Inspector Gadjet

Click here to see Part I , Part II So... Wishing to begin in a more collected state we move on. The tyres used for the first two courses with a double layer of Builders plastic under the first course were 215's R60 upwards and then subsequent courses are 205's up to the second floor. blue metal for the drainage Having cleaned out three different tyre suppliers I was starting to realize that being selective of the sizes might mean waiting for more stocks from time to time but this seemed better than just getting a couple hundred different sized tyres dumped at the site so I decided to make some cob while waiting for more tyres. tyre harvesting at the local servo My young bloke making Cob Cob: Mixing soil, clay and straw together by stomping it all together on a tarpaulin is called Cob. Generally the mix is one part straw to one part clay slip and three parts course sand. The Cob is used to fill the voids under the pounded tyres so the cardboard ...

Click here to see Part I Part II (Beginnings) Last October (2013) I went down to the site and had approximately 2 acres out of 5 cleared so that I could get a better look at the lay of the land and find the supposed dam which I remember had been mentioned when I was looking to buy the block. The fabled waterhole My then 6 year old son and my good friend Noel came with me from Sydney and in three rainy days we somehow put in a compost(tyre) toilet,slab floor and a small shed , a 13.500 L rainwater tank and a level pad for construction. Fast forward  to April 2014 and I, along with my young bloke, wife and another family (more friends) who were keen to help were greeted upon arrival with the  the level pad for the building site made by the excavator clearly in need of some kind of drainage from the hill above  plus  the   rainwater tank tilted languishing in a mud pond (which would later become our source for clay) which had been formed due to i...

Part I  Since I can remember I have had the urge to build a house of some description but the years and life can grind away an ambitious child's fancy. so here I am in my early forties and I am about to embark, for better  or worse  on that fateful voyage. What better vessel for such an undertaking than an Earthship? Recycling tyres, bottles, cans and yes... Dreams! Bamboo huts in Auroville, India I first heard about Earthships in December 2011 whilst visiting a place called Auroville in Southern India, I was there participating in a bamboo house building workshop where a Belgian couple (also on the build) told me about Eathships. people power Raising one of the bamboo frame walls Completion of the main framework My next encounter after I had read volumes 1, 2 and 3 of the Earthship do it yourself books by Mike Reynolds was in January 2013, this time in Guatemala! The author leaning on the greenhouse in Guatemala week 2 I was an ...