Earthships - The Off-Grid Homes of the Future
After noticing an accelerating waste and consumption problem, visionary Mike Reynolds designed a way to build fully sustainable homes out of garbage. Now, almost 40 years after he started, a community of like-minded ‘Earthshippers’ live in the harsh desert of New Mexico in a fleet of off-grid vehicles that are Earthships.
Our Experience
by Chris
It’s 98 degrees outside as I write this. A Minnesota 98… so humid. Humid as hell. The window unit in my apartment struggles to pump out cool air. But, it IS working. So I should be comfortable, right? Maybe physically, sure. But after spending a few months producing a short documentary about Earthships, I know I’m part of the problem.
The PROBLEM being the methods we fight the heat, or fight the cold, the way our homes and workplaces are built, and really the way we live.
Right, it’s not a small problem.
Which makes Earthships so compelling, because they directly combat those problems. Of course, not without having a few problems themselves.
Our experience visiting the Greater World Earthship Community in Taos, NM was a memorable one. For starters, we hadn’t actually filmed a traditional Off the Cuff episode since pre-pandemic times. On top of that, the Earthship community happened to be our most-suggested-to-visit location by the many that wrote in after watching our show. And just after getting our vaccines, everything just made sense for us to go.
Upon first glance of the area, these homes that we had fantasized about visiting for over a year just looked like… mounds of dirt in a field.
How much does it cost to buy an Earthship?
A standard 2 bedroom 2 bathroom Earthship currently costs about $250,000 in Taos, NM. However there are Earthships, such as the Dobson House and the Phoenix that can run up as much as $1.5 million. Earthship Biotecture will build you an Earthship for about $225 per square foot. That being said, the bulk of the cost is labor, so if you do it yourself, or with family and friends, it’s relatively inexpensive to build. Source
Where can Earthships be built?
Anywhere. Earthships currently exist in the cold dry air of Canada, as well as the hot and humid climate of Haiti. The Global model designed by Earthship Biotecture is fit to exist anywhere on earth. Source
What does being in an Earthship feel like?
But then we walked in one. It was about 85 degrees out. But 68 in the Earthship. No AC, no central air, just the mound. Then night came, which I was curious to see how the place handled the below-freezing temps. But, just as advertised, 68 degrees. No heat, no boiler, just the mound.
Honest to god, I was inspired. It’s almost like a primitively human experience, while still having all of the amenities of a house. It was a great feeling, one you can’t put into words. I’ve been telling people, you just have to go and experience it for yourself.
What kind of people live in Earthships?
The people in the Earthship community were not what you’d expect. One of which, the creator, Mike Reynolds, drove a Mercedes that ran off of the vegetable oil he’d pick up at fast food joints in town. We heard stories of his early days experimenting with Earthships. I’d like to think these psychedelic fueled spiritual adventures led him to fine-tune the Earthship we know today.
What is the Earthship community like?
Harris described the community as gun-toting liberals. That stuck with me. And kind of hit the nail on the head. There were tatted-up badass chicks who talked about their guns and Earthships they owned out in the middle of the desert, while others, some students, talked about what they hoped to build in other states.
I walked away from our time there wanting, at the very least, to incorporate some of the water-catchment, intensely insulated walls, or solar power methods into my dwelling. But until then, I’ll continue uncomfortably blasting AC.
How many Earthships are there?
There are about 130 Earthships in Taos, NM. But around 3,000 others scattered around the world in places like France, Germany, Haiti, Canada, and many states in the US. Source
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