Tres Piedras, New Mexico

Rammed earth tire walls, bottle and can walls, passive solar heated, solars panels for energy, water catchment, recycled gray water, chickens for food, vegetable growing areas consisting of hydroponic grow boxes and an aquaponics system.

You can grow a variety of plants year round. We have exotic flowers such as jasmine, white ginger and pakalana, figs, bananas and pineapples, and tomatoes, chard, basil, and herbs all growing inside. Within the walled yard are four Chinese Elms, two Apricots, two Apple trees and a Plum tree. There is also a cottage garden style flower bed with some medicinal plants as well. Lots of birds visit our oasis. 

We also built a solar chicken coop. Happy chickens will produce eggs year round. 

The house has 60 Amps of solar panels. A top of the line, 845 Amp hour rated Hupp battery system was installed in late 2015. The system is warranteed for 25 years. There is a top of the line Outback power system, providing 24 volts of power. The house is wired for both AC and DC with at least one DC outlet per room. The refrigerator is a DC powered Sunfrost. All the pump systems (for water filtration and gray water) are DC. 

There is no published data for conventional HERS testing for the efficiency of Earthships. Suffice it to say that Earthships are designed to be the most efficient housing available anywhere. This home has zero backup heating, and we have never found the need for additional heating! Our house was used as the test site for an environmental research project which established that our home temperature was remarkably consistent and comfortable. This is where Earthships truly shine. https://www.onsetcomp.com/resources/logging-energy-efficiency-sustainable-earthship-homes

5100 gallons of cistern storage is buried behind the house, filled with rain water from the roof catchment system. This water is filted inside the house. 

Gray water from the washing machine and the bathrooms is directed into the greenhouse planter where it is filtered. This water is then used to flush the toilet, although fresh water can also be used. There is also a gray water faucet in the greenhouse. Effluent then goes to the septic system, with a leach field beyond, which provides further nutrients for the trees. 

Anyone can live comfortably in this serene and beautiful home, however it does take some lifestyle changes, if you are not already used to living entirely off the grid. There is a learning curve. There is a visitor’s center at the south end of the community that describes the Earthship concept and you can walk around some of Reynolds’ experimental buildings. There are also a variety of AirBnB’s in the community so you can get a feel for the environment of these houses before you commit. 

Since you came to Greenhomesforsale, you should already be of the mindset of NOT leaving lights on when you leave a room, NOT a using a hair dryer at night, and NOT a leaving water running! We see rental units getting water deliveries every two weeks, which means that renters are using almost 100 gallons of water a day! You CAN’T do that here! In contrast, we use about 100 gallons of water a week for personal use, not including animals or growing.

This is one of the most beautiful Eartships ever built! It has custom tiles in the kitchen, vigas, bottle work in the walls and hand troweled earthen walls with sparkles of mica. There is an indoor aquaponics tank and exotic flowers and vegetables grow year 'round in the indoor greenhouse. Outside there is a passive solar chicken coop and hybrid hydroponic/earth grow beds to provide food. A bottle wall surrounds the home for privacy and protection. 

The house is entirely off-the-grid, with passive solar heating of the house, roof catchment for water, solar power for energy and a gray water system to flush the toilets. Operable skylights and cooling tubes give air flow and cooling as needed. Abundant indoor plants, noticeably raise the humidity, making the environment much more comfortable that in conventional homes. 

Earthship designs have evolved over the past 40 years, and this Global model design represents the pinnacle in efficiency and comfort. The 75 foot long greenhouse has inclined glass, bringing heat into the home. Straight glass separates the greenhouse from the true living area, keeping the house a comfortable temperature mostly in the 60s and 70s. The walls are two foot thick rammed earth tire walls, proving amazing insulation. The back of the house is earth-termed. Thick bottle walls let in colorful light at the airlock entrances at each end of the greenhouse. 

The roof is insulated with poly-ISO foam, providing an R-80. The propanel metal roof provides potable catchment for the water supply, which is stored in cisterns within the berm and then filtered inside the house. 

The living room has hand troweled natural adobe walls and 12-inch thick Viga beams from SW Colorado. The other rooms also have Vigas and walls painted with low VOC white paint.

Natural flagstone floors are in the greenhouse, patios and bathroom. The other rooms have brick floors. 

Sage and natural wildflowers abound. The property is slightly sloped and swales channel the monsoonal rains. An arroyo runs behind the house and an old two track dirt road can be seen. The lot is partially fenced, using recycled cedar posts and old barbed wire. There is driveway access to both the front and rear of the home. We cleared an area to the west of the house for a garage or additional structure. We are 1/2 mile off Hwy 64 West, on a maintained gravel road. 

Utility costs listed include propane for the stove and on-demand hot water heater. Up until Covid,  utility costs averaged $250 annually. Propane has more than doubled and we are now in a drought. At the same time, we started doing intensive gardening to raise food. Our costs for both propane and water increased accordingly. If you are not growing food outside, by being judicious with water use, you can live comfortably on just the rainwater, which has been 6 inches annually for the past 3 years. This year, we have had over 10 inches of rain, so we are doing well!

Earthships are very labor intensive to build. Stock sizes of glass have changed, making it prohibitively expensive to reproduce this particular design again. This means there will never be a similar house built again and certainly not for the this price. 

The home is located at the north end of the Greater World Earthship community, a few miles north of the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge, outside of Taos NM.  This location is the lower density area and has less traffic than the rest of the community. All current building is far away from our home. While the home is on 2 acres of private land, it is surrounded by 263 acres of common land that will never be developed. The land is flat to rolling with sagebrush and native grasses. We have a beautiful view of Taos Mountain and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the East, and Three Peaks to the West. We have amazing sunsets almost every evening. 

Bighorn sheep, elk and mule deer roam on or near the property. A trail within the community, leads to the Rio Grande Gorge a mile and a half to the west, where there is world-class fishing. 

This is part of an established subdivision. HOA fees of $175 annually, cover road maintenance.