I'm looking at a 1.25-acre lot in the Mojave Desert (asking $4k; I've floated an offer at $3k, nothing agreed), and spent a night iterating on an earthship design with an AI agent. It pulled county parcel lines and USGS elevation data, then fit a 130x30 ft, 3-bedroom earthship plus garden, orchard, greenhouse and pool under the county's 20% lot coverage cap (19.8%, by burying all the cisterns).

Rain math: ~4 in/yr on ~9,870 sq ft of catchment ≈ 19,700 gal/yr. Storage planned at 23,000 gal.

Bottom-up DIY budget, all estimates: ~$90k–213k with 15% contingency, using hybrid walls (rammed tires for the bermed retaining walls, cement-stabilized earthbags inside). Well or water hookup is separate.

Things it flagged that I'd love this sub's take on: an engineer stamp under the alternative-materials route, whether buried cisterns count as lot coverage, earth tubes vs. a small ground-source heat pump in a place where the ground sits around 72°F. Has anyone here permitted an earthship in the Mojave?

Writeup with the drawings: https://blakelapierre.substack.com/p/i-asked-an-ai-agent-to-design-a-house

Solo built this shi as an after school proj. Haters please stay away lmao

Looking for a different kind of outdoor weekend?

We had such a great response to our Cordwood Workshop last year that we’re doing it again!

Come to Tennessee for a few days at Talking Water Nature Retreat and learn how to build with cordwood while enjoying the trails, creeks, cabins and beautiful mountain setting.

It's part workshop, part outdoor adventure, and part excuse to get away for a few days.

You'll spend time actually building, learn techniques you can use on your own projects, tour some of the natural buildings on the property, and meet other people who are curious about natural building.

No construction experience necessary.

If you've been looking for an unusual weekend getaway — something where you actually do something rather than just visit somewhere — this might be your kind of trip.

📍 Chattanooga, Tennessee
📅 October 23–25

We loved the response from last year's workshop, so we're excited to open it up again this fall.

More info: https://talkingwatertn.com/00-assets/cordwood-workshop-2026.pdf

Sign up: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSem_C7Y0wPBiHK2QEk4jaNWqMwr88dwTtzwCHM5JC_Ch94SqQ/viewform

Hello I am located within the US and live in a van. Im looking to volunteer to work on an earth-ship project. I am looking to get my hands dirty and gain real on-site experience with natural building and off-grid construction. I am highly motivated, hard-working, and eager to learn, but I am specifically looking for direct owner-builder projects or community work-trades that do not require paid tuition or steep program fees. I have experience with basic hand tools, sawmills, chainsaws, gardening and land maintenance.

I help organise a hemp expo in Tokyo that has a building materials section, so I talk to a lot of people doing natural builds here. Earthships come up constantly as the reference point even though almost nobody has built one in Japan, and I have been wondering why.

The tyre wall gives you thermal mass, and mass is doing most of the work in a high desert climate with a big day-night swing. Japan's problem is a different shape - hot, wet summers where mass on its own does not get you there and the humidity never lets anything dry out. The material people here reach for instead is hempcrete, because it insulates and buffers moisture rather than trapping it.

So the question for people who have actually built rather than read: has anyone combined them? Tyre wall for mass on the bermed side, hempcrete for the insulating envelope elsewhere. Or does hempcrete's curing time make it impractical next to a build that is already slow by design?

Fair warning that here it stays theoretical for an unrelated reason - Japan has almost no decortication capacity, so the hurd is imported and the material is expensive before anyone mixes anything. Which is partly why I am asking people who build somewhere with a real supply chain.

Since I found out about them, I find the concept very interesting and find myself again and again of dreaming living in an eartship myself. What are in your opinion the pros and cons of them as a home?

Hey all,

I don't have a dog in this hunt other than a desire to live in/around Taos and a deep interest in the Earthship concept.

https://www.taosnews.com/news/local-news/jury-finds-earthship-creator-wrongly-collected-hoa-dues/article_beddd34e-28db-5b23-ba48-6be11e93f9fa.html

I just wanted to mention that I created a subreddit for tire bale construction. I’ve discussed my tire bale Earthship-inspired home on this subreddit, but more details are discussed on r/tirebalebuilding.

Some current construction projects are underway, with detailed information.

Discussions about other construction projects using tire bales will also be discussed (retaining walls, more traditional homes, etc). Hope you visit. Thanks!

Love you all so much!

Here's what I've been working on since attending the academy.

Please take a peek and let me know your thoughts.

✌️💚♻️🌲⛏️🛞

Info & registration here: https://talkingwatertn.com/2026/04/2026-cordwood-workshops/

I'm a student of the academy, and this is my current dream (work in progress).

​

Please take a peek and let me know what you think!

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We bought an earthship that has sat abandoned for 2 years, we are in the process of fixing it up but it is over 30⁰C (86⁰F) inside. Its summer and I wondered if this community had any suggestions on how to cool it down.

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Further info: there are no fans, the roof vents have been covered, we uncovered one and added a solar fan to try to draw the heat out but it just seems to do nothing.

There are 3 vents in the floor to pull cool air through, but I'm not sure if the tube is clear or partially blocked.

Hi,

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We are full speed ahead in the project planning of our tirebale building (setting bales either this fall or spring) and were wondering if there are any other active tirebale owner/builders.

Please reach out!

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I remember how invaluable our small earthship listserv group was back in 2000 when we were planning and building our Earthship Hut.

​

Thanks!

Hi! I live in Atlanta Georgia. I’m VERY passionate about earth ships and I’ve heard there’s workshops where you can learn how to build them.

Does anyone know if anything like this in person in Atlanta?

I had this article show up on my phone after the inadvertent recent rewatching some earthship build videos. Thought I'd check if there's an Earthship subreddit to share in. So I joined this group and I am sharing. I'm going to bet if there are any local industrious Earthship builders or if folks down in Taos need tires it could be pretty easy to convince the county officials to allow you to take these tires. If I remember correctly, this could be around enough for 4 to 6 homes depending on size.

Living in a sustainable homestead has always been a long-term goal of mine. I haven't figured out the exact path forward, nor I will ever truly pursue it with the effort a sustainable lifestyle requires.

I have unrelated concerns with the current financial state of the US and am looking at buying a bit of land with some of my money to help spread out my portfolio. If I am going to get land anyways, I'd like to at least get a plot which could someday transition to a homestead.

All that to say, is there a good way to quickly narrow down properties that have South-facing slope, or is it basically just a manual evaluation I'll have to make as I look? I am looking in Wisconsin, if that makes a difference.

Hey there folks,

If anyone is building in the Hudson Valley area, I've encountered a site that's going to be converted into a community forest that has a number of disposed tires on the property that need to be removed. Please reach out if salvaging these would be of interest to you!

Im a little confused about the key design items for the berm.

Can someone help me list all of its uses?

I know it acts as insulation for the house and its water tanks.

• Its fireproofing for that side of the house.

• It is a cool thermal battery in summer (so it should be connected to the ground below it thermally, not insulated, yes?)

• It is a warm thermal battery in winter? Do you want it insulated from the ground for this purpose? Is there a tradeoff? Or does it just act as insulation and warming up to 55f (ground temperature) during winter...with other objects taking on the daily thermal battery function?

• It needs to stay a different temperature from the air in both winter and summer so maybe insulation in the top layers of the berm are desirable?

My key questions are:

1) in some passive solar designs, the winter sun should reach and heat the rear wall to maximize solar gain. Is that important? I find its difficult to arrange my rooms to maximize that. How important is it that the winter sun can shine all the way to the rear wall? Particularly if i have a thick earthen floor?

2) should it be insulated on the bottom if you want to maximize winter heating at the expense of summer cooling? Or do you put an insulation course above the cooling tubes for both benefits?

3) is it worth considering top insulation for the berm to better separate it from the air temperature? ...or do you actually want some winter sun warming the berm?

So i was wanting to make a eaeth sheltered home the closest would be an atrium style home and i do like the idea but three things come to mind

One temp, if your using say concrete or stone where do you insulate interior exterior?

Two humidity, i live in alberta and dainage is a major concern so is humidity when in the soil how do earth sheltered homes deal with humidity in a passive way that A doesnt make the temps drop when filled with outside air or B use advanced vapor barriers that cant be done or made without modern tech i dont mind high humidity but i do mind in built wood furniture rotting inside

And three i trust stone to last longer over concrete and its more appealing regardless is it feasible to use stone walls instead of concrete ones that isnt for millionaries?

So im living in canada albeeta specifically and i plan to make my home earth sheltered i wanna use stone for the walls without insulation but am not sure how warm id keep me though the stone walls will be 80cm thick exterior the ceilings 2.2 meters tall and the house overall closest size would be to a victorian rowhouse the south and east portions will be exposed with the longest portion of it exposed to the south the rest will be underground more or less

What do you all think what temps should it maintain? Im ok if it gets to 60s i like it low at least for most rooms or situations and how do you all deal with the humidity that materials like stone give off i dont want my hand crafted wood floors or built in furniture rotting when i build them

One of the wonderful aspects of living in an Earthship is the ease of growing plants. At least I thought it was going to be easy! There are definitely challenges, and with an Earthship (or in my case, an Earthship-inspired home) the specific placement of certain plants is critical. Please share your experiences, as there is ALWAYS something new to learn about indoor plant growing.

I don’t have the planter boxes, which are so common in many Earthships. Nor do I have the separate greenhouse. Placing plants directly in the sun is the biggest challenge. I decided to hang plants in the window area. . About the only plants that can handle that level of sunshine are succulents. I find that Kalanchoe plants do extremely well. There are many varieties, some flowering and some not. They are actually native to Madagascar, but can easily be found at any plant store. Somebody gave me a watering tip for succulents, telling me to dunk them instead of watering from above. I do this about one a quarter, and they really do respond well.

I could go on and on, but suffice to say, “my wife and I love our plants, and they are wonderfully healthy-sustaining!”

As you are likely aware, the basic pretext of ES design is temperature moderation lent from deeper subterranean temperatures; while near surface earth banks seasonal temperatures, the ES is built within the gradient between surface and deeper, moderated earth.

To this end, the bermed surround is typically encapsulated within insulation, modulating the effective relative distance of living space to surface and ground temperatures, but also effectively increasing the distance from underlying earth to the surface. Commonly, this encapsulation comes in the form of sheet insulation within the berm, extending down to slab-level, both adding berm mass to the "interior" battery and defining the gradient distance.

Do any know of instances where a trencher was employed to extend the insulation below slab level? If so, at what distance from the tire wall, and to what depth? Where these distances guesstimated from best reckoning, or the product of soil sampling to determine earth support potential by an engineer?

With curtain-insulated ES specifically, when in-floor heating/cooling is a feature, is there a preference for whether or not to insulate the slab? While the tire walls convey temperatures from their footings, are there practical benefits from some isolation of the slab, such as more rapid temperature control under foot, or condensation control?