Sunday, July 13, 2008

Full Blown Summer

When I wasn't looking it turned from winter into summer. Missed spring entirely. The grapes, tomatoes, peppers, cilantro, and daisies are all up and doing well, enjoying life on the canyon edge. Some critter has discovered the kale and pansies, finding them delicious enough to nibble them down to the ground. The chickens are hale and hearty enjoying their own semi-earthship hen house and fenced yard. It is fenced over the top too to keep the hawks and other raptors from swooping them up and to keep the bobcats and hopefully the mountain lions out. I'm hoping that bears don't like chickens. We haven't seen any bears this year anyway.

So. Life on the edge is great. Temps are high. We've been getting into the 90s which is kinda extreme for here but the earthship has been maintaining comfortable temps. We did get up to 78 inside one day but since then I've started leaving the skylight open and it has stayed between 69 and 75. Woohoo! I love my house.

3 comments:

Iron cast said...

Thank you so much for your blog, so even when the outside temp is 90s it's still nice in cool inside the earthship. That is amazing, here in Texas it can get 105 degrees and we spend $100 on A/C use. Can you tell me more about the cooling effect and how it works?

Thank you,

Iron cast said...

Thank you for sharing your life living in an Earthship. So your finding that it can be in the 90's and still be nice and cool inside the earthship to around 78 degrees. That is amazing, here in Texas it can be 105 degrees outside and we spend $100s in a/c use. Can you tell me more about how that works?

Thank you,

Genrefluent said...

Hi, What keeps it cool is having the back half sunk in the earth (which maintains about a 55 degree temp at our latitude) and during the summer the overhang keeps the sun out. Because we are in the high desert, the air cools at night and it also helps cool the house because the thermal mass stores the coolness. Check out Michael Reynolds' Comfort in Any Climate. I'm sure he has some techniques that would help in Texas.