Earlier this year, we purchased a 98 acre farm near Lake
Erie where the Lake Erie Shores Wind farm is being built. We have been
looking for a perfect spot for a couple of years now to build an earth
ship, and this farm is perfect! The big turbines are right next door to
our farm so we know that it will be a perfect spot for us to put our
turbines.
An earth ship is a house that is buried on at least
three sides and sometimes the roof is also covered. The south side is left
exposed and is mostly glass to take advantage of the heating power of the
sun. The sun heats the floor of the house which is usually a thick mass of
concrete with some type of stone tile laid over top. The heat sinks right
down into the ground underneath the house and radiates the warmth back up
through the floor. Since the ground is at a constant temperature, about 56
degrees F, the house, no matter what the temperature outside, will never
get any colder than 56 degrees. The mass of the floor and the soil under
it will radiate the heat for days! Also, in the summer, the house is kept
cool through the same method. The glass in the front of the house is
angled so as to allow for the sun to reach all the way into the back of
the house in the winter when the sun is low, but to only come in a few
inches in the summer when it is higher in the sky. Pretty smart!
We
went to visit Tom Wolf this summer to see his almost completed earth ship
and to pick his brain for ideas for our own!
