Greenhead Moss Earthship Wishaw Scotland

Greenhead Moss Community Nature Park

| | | | | | | | | |

Greenhead Earthship - a Visitor Centre for our park

Volunteer dates for Earthship volunteers:

VOLUNTEER DATES are being planned now and will be posted soon
All days 9.30am - 4pm
Bring strong footwear and a packed lunch
If you would like to get involved on any of these days, please get in touch.

Our earthship visitor centre will be built using:

used car tyres rammed with earth, compacted to weigh around 70Kg each
used steel cans and glass bottles set within non load bearing walls
rainwater collection from the roof filtered to diferent levels for drinking, washing and flushing the toilet
solar and wind power
sustainable drainage systems for waste water and sewage
wall coverings of adobe clay plaster techniques

In summary, we will be totaly 'off-grid' meaning there are no services into the site and no services out of the site. This means minimal impact on the environment and minimal costs to run the centre.

Once completed, this building will be:

a working example of sustainable building design;
a meeting space for the Trust and other community groups;
an office for staff and volunteers;
an information and exhibition space for the Nature Park;
an educational and activity space for schools and groups;
a training venue for environmental and sustainable lifestyle courses;
public toilets - at last!

If you would like to donate some soil, building materials, equipment or your skills for our earthship project, please see our 'Support Us' page.

See our 'blog' page for more information about our progress on site.

We are grateful to the Sustainable Communities Initiative & Fife Earthship team for their support and guidance. Thanks to Paula and her team!

Normandy Earthship - a similar design to ours

What is an earthship?

Earthships are built using recylced and re-used materials, mainly used car tyres, cans and bottles. The construction utilises the tyres, walls and a large earth mound or berm to act as a 'heat store' . They have large glass fronts and are always south facing to catch the maximum energy from the sun to provide light, heat as well as solar energy for the building.

Power:

They are powered by renewable energy - wind and solar in our case. They are completely 'off grid' generating it's own power, collecting it's own water and dealing with it's own waste. The power generated from solar and wind is stored in large battery banks and used when needed.

Water and waste:

Water is collected from the large sloping roof, filtered and stored in tanks and used to flush the toilet, wash dishes and once, filtered several times, for drinking. Waste water from the sinks are used to water plant beds within the earthship. The plants then prodvide oxygen inside the building. Waste water from this area then goes towards the toilets and is used for flushing the toilets. Waste from the toilets goes into another bed outside the earthship and is 'processed' by plants there.

Earthships are therefore 'zero carbon' buildings, no public services are utilised on the site. (For financial reasons, we are having mains water into our earthship but will be monitoring and using a minimal amount of this).

Working or living in an earthship is not very different from other buildings but it does make you more aware of your energy consumption.

Find out for yourself by visiting the completed earthship in Kinghorn, Fife. Ours will be completed by autumn 2008.

Placing carpet tiles in the bottom of the tyres

How will we build it?

Earthships are simple designs and the skills required to build them can be learnt very quickly. Some specialist contractors will be used for the installation of electrical, power and plumbing but our earthship will largely be built with volunteer labour.

The build process in 10 easy steps!...

Level platform onwhich to build and lay insulated floor
Layout a U-shape using car tyres then ram earth into the tyres gradually buildling up the height of the walls
Insert heavy duty membrane around the whole building
Arrange water tanks, filtration beds and general plumbing
Build non-structural walls, fit wooden roof with membrane and drain for collecting water
Attach mesh to tyres and fill gaps with cans, bottles and mortar
Cover mesh with 'adobe' clay based plaster
Finish walls, flooring, fit doors and windows
Finalise plumbing & electrical fittings
Test systems and open to the public!

Sound easy? Want to help?

The 'buildling blocks' of an earthship are tyres rammed with earth

Ramming earth into the tyres

Become an earthship volunteer

We anticipate starting the build in September 2008.

Each day participants will have the opportunity to learn and assist in construction methods which are specific to Earthship building such as pounding tyres to form a thermal mass wall, building non-structural walls with bottles and cans and mixing and applying adobe plaster and many other sustainable building techniques.

To register as a Greenhead Earthship Volunteer, complete the Greenhead Moss Membership form, tick the earthship volunteering box on the form, sign it and return it to us. We will get in touch with you soon and alert you to earthship volunteer days and opportunities. See the 'Support Us' page to download a free membership form.

Earthship Biotecture Internships:

The Earthship Commando team from Taos, New Mexico led by Earthship inventor Michael Reynolds offer 'internships' for trainees on earthship builds. Fees for the training are around $350 (US) per week (not including room and board). To find out more, send an email to kirsten@earthship.org or visit their website to view internship opportunities. (See our links page for their details)

If you have already contacted Greenhead Earthship about volunteering, we will be in touch soon with an update. If you would like to go on our e-list, please get in touch via our e-mail (see the Contact Us page)