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Green Living: Aren't these fantastic earth houses!

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    • CommentAuthorStuartB
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2008 edited
     
    The architects out there have probably heard of Peter Vetsch but I have just discovered him. I think these houses are fantastic and would love to see loads of them in the UK.

    However they use a lot of concrete. But, maybe you can justify using this amount of concrete if the building saves so much more Co2 over it's lifetime because of it's efficiency? Over the longer term this may be more beneficial.

    http://www.erdhaus.ch/main.php?fla=y&lang=en&cont=earthhouse
    • CommentAuthorjon
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2008 edited
     
    You can justify concrete over lifetime if the longevity is increased and providing that the energy in use is comparable. There's a paper available as a google resource that I wrote for the Institution of Structural Engineers on the ethical justification for various materials: if interested will post link
    • CommentAuthorludite
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2008
     
    Look great! see my comments on Javier sanoisan - a mexican. But I have my reservations - mostly to do with the difficulty of adding extensions, natural daylight, and water tightness. Having said that, i do think humans are more comfortable with curves. . . . ..
    • CommentAuthorTimber
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2008
     
    excuse my sinecism (if i could spell it!) but they look more like normal houses with green roofs than earth houses!

    http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF2/217.html

    is what i would consider an 'earth/underground' house
    • CommentAuthorStuartB
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2008
     
    They are houses covered with earth hence 'earth house' I suppose. They are not desgned to be underground or in the earth but to sit with it.

    You would consider these designs "normal"?? :shocked: Normal if you are a tellytubby maybe. I haven't seen many Wimpey houses like these in the UK!
    • CommentAuthorTimber
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2008 edited
     
    Ah well, again, deffiniations play a big part in understanding concepts again!

    I always assume that an 'earth house' was built from or within the earth!

    If they are normal houses (all be it, they do look like a telly tubby house) that are designed to sit with the earth, what makes they any more efficient than any other concrete box that perhaps doesn't sit with the earth?

    I though the idea was to literally bury the house underground and so capitalise on heat sortage and insulation offered by the ground arround!
    • CommentAuthorStuartB
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2008
     
    More efficient because they are buried/covered on three sides as well as the roof which obviously helps with insulation and protection from the wind. It is literally buried but not underground so you can't see it and not sunk in to a big hole. More moulded into the landscape.

    http://www.erdhaus.ch/main.php?fla=y&lang=en&cont=benefits
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeAug 28th 2008
     
    That last link doesn't ring any convincing bells, thermally. Not saying it's rubbish, but the write-up sounds like BS, or at least gives nothing away. "they can be considered ideal for controlled air conditioning" Hm.
    Now this *is* convincing: http://www.primedesign.us/self_heating_houses/pahs_article_1.html but PAHS has snags and limitations: http://www.greenershelter.org/index.php?pg=2
    Just maybe the Vetsch houses have reached the same point as PAHS, but I somehow doubt it.
    • CommentAuthorStuartB
    • CommentTimeAug 28th 2008
     
    I think the write up on the website is written from a sales/PR point of view aimed at the layman so someone like me can understand it.

    "they can be considered ideal for controlled air conditioning" Hm.


    Doesn't this just refer to the fact that as it is almost entirely airtight it is a lot easier to control the indoor air temperature?

    Ludite - couldn't agree more about the curves.
  10.  
    They look like Teletubby land from the outside.........
    • CommentAuthorarthur
    • CommentTimeAug 28th 2008
     
    PAHS sounds great Tom. Would it work better or worse in a climate like ours with less difference between winter and summer termperature - better presumably.
    • CommentAuthorStuartB
    • CommentTimeAug 28th 2008
     
    ....or would PAHS work at all with the summer we have just had??:sad:
    • CommentAuthorJoinerbird
    • CommentTimeAug 28th 2008
     
    Good point StuartB Whats the feeling on that?
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeAug 28th 2008
     
    arthur, PAHS is good, but as the last link I gave, has been superceded by AGS, even better. AGS houses built near Seattle, next to Canadian border, mountainous, work fine - not unlike our climate.
    StuartB, the revolutionary thing about inter-seasonal storage is that it can capture those midsummer peak inputs, even if fewer, like the last 2 UK summers. Midsummer peak is so very powerful - like 5kWh/m2/day - that it's more than enough. All lesser storage systems have to rely on Autumn/Spring, even Winter input, because they haven't the endurance to store the Summer input.

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