Earthship Tour Video 2024

 View a short video of what the Earthship looked like near the end of the 2024 build season.

Greenhouse Floor Complete

The greenhouse floor is floating flagstone with cement grout.  

 

The greenhouse subfloor is prepared by covering with a layer of 6 mil plastic topped with a 1" layer of sand.

The sand is leveled and tamped prior to placing the flagstone.

The peat moss filter area of the floor needs to be reinforced to support the flagstone. We embed steel reinforcement in the sand layer for this purpose.

Next we installed two floor drains (to be cut flush and capped in future).

The rest of the flagstone is installed. Unfortunately we ran out before finishing the floor.

The gaps are grouted.

We had to obtain more flagstone to finish the floor but the supplier wasn't able to supply the next batch so we had to find another source. The new flagstone did not match the previous supplier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

But it provided a neat demarcation of the bathroom entrance.

Plants are in the Greenhouse Planters

The plants are in!

Here's YP preparing the kitchen planter by installing a rubber liner to protect the planter walls and adding a 1" layer of sand at the bottom.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we build up layers of compost, straw and peat moss until we reach 1" below the top of the planter. Finally we topped with wood shavings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went with mostly tropical plants to test the viability of the greenhouse environment during our harsh winters. They include: mini orange, avocado, kaffir lime, loquat, lychee, anthurium, banana, fig, passion fruit, soursop, life plant, poinsettia, arctic kiwi, rosemary, basil.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

More plants will be added as these ones take root and flourish. We want a combination of dwarf trees, bushes, ground cover and vines to make full use of the space. Also, a combination of food bearing, air cleaning and water cleaning plants.

Interior Stucco and Planters Complete

The progress of grouting the bottle walls to get a smooth finish. 

 

All interior bottle walls fully grouted.

 

 

 

Notice that the bottles aren't really visible? Here are Preston and Pearson polishing the grout residue off the bottles and bottle caps. (Also Peter and Pauline starting to prep the greenhouse floor to build the planters... more on that below).

Here's Yelena taking over the task of bottle polishing.

 

All interior bottle walls fully polished - thank you Preston, Pearson and Yelena!

 

 

Time to build the greenhouse planters. We begin by leveling the gravel floor to the desired height. Thank you Peter and Pauline for beginning the process for us by removing the excess gravel!

 

 

Here's the final leveled greenhouse floor ready for the next step.

 

 

Next we outlined where the planters will go using floor marking spray paint.

 

 

 

We are now ready to start building the planters. Here are YP and Yelena starting to build our largest planter at the centre of the greenhouse using aluminum cans and cement mortar. 

 

 

 Centre planter built and here's Brice building the second biggest planter.

 

 

 

Brice continuing the planter build while Victoria and Bruce are making bottle bricks for the bathroom partition wall (stay tuned for a dedicated blog post on this in the near future).

 

 

All the planters built.

 

 

 

We put slate tiles on top for decoration.

 

 

Now we grout the planters for that smooth finish.

 

 

 

One last bit of stucco left to complete the interior finish. Guess what it is? Yes, it is the exposed tires in the stem-wall.

 

We need to do a bit of prep first. We used rigid foam insulation to build up the top of the tires to match the level of the greenhouse framing bottom plate. Then we installed diamond mesh on top as a mechanical backing for the stucco.

 

Interior stucco complete yay!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fresh Air Intake Snorkel Covers Installed

A 10" metal culvert was incorporated into each large room as a means to bring fresh air into the earthship. These "snorkels" were covered by the final berm so that heat can transfer to/from the berm to temper the incoming air.

Though these snorkels have been there since the very first stage of the build, they have not been used to date because they needed covers to keep rain, insects and animals out.

The metal culverts had to be cut to accommodate the height of the covers.

Snorkel covers were made by welding two 55 gallon steel drums together and cutting out openings for the air intake.

The openings were covered with stainless steel mosquito netting overlaid with 1/2" welded wire mesh.

Where the intakes enter the building we installed 1/4" welded wire mesh.

The idea is to draw in fresh air through these inlets by creating a thermosyphon effect with the hot greenhouse air rising out through the roof vents.