A concept to make building Earthships faster and easier. Whats your opinion?

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A concept to make building Earthships faster and easier. Whats your opinion?

(11 posts) (9 voices)

Started 5 years ago by Paul Morris
Latest reply from Brax

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Paul Morris
Member

Hi my name is Paul and i'm a Computer Aided Draughting and Design student in Scotland, using Autocad, Inventor and Revit.

I'm presently working on my end of year project which is an application to be coupled onto an excavator arm, it picks up a tire, places it and then compacts it with earth from a hopper. The design doesn't go as far as leveling off as I'm unsure of the overall weight at this point and would like to keep it within the capabilities of a JCB 130 size machine.

This is just a concept but I'll like some feed back, if it was available and reduced the time taken to build a tire wall would people use it? I have considered that some people may be against using foil fuels to run the excavator, but i feel that this could be addressed by converting it to run the hydraulics off an electric pump.

All opinions are welcomed as my design can only benefit from information.

If you would like to donate to the cost of my education please click the link but you are under no obligation to do so. This page includes an image which i would have included but am unsure how to do so on this forum.

https://www.youcaring.com/paulmorriscadstudent-808869

Many thanks

Paul Morris.

Posted Thursday 27 Apr 2017 @ 2:29:15 pm from IP #
oysters
Member

Sounds like a good idea. My biggest concern with earthship designs is the massive amount of labour that goes into them currently. Its an unfeasible amount...most earthships that I've heard of being built seem to employ at least several person years at least just in building the walls. Given the environmental impact of a person, using some mechanical assistance (even powered by diesel) could well come out more efficient!

Posted Sunday 30 Apr 2017 @ 1:06:26 pm from IP #
dax
Member

Paul, there is already one machine that I know of that fills and rams earth into tyre walls, it's in NSW, was made by handyman and works well. It works on electrical hydraulics and the clam shell bucket arm acts as a ram as well, very quite clean and efficient. Although it does take about a day to set up, after that the job takes 1/20 the time of manual labour.

Oysters, building an earth home, other than with tyres is a very fast method, especially using rammed earth walls. You can put up all of a 12sq x 1-1.5m home walls in 3 days using 2-3 people and a cement mixer. I don't like tyre walls, seen to many develop problems, but have seen a couple that are excellently built.

Posted Monday 1 May 2017 @ 12:37:54 am from IP #
Phil A
Member

If you have built many tire walls you will realise that the problem with compacting dirt into the tires is the fact that you cant get to the dirt at the correct angle to compact it. This is why it takes so much time.
If you limit you design to a back hoe mount then you are limiting the dexterity of the machine (tool) that you design. I would at least start with an excavator as the motive power and don't try and reinvent the wheel. Start with a swivel head for the bucket which utilises an existing rotator motor off the machine itself. Then incorporate a pogo stick tamper/compactor with that. All this on a very small (1.6 tonne) or less excavator to give enough manoeuvrability around the building site, this should almost give you enough flexibility of movement for what you need.
The I would consider a way of holding the tire down while flexing the tire walls open to allow easier access once the tire is partially full of earth.
Im not sure how many you would sell?
Good luck with it.

Posted Monday 1 May 2017 @ 12:44:59 am from IP #
KayKay
Member

I've often wondered whether those tyres would be faster to fill thoroughly if they were first cut open to form big flat donuts? Or would this affect the wall's structural integrity?

Posted Sunday 7 May 2017 @ 11:32:00 pm from IP #
dlvb19
Member

I thought about that too Kaykay - the tyre would still have the bottom sidewall so you would imagine it would retain more than half of its former integrity.

Soapbox: I love the Earthsips in the New Mexico desert (with its large diurnal temperature swings) however I can't see that they have any real place in most of Australia, and certainly not Scotland. When considering the sustainability of a building you ALSO have to weigh up the time spent building it and the resources you will consume (food, transport .etc). Low thermal mass high insulation buildings are the way to go, strawbale, colorbond with insulation batts .etc, but they just don't have the same eco-sex-appeal.

... < steps off soapbox >

Posted Tuesday 9 May 2017 @ 1:44:34 am from IP #
Greg
Member

I've built a reasonable number of tyre walls for retaining, foundations, studio walls etc and always cut off one sidewall. It makes raming easy and doesn't affect joining. Also used this method with poured earth mixes. Way too hard if you leave the top sidewall on and you can get voids if not rammed properly which leads to instability.

Posted Friday 12 May 2017 @ 9:30:25 pm from IP #
jdaley
Member

I believe one reason Earthships can be build in some places is simply the price of labour.
The the USA low cost mexican labour is available, or people have workshops and have students pay to come and learn how to do the task, something I feel uncomfortable about.
Either way, if 'normal' business or DIY rules apply, it will take a long time or a lot of money.
I love the idea of cutting the sidewall out, can that pat be used for anything? Fill, elsewhere within the wall structure.?

Posted Saturday 3 Jun 2017 @ 9:01:28 am from IP #
Greg
Member

Jdaley, I usually just pop the removed sidewall into the tyre. That way no bits left over.

Posted Monday 5 Jun 2017 @ 8:54:00 am from IP #
jdaley
Member

so simple I never thought of it.

Posted Monday 5 Jun 2017 @ 12:06:17 pm from IP #
Brax
Member

15 years ago I built a tyre house and day two it broke me pounding the dirt, so 3rd day I dug a hole and made a mud pit and used the excavator to put the wet mix in. Took no time at all and I would say the tyres ended up with more material than doing it the hard way. So go for it I say, if you can do it faster and as good then your on a winner.

Posted Sunday 10 Sep 2017 @ 9:35:51 am from IP #

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