The Earthship house at 1375 Queensborough Rd., near Tweed, Ont., doesn't have an HVAC system and instead relies on harnessing nature's elements.Photography by Sarah Kavoosi
The next owner of 1375 Queensborough Rd., near Tweed, Ont., might want to invest in a mariner’s cap.
“Once you live in it, you realize that it is literally a ship, you have to sail it,” current owner Karthik Raj says. “You have to be in tune with the weather outside to make it pleasant inside … during summertime, you have a certain setup … you realize what works for the season [or] if it’s rainy out there, or windy.”
There might not be hatches to batten down, but there are blinds to open or close, cross-ventilation to consider, wood to burn and propane heaters to consider firing. With no HVAC system, the elements – air, water, earth and fire – are yours to harness. That’s life in an Earthship house.
The house sits facing south on the eight-hectare property. That side has a long bank of windows that are eight-feet tall to provide passive solar, the home's primary heat source. The north facade is mostly buried in a berm.
The Earthship was invented by architect Michael Reynolds, who was born in Louisville, Ky., in 1945 and settled in Taos, N.M., in 1969. Concerned with the amount of trash being produced combined with the lack of affordable housing, he invented a ‘brick’ made from discarded steel and beer cans – for which he got a patent in 1973 – and began building with it. Soon after, he christened his work “Earthship Biotecture” and had moved to pop bottles and old tires for his walls. After a series of prototypes, Mr. Reynolds built his first Earthship in 1987, and, two years later, had created a community of them, Rural Earthship Alternative Community Habitat.
The Architourist: Toasty warm inside a rammed earth home
And, yes, the walls of Mr. Raj’s house are made of tires, P215/75R15s to be exact: “They ram earth inside [them], and then you put rebar all the way across, and once it’s all done, you pour concrete around it. … You don’t see the tires any more. The fear is off-gassing for people, but the tires do the off-gassing in the first three years of their use, so by the time they’re retired and ready to go to landfill, there is no sulphur or any volatile gases.”
To be clear, Mr. Raj did not build his impressive, 3,000-square-foot Earthship, nor did he hire Earth Home Gallery in Gilmour, Ont., to design it in 2011. But, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the self-described “ecosavvy” 41-year-old and his wife daydreamed about leaving Newmarket, Ont., to, perhaps, build something as sustainable as possible in the country. And then the price of lumber went through the roof and the home building industry ground to a standstill.
The home's terracotta floor is heated by the sun. The tiles store the heat and release it after sunset. In the summer, blinds help prevent overheating.
So, instead, they called upon their real estate broker, Sarah Kavoosi, to find them something. And although she’d encountered the term “Earthship” before, she’d never been inside one: “When we were looking for a house in the country, 95 per cent were not ecofriendly, but I think when he saw this he could really connect and it’s also beautiful, too.”
Walking around the eight-hectare property with Ms. Kavoosi confirms that there is, indeed, a striking beauty to the building’s siting, materials and interior finishes. To be an Earthship, a building must face due south, and that facade must contain a long bank of windows (eight-feet tall, in this case), as passive solar is the primary heat source. Sunshine hits the terracotta floor and heats it; the tiles store heat and release it after sunset. In summer, blinds are used to prevent overheating.
The home has contrasting wall types finished in warm adobe colours. Some, made of old tires, rammed earth and concrete, are bumpy, rough and uneven at the top. Others are conventional drywall.
In the home's main bathroom, pebbles cover the walls surrounding the bathtub.
The north facade is mostly buried in a berm. The grass on the berm, according to the Earthship Living Guide Mr. Raj has penned, keeps the earth’s temperature “cool via evaporation and transpiration.” In summer, this “chill then comes into the house via the tire walls” which project into the living space (complete with curved edges). In winter, the berm and interior walls keep the house at about 8 C, “without any wood/propane” assistance.
Step into the bright foyer, however, and despite form completely following function, a visitor’s first reaction will likely be a jaw-drop and gasp, since the row of 21 windows (and one sliding glass door) and the photon-fest they provide is what one notices first. After that, one might be compelled to slip off a shoe and probe the floor with a reluctant toe … only to be rewarded with warmth.
“2022, January, it was minus-27 degrees outside,” Mr. Raj remembers. “And I went to try to remote-start my car and it was whining, so I can tell everything is upset because it’s really cold. But then the sun came out and we had our blinds all the way up, and I was in my shorts as if it’s a garden.”
And should that same visitor poke into the study, kitchen or a bedroom, it might be the contrast between wall types that catches the eye. The Earthship walls, finished in warm adobe colours, play by their own rules: They’re bumpy, rough and wiggle around at the top; above them, conventional drywall snaps to the grid like a good little soldier.
The home is currently for sale and listed at $779,000.
One will certainly pause in the main bathroom. There, pebbles swirl underfoot, climb the walls to surround the tub, and then continue to meet the thick tire-wall under the window. And speaking of windows, this ship has high, small windows on the north facade that eject hot air in summer.
And if being captain of a ship isn’t enough, the new owner of Mr. Raj’s home (yes, it’s listed for sale, see below) will likely enjoy amateur astronomy (the night sky is amazing) or ornithology, says Mr. Raj, since the property is “used by a whole flock of turkeys.
“The first time we saw them, they came out of the woods … right up to the house, four or five of them,” he says with a laugh. “And the next day they brought their friends – there are now two dozen – and by week’s end there were about 120 and I lost count beyond that.”
1375 Queensborough Rd. is listed at $779,000. Visit earthshiphome.net