Our Earthship: Floor Plans

     Well we have finally decided on and finished the floor plans for our earthship home. These floor plans are a two part system. We are working on a budget so we are building the original house first then adding the rest from the other plans on at a later date. 

     The original house will have the living room area, the kitchen and dinning area, cold pantry, the laundry and mechanical room, the kids room, the master bedroom, the guest bath, mudroom/ woodshed, and then the master bath room. Along with the front hall/greenhouse and the two airlocks on either end. We will be adding later on the other five bedrooms, two rain storage cisterns, and another air lock. The original house footprint is going to be approximately 112' by 35' not counting the earth-berming of course.

     Here is a picture of what the original house floor plan is. This is not however, to scale. Just a drawing to go off of while doing the actual blueprints for it. Each room measurement is of the inside of the room. The tire walls will add another 3 feet each once in place and plastered. Each rooms "U" shape will be completed with tires, along with the back walls of each airlock on the ends.

     The front wall of the greenhouse windows will be made from a gravel/ river rock filled tire foundation two rows high then a cordwood wall from there up to and between the windows. The walls on the air locks on the ends with the doors in them are made from aluminum cans and concrete. The guest bathroom in the front of the house is up against the windows to help keep it warm, and has a grow bed next to it where all the grey water from the sink and bath/shower drains. The toilet is going to be a composting toilet so as to not have any black water to have to deal with. The front walls of both bedrooms where the doors are will be only 6' 6" high as to allow for circulation of warm air from the entire house into there and will be made from cans and concrete as well. 

     There will be an air inlet that runs from the cold pantry under the floor to the fireplace in the living area as to allow an air flow to the fire and to keep air circulating through the cold pantry to help keep it cool. There will be an open area in the wall between the kitchen and living areas where the dinning table will be placed. and again a 5' long section like this at the front of the wall between the kitchen and laundry area. The air lock on the left end will have a composting toilet for the master bed. The airlock on the right end is the mudroom and woodshed as well. This right end airlock is where we will eventually attach the remainder of the house. That section will be five 14' by 16' bedrooms for the kids. 

     We will have a rain cistern by the cold pantry to collect water for kitchen use. It will be a circular cistern that is made form cans and concrete with measurements of 5' diameter and 6' high. It will hold approximately 732 gallons at a time. The oblong cistern on the other side of the kitchen is going to collect grey water from the kitchen to be pumped to the grow beds at the front of the house. In the floor of the cold pantry there will be an earth cooler, which is simply some kind of container sunken down into the earth where the top of it is even with the floor. This will help keep foods refrigerated or even frozen possibly if we have a long term power outage.