|
Greenhead Moss Earthship - a visitor, volunteer and community centre for our park
| Our earthship under construction |

|
Our next volunteer days are: - Friday 26th February, 10am - 3.30pm
- Saturday
27th February, 10am- 3.30pm
Work will include:
- Re-setting the plastic protection on the roof and 'wings' of the earthship.
- Levelling off
the floor - indoors - in prep for our next concrete slab pour
- Finishing off the west tyre wall and demonstration wall
- tyre ramming - weather dependent
- Moving soil from the front of the building to the berm at the rear
If you would like to join us on any of these days, please let us know. See the 'Contact
us' section of this website. You can also download information on how to get to the park from the 'Our Park' page
of this site.
Earthbuilds
Crew returns early March to complete roofing works:
The
Earthbuilds crew, a team of earthship specialists, will be returning to Greenhead Moss from March 8th. If you would like to
volunteer alongside them, it would be a great opportunity to learn more about earthships from experienced and enthusiastic
earthship builders.
If you would like to join us on site during their stay, please get in touch.
|
What is an earthship? Earthships were invented by architect Michael Reynolds in New Mexico, USA. (See links page
for his website with lots of inspiring earthship designs and opportunities around the world). Our earthship is based on Michael's
original earthship concept. 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
and the great power of the sun and earth to provide a comfortable home or workplace. Find out for yourself by visiting the completed earthship in Kinghorn,
Fife or volunteering to help us build ours! You're also welcome to drop in and watch us work. Ours will be completed by
autumn 2009.

|
| John Edge's tool for measuring the batter of the wall. |

|
| Volunteers, staff and Euro Crew at the end of a sunny days work. |
 |
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 |

|
| French TV crew filming the glass cutting bench |

|
| Timber delivery - all hands on decking! |

|
| Long term volunteer Jane insulating the thermal berm. |
 |
Become an earthship volunteer All Earthship Volunteers 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 become
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. This will allow you to join us on on any earthship volunteer
day. See the 'Support Us' page to download a free membership form.
Long term volunteers. You can
also join us for longer periods of time - weeks, months or more. We have some funds for expenses and may be
able to help with accomodation. Contact us for more details.
| Our long term volunteer from the USA - Morgan. |

|

|
| Surveying and checking tyre wall bond levels |

|
| View from below the roof - almost complete. |
 |