Re: How you design an off-grid home to deal with extreme heat

[Dustoffer]

I used 1 to 1.5″ foam with 6 mil plastic over the rammed earth tire walls’ exterior. They are all custom, unless you buy the plans from Solar Survival Architecture. The garage addition used 1′ radius in 16′ arched compounding to less at the top with smaller tires and using a 7.25 x 11″ concrete bond beam with every other tire every other course soil cement centers with vert. rebar scraps w/min. 9″ lap. Half tires were soil cement with rocks and other hard debris added. After the 3rd course the voids had pinched Al. cans to save on Portland. I used odd sized tires to make niches and shelves. The garage has a step down tire wall on one side and frame shear wall center and outside at a “Y” to the Earthship above. The lower wall continues as the front and the other as the side at a 45* angle. Shoehorned to work with the existing trees and terrain. A heat wave here is 92*F when it used to be 85*F before AGW. Funny roof framing is to keep within the 5/12 Covenant. The decomposed granite soil made perfect soil cement and after 3/8′ screening was also used for base coat stucco.

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