Earthship construction: Day 1
The 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)
December 6th, 2007 at 6:33 am
comprehensive and gives lay people good idea as to what the local and American crew are experiencing.
And, good info as to the country.
December 7th, 2007 at 4:15 am
Thanks for the comment. Day 2 and 3 of the construction are now uploaded.