unrivaled in the modern world.”
Over the 16 days the team will be staging a series of awareness-raising and training events to ensure that the work can be replicated by local builders. The goal is to provide a lasting education on the principles and practical concepts of sustainable housing construction through the utilization of all recycled materials.
Casa Llanta is not the start of the first Earthship community in the world. Dig a little and you will find a host of successful Earthship communities around the world.
But we might just be witnessing the beginning of a Green Movement in Nicaragua, and more on that in later posts on this project.
For more information on the final product and to download a floorplan or cross-section plan please review our Casa Llanta listing.
For now it’s about hauling tires to the top of the hill, and building a house out of tires. We’ll keep you updated as this remarkable project unfolds.
