There’s a new ship in Manatee County. No, not a fancy cruise liner come to one of the ports in Tampa Bay, but an Earthship. An earthship? No, this isn’t some new type of NASA project, but it’s a very clever design of home that makes the most of recycled materials and solar energy.
An earthship home is designed to provide all the warming and cooling needs for people to live in, generate electricity, catch all the water needed for household use and produce no waste – including no waste water. We’ve seen a lot of self-contained units on our listings at Bahia Realty Group, but we’ve never seen anything like this before (not that this earthship home is on our listings – but if you’re interested, you may be able to find a bareland block that’s suitable for building your own). An earthship home is also designed to be easy to build and maintain – every homeowner’s dream!
Now, earthships use a construction material for the load-bearing walls that is easy to obtain, reists fire and termites and doesn’t deteriorate, as well as being well able to insulate the living area, whether you need to keep the warmth in (as in colder climates) or out (like we do in balmy Florida). What is the wonder material that they use? Recycled car tyres filled with rammed earth, and that earth comes from the building site of the earthship home itself.
I’m going to be watching that building site very closely!
Jenn Cook