This Off-Grid Earthship House Was Made Using Recycled Materials
Connie and Craig love living off-grid in an Earthship house. They especially love feeling disconnected from the goal of gathering “stuff”. The couple are self-reliant and have built their home for the environment, using solar and wind power to live off the grid in their Earthship home.
An Earthship is usually built out of tires to start with, and theirs uses tires for the back wall, the east, and the west walls. Those walls create the thermal mass of the house needed for energy efficiency.
This Earthship home also has glass on an angle at right angles to capture as much of the winter sun as possible. Using the sun and the wind, Connie and Craig produce their own electricity and then use the design to collect rainwater which they use for drinking water. There's a lot of recycled material in their house. Besides tires, they used a lot of pop cans and bottles for the bottle walls.
As they planned and built their Earthship house, the couple planned for the future with wheelchair accessibility if needed. These simple modifications ensure they can stay in their Earthship home as long as possible, even if their medical needs change.
Connie and Craig have adapted their lifestyle to the off-the-grid way of living because the house and power supply dictate when they can do things like laundry. They rely on sunny weather for the power to wash and dry clothes.
This couple has also learned to grow most of their food, both indoors and outdoors, with the help of indoor planters and the sunlight that forms a greenhouse around their indoor garden. For their outdoor garden, they grow fruit trees and vegetables by season.
Off-grid Earthship house
Connie and Craig use their Earthship house to live off the grid in every way. With the savings from not having energy and food bills, they can retire comfortably in their Earthship home.
For more off-grid living stories, discover why this couple has decided to retire off the grid or take a tour of the first Earthship home in Australia.
To see more videos, check out the Exploring Alternatives YouTube channel.
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