Hello I'm new to the concept of Earthships but this forum has been a huge help in getting up to speed. I'd like to pose this idea to the community in hopes of further reading or critiques -
In my few days of research it has become obvious that these homes are tremendously cost-effective yet the amount of labor, "sweat-equity," is a barrier to entry for many potential builders.
More specifically, filling and packing each tire with dirt takes an incredible amount of time - it's estimated that a single individual can pack about 8 tires a day while an entire Earthship may require something like 1800 packed tires!
So I'd like to propose that we create the earth-rammed tires in a manufacturing facility and then ship these pre-rammed building blocks to a construction site.
Now I've never constructed an Earthship or done the actual ramming of dirt into tires, so the manufacturing details aren't worked out but if anyone has worked on an Earthship and could provide insight and any pros/cons to this method I would love to hear what you think!
*One downside I've considered already is the weight of each tire. From my reading it seems like a single earth-rammed tire can weigh upwards of 300 pounds, making the complete load many many tons. Maybe the good ole' American railroad can help us with transport but getting the tires to the construction site will still be logistically challenging.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!
-Austin
