Episode 31: Off Grid and Self-Sustaining Homes with Jonah Reynolds of EarthShips

Ben: [00:00:00] Welcome to the alt asset allocation podcast, exploring alternative investment opportunities available to the everyday investor. Here’s your host Ben lakoff.

We just had a really interesting conversation with Jonah Reynolds of Eartship, bio texture. This is a very different interview than a lot of the other asset allocation interviews.

why was I interviewing somebody that builds a self-sustainable off-grid earth ship? They’ve built about a thousand of these, but the idea is that these are alternative investments, right? This is a big category. this is within reason. I have another interview with the land geek. talking about buying LA roll land. Well, think about this. We think about building a completely self-sustainable. Earth ship on this land, turning it into a destination on Airbnb. People want to stay in interesting, crazy places. this could be a destination for people to come live in a place like this for a weekend. you have good opportunities there, but then obviously, you know, it’s an earth ship.

It. You don’t pay utilities. You can live there, you can grow your own food. A number of benefits right now I’m in LA and cost at the cost of real estate is over a thousand dollars per square foot. In many cases. Last year, when I was obsessed with the idea of buying real estate, I was looking at a place like Lisbon.

Yeah. And, you know, $200 per square foot or something was what I was looking to pay. But these earth ships, you can build maybe for $200 per square foot. And that’s turnkey. That’s not even if you hire your own group, you’re your own subcontractors, all of these things and do it yourself. So you could build a self-sustaining home and live their cost free.

It’s a very interesting conversation. I hope you enjoy this. Conversation with Jonah Reynolds of earth ship, bio texture. It is the number one eco construction and self-sufficient living company. Very interesting conversation. Enjoy. Welcome Jonah.

Jonah: [00:02:06] Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Ben: [00:02:08] Yeah, absolutely. I’m excited to have this conversation.

We talked a little bit about this before we started recording, but this is a slightly different conversation for an alternative investment podcast. earth ships came up I’m in this accelerator with a number of stalls, small startups, and a guy was really excited about them. So this is, this is how I found.

Earth ship global.com, which is your website and really wanted to have this conversation and dive into a little bit more detail about earth ships. In general. I wanted to start off today just with a little background on you and you know, what, what are our ships?

Jonah: [00:02:46] Yeah. And ownership is in an entirely off home.

No, no electrical grid, no municipal grids come in at all. No water grid, no sewer line goes out. It’s totally self-contained fossil fuel free providing all of, you know, modern expected amenities, plenty of power, plenty of water. Actually more comfortable than conventional homes. We’ve been doing it for about 50 years and they, they work very, very well.

It’s an opportunity to live without fossil fuels in a modern world, in the modern Western world. But of course, in the rest of the world outside of, outside of the Western culture, kind of a thing.

Ben: [00:03:29] you guys have been doing this for a long time since you know, 1969 or early 1970s. What, what kind of inspired your father to start this movement and start building these earth ships?

Jonah: [00:03:43] Well, nothing is really about being an environmentalist or saving the planet or being green. That’s a result. That’s a secondary thing. The main intention is, is, is logic. It’s, what’s the right thing to do. What, what are the right building materials to live with, or, or to build your buildings out of what’s the right way to orient buildings?

What’s the right way. You know, the sun, the wind, the heating, the cold, the storms. All those types of things as all of our ancestors live thousands and thousands of years ago relating to all these natural rhythms. So it was, it was kind of that, that awareness. And, and of course, you know, we’re, we’re all.

A product of our upbringing and the world we grow up in as well as the conditioning that is set forth in. So my father was born in 1945. Came to Taos in 1969, went to architecture school at the university of Cincinnati. And specifically it’s, it’s the garbage and the trash, which is only a human thing all over the country and all these news reports back in the sixties and early seventies and, and the rising costs of, of housing and, and the effects of oil.

From pollution and cost and just a singular reliance on it. So those things put together with his upbringing, with being an architect and aware of things, as architects are trained put all those things together and went straight for, for what’s the logical thing to do to produce a dwelling, a shelter for humans to first survive and then thrive.

And here we are today with what we call ownership which allows humanity to thrive.

Ben: [00:05:35] Yeah. That’s, that’s really awesome growing up and starting these in New Mexico. Everything I read, it seems like New Mexico is the perfect place for it. Due to a number of different. Reasons climate and, and all of these things.

Do these earth ships work in other places or is it only a New Mexico thing?

Jonah: [00:05:53] Right? Earthships work in every climate and we’ve been to every climate. We’ve been all over this beautiful world and have built our ships in slightly different versions because there are extreme climates and extreme situations like disasters.

But they, they work all over the world. We have different models. They encountered our model, the global model, the simple survival you know, for different budgets, different cultures and, and personal preference, you know, the encounters more rectangle and, and Taos New Mexico is a really good place actually, because it gets really intense winters.

It gets really, really hot in the summer. And we get very little precipitation. We get about eight and a half inches of rain per year which is a desert conditions for those reasons. It’s been, it’s been lucky really that it’s happened over the last 50 years based in Taos New Mexico. And if they can work here everywhere else we’ve been, has been easier.

To make them work, to make them stay warm in the winter. Cool. In the summer are, you know, a typical, you know, nuclear family of, of two parents and two kids, even though that’s a fantasy can do all the normal Western world modern things you know, laundry dishes and kids produce a lot of laundry and a lot of dishes.

And, and so that, you know, it doesn’t matter what walk of life you walk. You can live in these buildings and not have anything to do nor care about the environment. But you can walk in, you have all your modern amenities and no utility bills. So it was really a coincidence that, that Taos New Mexico happened to be the place.

My father was actually trying to avoid the draft and so he came out here to try and race motorcycles and was very aggressive with it. Won a lot of races, never got injured. Ended up teaching drafting pardon the pun there. And so he, he, you know, never got shipped off and stayed here and one thing led to another and you know, back then we get our permits from the state rather than the County.

You know, very small town still building codes and all that. It’s all good and was just a really lucky environment to experiment and, and evolve and adapt many weird buildings into, yeah. What we see today at, at the website or shipt.com with all these modern buildings. Or shifts that work anywhere for anyone?

Any income, any situation?

Ben: [00:08:39] Yeah, that’s wild. She was teaching drafting to dive to the draft. That’s just that up. place Litos you said gets eight inches per year, eight inches of rain per year, which is not a lot. But part of the idea of these earth ships is that they’re completely self-sustainable, you’re collecting rainwater.

I mean, walk, walk me through the, how this works, because if I have a family of four and I’m, we’re surviving washing dishes on eight inches of rainwater per year, that doesn’t seem like a lot. if you could kind of walk through how the or ship how it works, more high level.

Jonah: [00:09:17] Sure. Yeah. Each, each system start with the water system.

So everything is caught off the roof. The roof surface has to be something that is, that can catch water that will become pottable. You know, so you don’t want to have asphalt you know, those types of things. We use something called pro panel, everything leaches off, everything does pro panel.

It’s barely measurable. It’s basically galvanized metal. You can use a concrete roof, whatever pro panel works very well, catches water, everything is guttered into cisterns. Nothing, you know, goes away off property or anything. Taos New Mexico, anywhere where you get eight inches, 10 inches, 12 inches of rain a year.

You really want to be careful and capture everything every little drop everywhere. And it goes into systems that are buried. The systems are, are elevated slightly. So that the point is, and the elevation of the pump. Water pumps, especially solar power DC pumps like to push water. They don’t like to pull.

Which is why solar Wells don’t work that well or require a giant power system. So the systems are elevated just to create some gravity. So the water gravity goes into the building essentially. And so then the, we have a board with a water organizing module, which receives that gravity pressure. It’s not huge.

It’s not 30 PSI, but it’s enough in case the pump breaks. You’re still going to have water being pushed through your sink. Right? Worst case scenario is, is always what we’re prepared for. So everything about the Earthship is if everything electrical breaks down, you can still live, you can still function.

Right? So for example, right now, with this big portions in New Jersey are losing power. So that’s no flushing, toilet, no refrigeration, no lights, nothing. And that’s just absurd in these, in this day and age. So. Water gets caught on the roof, goes into assistance systems, push it to a water board, the water filters, it pushes it into a pressure tank.

Then we get code required pressure to the rest of the house. We have an extra filter on there. Rio is the brand. There’s a few, they’re amazing. You could literally piss in one in and drink out the other. Not that we’re doing that, but that’s on this, on that level. So that, that creates the potable drinking water.

So that at every sink you have an extra little faucet for drinking water. So then you use it totally normally. And this rainwater is not only good for the plumbing, cause there’s no minerals or anything like that, nothing to over the decades, fill up the plumbing and clog it. It’s good for your skin.

It’s good for your hair, all that kind of a thing. So you use it normally. Everything except the kitchen sink. And, and the toilet I’ll get to later, it doesn’t flush with this fresh water, but everything, except the kitchen sink goes into an interior botanical cell, which is like, you can see behind me, one of these planters on the inside, it’s just a planter.

It’s, it’s nothing here is invented. Nothing is patented. Nothing is trademarked. This planter is essentially the Florida Everglades. It’s the same concept. It’s. Mother nature has invented everything for us over billions of years. The idea that we have to re invent things with machinery, not only does it not even work, it’s just, it’s just inefficient.

It’s not logical. So these planters are lined with a stuff called EPM. It’s like a wetsuit material. It’s basically just to keep the wastewater from leaching out into the ground and potentially. Polluting aquifers and Wells and all that kind of a thing, which is a big problem these days. So again, everything, all the wastewater, except for the kitchen sink and not the toilet.

I’ll get that. Get to that. Next goes into the interior greywater planter. The plants clean it, the roots clean it. It, it oxygenates it, it transpires the water up into the into the plants. You can grow a huge amount of food and very successfully, it makes us look like we know what we’re doing in terms of growing food.

We’ve grown Bazell with bark and it’s amazing harvesting bananas and February and tasks, New Mexico when it’s 20 below. It’s it’s amazing. Then, you know, obviously we have food experts on our staff and, and they’re really taking it to the next level. And so all that water is contained, it’s cleaned.

And so whatever water, the plants don’t use ends up at the deeper portion of this planter, the well kind of a thing, again, everything’s lined and contained. And so at the end, there’s a lot of water leftover. We run that through a smaller water board with a charcoal filter. And another physical mesh filter that water goes to the toilet.

The toilet is the biggest water user in a home that completely gets exed out. Right? So we’re reusing water a bunch of times, which allows for a place like toast, where it only gets eight inches. Too, you can live normally. So each time we’re reusing water, we’re doubling that eight inches or we’re tripling or quadrupling it.

Right. So then the toilet flushes with water that you took a shower in, or that you took a bath in or whatever, right. It’s totally clear. It does not smell at all. It’s just not possible. Right. The idea that we flush our water, our, our toilets in this modern world that we call modern and we call ourselves civilized that we flush our toilets with portable water is insane.

It is absolutely insane and terrible and criminal. The amount of time we’ve been talking 10 minutes 30 kids have died from lack of potable water in this world. It’s it’s insane. So anyway, we flush the water. We flush the toilets with gray water. The toilet also has. A fresh water supply just in case.

And this gets into how we’re able to get this permitted, the toilet flushes into an exterior botanical cell, same thing. It’s a planter on the outside line and contained it goes into a septic tank first. The septic tank then breaks down all the solids and all the, all the chunks. And then that septic tank overflows into this outside planter.

Same thing happens again. Nothing’s invented nothing’s patented bullets, the floor Everglades. This

is what is how this works. And, you know we sometimes we’ll put plastic bottles all crushed up in the bottom to create housing for the good bacteria that eat the bad bacteria, bid rock, big rocks, gravel, topsoil, all that And again, plant experts. Tell us exactly what to do. Same thing, the plants clean it transpire it grow, you know, amazing food and vegetables, all tested.

It’s actually a little bit cleaner than food and your most organic stores, even though it’s in gray water planners and Blackwater planners, right. Even the route.  Plants in the Blackwater planner is cleaner than it, organic food stores and of course flowers and all that. So again, here in Taos, New Mexico, it’s a desert, right?

Eight inches of rain per year. Super dry. These outside planners create. And noesis. It’s like Costa Rica in this little planter outside and all kinds of varmints and owls and birds and bees. It’s it’s beautiful. So then that, that out, that exterior botanical cell, where the toilet flushes into and the kitchen sink flushes into.

And we put the kitchen sink there, cause there’s always food chunks and stuff. Maybe some of our own places like my own, or should I have the kitchen sink going into the gray water planner, just cause I’m more on it. Right. But when we’re doing for clients, it’s, it’s a different story and code things.

I don’t mind if you keep that in. But and then, so, so that toilet goes out into that, that outside planner and that outside planner never has. Conventional leach field where it can overflow. So this whole water system from the roof, all the way to the end of the outside planter, which the gray water planter on the inset also overflows into that outside planter.

Our stuff is in line, right? It’s inside of the conventional plumbing, the conventional wastewater system, the septic tank, the leach field, the house is conventionally plumbed so that you can valve all of our stuff off. And you have a totally conventional system. There’s the codes, there’s the permits and all that.

Every health department that I’ve ever talked to, New Jersey, Washington, Florida, you know, France, all of it. They love what we’re doing. They’re very familiar with it, but invariably, we’re not necessarily in the residential code. Industry level does allow for zero discharge system, which is what we do. So that’s how we’re able to get, to get a permit for our system, for our residential system.

Because our stuff is inside it’s line. So that’s essentially the water system.

Ben: [00:18:51] on the permitting, like if I, if I bought a property in a residential neighborhood and then bulldozed it and wanted to put an Earthship, would I be able to, because a permanent or not.

Jonah: [00:19:05] Well, because of permitting. Yes. But the most sustainable home is the home it’s already built.

Right. So you’d want to reconcile that that’s

Ben: [00:19:13] the best, but yet to do it, but okay.

Jonah: [00:19:16] Okay. So there are no there’s neighborhood associations, there’s there’s historical things. There’s all that kind of stuff. But, but yes, they, they totally fit into the codes because they’re in line. That’s the water system that the wastewater system, the power system these days is basically conventional solar panels.

We pretty much stay away from wind because it’s moving parts. And they break. So, and, you know, nowadays. The solar power systems actually about starting about 10 years ago are just so powerful that you know, the last thing was you still needed liquid gas or propane for the oven. Right. These days you don’t anymore just because the power systems are so big.

And it’s really amazing. You know, there’s talk about electrifying the world, which is a little iffy, but it just goes to show you how powerful the solar panels and the batteries are these days. And and so that, that provides more than enough electricity, but pretty much everyone would prefer to cook with a flame.

So that’s why you always going to have that Some kind of a propane tank on the house, but there’s a little bit of fossil fuels and that’s just preference because most people like to cook with the flame I do too. That can be sun. Right? So the hot water system is we have a solar hot water heater and, and we also have a gas on demand system.

Because there’s, like I just said, there’s pretty much always going to be a propane or liquid gas situation because people prefer to cook with the flame. So therefore, since you have it, why not have it as a backup to heat the water with, so then there’s storms. And so if the sun doesn’t heat the water hot enough, the gas on demand kicks on automatically.

And that’s basically endless hot water. So that’s how water is heated electricity. There’s the catch water. There’s the pottable water. There’s the wastewater. And then the heating keeping the building warm is passive sun, you know, passive solar heating. The sun comes in, it hits all the surfaces, which has to be an earth type material, not wood.

Obviously the main structure of ownership is rammed earth and tires. That’s a temperature battery. So he it’s physics, heat moves to cold. So the sun brings in the heat. It gets stored in all these earth type materials, specifically the rammed earth in the tires and the walls. And then at night, again, in a cold, cold climate that heat leaks out from the walls.

Because the air temperature of the room drops at night in a cold environment down to 60, 50, whatever. It never actually gets that cold, but it drops lower than the temperature in the walls that stored from the heat all day long. And so after the first six months of inertia being built, it pretty much stays 69 degrees year round inside.

Whether or not it’s 20 below, outside, or a hundred degrees outside Fahrenheit. And that’s why talus is great to develop these because that does happen in the winter, in the summer now to keep it cool. We have cooling tubes basically brings in the air from the outside. It goes through all that thermal mass, all that rammed earth from the tires and the berm outside.

He leaves all that cooler, all that air, the air becomes cooler and enters into the earth ship. The top of the greenhouse has skylights lets out the heat that gets a natural convection going all that thermal mass is like, think of like a cave, right? A cave is always cool, constant temperature. So we have that same technology.

Essentially inside of ownership. So it’s not all cold and dark, like the cave, but it’s that same method and that’s how they stay. Cool. So those are the basic systems of how an ownership gives you all the things you need to survive. And then we’ve been tweaking it over over 50 years and designing it so that you can thrive.

And we meet expectations of what, you know, people who are living in the modern world expect, you know,

Ben: [00:23:33] Yeah, that’s fascinating. Lots of stuff. I want to unpack there. I mean, firstly, I’ll start with water is going to be a gigantic issue. Right? having these, these. Structures that use it much more efficiently like our ships do.

This is just very, very interesting for me. I am curious to dig in a little bit more on heating and cooling. it sounds like, these places, even though the temperatures are wildly fluctuating, if they have a lot of sun, then it, you know, you have solar energy, you have the ability to kind of. Charge up these walls with heat that can then disperse it to the rooms at night.

But I mean, you had mentioned that these are able to be built everywhere. Some other places that don’t have as much sunshine as a place like towels or California, you know, how, how different is the structure for a place like that? If, if solar energy and lots of sunlight, aren’t possible.

Jonah: [00:24:32] Right. So earth ships are thermal mass homes.

First they hold temperature. They’re passive solar homes, second and other things too. So whatever temperature you put inside of them, whether you get it from the sun or gas heating or fireplace or whatever, they’re going to hold it. And, and you’re, you’re never, ever, ever going to freeze your plumbing’s never, ever going to freeze, like happens almost every winter, you know, in the East coast of the U S you know, and, and all over the place.

It’s crazy. So you could be, you know, here in Taos, New Mexico you know, Mexico, California, Nevada, wherever France you know, in, in the middle of Africa anywhere. And so that is going to block your horizon to horizon sun, right? And so you want that, especially in the morning, cause you’re going through the night, which can be Chile, depending on your elevation and a number of factors.

And you want to, all our ships are angled about 13 and a half degrees East. Of South toward the morning sun to just to get that early morning sun. And, and so if you have a whole bunch of trees, that’s going to affect it. You know, you don’t want to cut down a lot of trees. It’s also gonna affect the, the solar panels from gathering electricity.

And then, you know, if there’s mountains, if there are buildings we’re looking to build in West Philadelphia next year and it’s right next to a three-story building. So we’re going to build a two story or ship just to get up and reach. Because we’ve done some sun studies on that on the shortest day, December 22nd.

And we in it, there is some shade, but we’re gonna tweak the design and make it taller so that we can get the sun. And so, you know, we’ve, we’ve gone way North in Canada and you know, we’ll, we’ll have a double front face, so it’s like a double greenhouse, right? So then like in the picture behind me, you can see one wall of windows.

We’ll have two walls of windows in a super cold, super extreme climate. So that. You are, you have that many more envelopes is what they call it or barriers between your living space and the outside. Right. So that, you know, when it’s 20 below up against these windows behind me, I put my hand on the windows and it’s a little chilly.

Right. But over where that banana plant is, right. Over my left shoulder that banana plant thinks it’s sick. It’s 68 degrees. Right. Cause there’s a temperature gradient. So they’re designed that way so that the main living space isn’t right up against the outside, like a conventional home where you only have five and a quarter inches between you and the outside and just a little bit of Baton installation, which is never going to cut it.

That’s why utility bills are crazy expensive. And so, so there will be some tweaks, you know, we’ll, we’ll tweak the ends of ownership. If there’s a beautiful view and so when we’re way North, or for that matter way, South away from the equator, the sun is always lower in the horizon. So we don’t need the sloped front face.

The sloped windows there’ll be vertical because on the shortest day, December 22nd In the Northern hemisphere, right? This is maybe some of my ignorance of being in America, which is the shortest day of the year is different than the Southern hemisphere, I believe, but the shortest day of the year. So you get massive sun in your building on the shortest day, which is heat.

So we’ll, we’ll tweak some things like that. You know, sun angles, if there’s trees around you views. And, and for that matter, also, if it’s super, super hot, the building will be deeper. So that you’re farther away from the extreme temperature.

Ben: [00:28:26] Actually, it makes a lot of sense. And for a lot of these houses, do you recommend having some sort of backup heating on that propane tank as well?

Or shouldn’t, shouldn’t need it if you’re in the far extremes.

Jonah: [00:28:39] You never really need it at all. Even if it’s super extreme, because we’ll, we’ll, like I said, we’ll tweak the design so that you never need fossil fuels is the point. It’s the responsibility of design professionals, engineers, architects. We call ourselves biotech it’s to provide shelter.

They’re never going to run out of power water. They don’t even have to think about the building it come in and turn lights off on and off. And they just live. So when I’m hearing these things in this world of people having issues, even from hurricanes and earthquakes, wiping out buildings, it’s insane these days.

So so that’s, that’s why I’m saying it’s our responsibility to create buildings that, that you don’t have to have any kind of a backup. Now, that being said, if you’re outside all day or even. Inside all day at the office. And it’s just 20 below from when you parked your car to, when you walk into your house, it’s fricking cold.

You want to come in and flip a switch and feel you and the right fireplace, a heater. That’s nice. That’s okay. It is okay to have that, you know, so yes, you’ll have some kind of a heating element to do that, but to maintain comfort. You don’t need it in, in our ship.

Ben: [00:30:01] Yeah, that makes sense. is there a warming up period, as soon as you build this thing, it kind of has to find its median temperature with the sun and earth and all of these things.

Is there like a, a certain period of time that the, or ship needs to be broken in a little bit, right?

Jonah: [00:30:17] Yeah. So and, and same thing with the planters before they, the routes get down and established to really start treating the wastewater. In the first six months or so give or take a month. That’s when the temperature really stabilizes throughout the entire house.

It doesn’t really change much three to four, maybe five degrees throughout the year. And again, here in tests, we’ll get 20 below and 110 degrees. So maybe we’ll get a four degree shift throughout the year. So it takes about six months to stabilize, but there’s never cold spots. There’s never hotspots in inertia, like a convention.

Ben: [00:30:57] Okay. And then the food production itself, I mean, you’re expected to be able to completely grow and self sustain all of your own food for a family in this thing. Or you’re still going to have to go to the grocery occasionally. Like what kind of foods are you growing? And then what. Quantities within the house itself.

Jonah: [00:31:19] Right? So food production is really a by-product that just happened. And, and again, nothing is really invented. There’s nothing patented. This is just in, in most cases, except the really amazing and bigger ships, this just a rectangle planter like behind me. And the wastewater goes into it, the dirt, the plants, they really do everything.

It’s really incredible. And, and the plants go crazy. I mean, we’ve grown Bazell with bark in the last 10 years, as we’ve been focusing more and more on food production and COVID has really, really illustrated this because I don’t want to go to the grocery store. You know, my father, Mike Reynolds is about to turn 77.

I don’t want him going to the grocery store. You know, I don’t want my mother going to the grocery store. All these people have high risk. It’s, it’s crazy. It’s crazy that we’re even having an issue with COVID, you know, we need better leadership and all that, but that’s maybe for another podcast. So being home.

And if you’re not an ownership, you got to stock up. And so yes, there’s shelves on grocery stores, they get rated and people start treating each other poorly and on and on all those issues with poor leadership that that happens. So in an ownership with these planters, all the things that go down, our drains that plants absolutely love and go preserve con.

We’ll we’ll grow bananas and papayas and the winter Bazell tomatoes. It’s it’s incredible. Our company has about 30, pretty much 30 full-time people every Friday. We have lunch. And our food expert makes lunch from all the planters and all of our ships, which is a bunch of our shifts. That’s a huge bowls of lettuce.

And, you know, Einstein said, you have to live, you have to eat living food. And then you get the enzymes that are still in your gut when you’re eating it, that are alive. And so you know, if, if I’d say if you were a food expert, And, and you were really, really going at it really focused, really preparing your planters and growing all the right things and had your whole meal plan set out.

And you’re a vegetarian, you would never go hungry, but you know, Especially in the Western world. I say no way because the Western world has a horrible, horrible diet. And, and the portions are just out of whack. But you could definitely survive. And supplement yourself you know, you’re never going to grow enough wheat in inertia.

You know, we have fewer ships where you, where we have ponds, where we’re getting tilapia and all that. And so with COVID, you know, we’ve definitely been focusing on the planters and, and, you know, like my father at his leadership, he’s growing all kinds of vegetables. You know, I mean, just look at all the, the, the size of this planter behind me.

You can graze. All day long and you’re definitely not going to go hungry. You’ll survive. You’ll be just fine. But yes, you will be going to the grocery store.

Ben: [00:34:27] Yeah, love it. That’s really, really fascinating. I’m curious to dive into a little bit more on the construction and you, you touched on it a little bit with, you know, tires and the walls and mostly mud the certain type of roof that you said could also be concrete.

But if you could. And obviously you guys have done a number of these and they’re customized, but like what core characteristics do most of these earth ships have in terms of construction and how is that way different than, you know, the type of house I’m in now?

Jonah: [00:34:59] Right, right. It looks like you’re in a stick frame house as, as most, most buildings are in and pretty much the Western world.

So you have it’s and most of it is, is two by six, right. Which is actually five and a quarter or five and a half inches. So that’s the thickness of your wall inside of that five and a half inch cavity is batt insulation, the pink stuff. And that’s it. So when it’s really cold outside and really hot outside you have to turn on your air conditioner.

You have to turn on your heater. Otherwise it’s just, it’s unlivable. You know, your roof has insulation in it, same thing, but it’s not nearly enough. And then wood rots it’s weak. It burns. You can you can drive your truck right through your house, you know? So it’s no wonder hurricanes and earthquakes and all that.

Just obliterate those types of buildings in any kind of an environmentally friendly to use that phrase, building sustainable building your walls are going to have thermal mass outside of that thermal mass. You’re going to have installation. Thermal mass holds temperature. So whatever temperature modification you do on the inside, where your heater or your, or your air conditioner, whatever that thermal mass is going to hold it.

Right? Water Rander, Adobe rock stone fund glass, which is the pink bat stuff. Right? Installation is wood. So on the outs. Side of your wall. You want insulation that keeps temperature from moving from, from one side to the other, right? So that’s going to keep temperature out. You need to have enough of it, not just five and a quarter inches or something.

That’s basically worthless. So in our ship, a building that will not need any mechanical cooling, any flame. Especially in that electric heat, because anytime you use electricity to make heat, it is just absurd. The amount of electricity, those little toasters, you can put two bagels in that uses three quarters that, that uses like 750 Watts.

The entire power system on average, our ship is about 1.5 kilowatts. So when you turn on the toaster, it’s using half of your entire power system. The average conventional home uses between 15 and 25 kilowatts. It’s insane. So those posters, so is what you’re saying. Oh, there are, you can turn it off. Yeah.

But it’s gonna have an adverse effect. You know, the amount of electricity that our Western world uses is bizarre. It is insane. No wonder there’s, you know, power outages. So So to create a building that uses no electricity, no fossil fuels to stay comfortable, right? It isn’t the code three feet off the ground that you have to have at least 70 degrees, 69 degrees.

It is in the code. It’s never enforced to do that with no fossil fuels. For some reason, earthships are the only buildings that do that. And that’s not okay. Nothing’s patented, nothing’s trademarked. We teach people, but for some reason, no other companies, no other architects, which are liable in my opinion, don’t do that.

But to do a building that does that, you have to have a certain amount of thermal mass. When you compact that thermal mass around 95, 97% compaction, super, super hard into rammed earth and tires. Which is about four to five wheelbarrows full per tire, two 35, 15 tire, basically a truck tire. That thermal mass is going to work a lot better in terms of holding temperature.

Right. And it’s two and a half feet thick, not the two by six thick, so it can create a tremendous amount. It can support. I think giant snow loads or think about giant hurricanes, right? Or earthquakes. Nothing is earthquake proof. Nothing is hurricane proof. But for ships. And this is why insurance companies and bank companies and fire departments and emergency services, lover shifts, because there are very low risks.

There are going to make it through any disaster fire. Isn’t going to burn through dirt, you know, rammed earth and tires. The wood on the windows behind me will go away, but the structure will always be there. So that’s the main structure outside of those rammed earth and tires. We have berms that you’ll, you know, if you Google our ships, you’ll see pictures of our ships now always had the big Burma around them.

That’s just more thermal, mass. That’s all so that we can get that comfort inside whether it’s 20 at now. That’s the main structure of ownership, the round earth and tires in the roof. That’s where we put all the installations. So we’ll have. Eight inches of rigid insulation, you know, basically like an , which is not really possible.

I mean, you can add things up. For, you know, a bunch of layers of four inch rigid or two inch rigid to get to eight inches or like on my place, I got 12 inches of rigid insulation. Basically nothing is going to go out, you know, no temperature is going to go out the roof. And, and that’s kind of conventional, you know, out of Germany, passive house where you have a certain amount of installation around the building.

Around a conventional frame building, right? You’re still going to need some heat, but it’s light years better than, you know, for example, the building urine, just a whatever frame home or something like that. The most people in the Western world live in. But when you have that level of insulation where the envelope is sealed, right, there are no, no microscopic air leaks through that sealed envelope of the passive house, then You you add that quality of insulation with thermal mass.

And you have a home that’s going to perform and be off grid no matter what, any 20 below 120 degrees, whatever. So the heating and cooling aspects are directly tied with the structure, you know, a door and a door from the, from the outside. And then the equator facing side, which in the Northern hemisphere, South Southern hemisphere is facing North their ship behind me faces South.

Those are just double pain. Conventional standard sized windows. Right. They have a certain R value. Not very good. And so like, we were talking earlier, if you’re in a S like 20 below, you’re going to have two rows of greenhouse windows. Right. And then, and then, so. To keep them warm. Like we were talking earlier, the, the sun comes through that front face and it heats all that thermal mass.

And we kind of employ cave technology with cooling tubes to bring in cool air when it’s 120 outside. So that’s pretty much how it works.

Ben: [00:41:58] All of these materials. And again, you guys, how many of these are ships? Have you built today?

Jonah: [00:42:05] We’ve, we’ve done hundreds and hundreds, if not a thousand or 2000.

Okay.

Ben: [00:42:10] Yeah. I mean, it’s evolved like over 50 years, right. But maybe a thousand, couple thousand of these earth ships. Since, since

Jonah: [00:42:18] the big yeah, since the beginning and we have books that’s on our website at, or shipt.com that teach people how to do it. So there’s probably an equal amount that individuals have done.

We’ve heard about some of them.

Ben: [00:42:30] Yeah. And maybe that’s a good transition is a lot of the things you guys do at earth ships. It’s looks like you have online academies and, and books and how to guides. Maybe at this point, like what it is you do as a company, how, how you facilitate these earth ships being built.

Jonah: [00:42:51] Yeah. So we’re, we’re we feel very strongly about open source and not really patenting or trademarking things in general. As a capitalist society tends to do especially something like help people. So designs, these, this technology, these methods fundamentally help people. So the stress and struggle to live, to survive.

Just fades away. And so with very little effort, once you’re in them, you’re you actually start to thrive. So we feel a very strong responsibility to, to share and give what we’ve discovered which, you know, with all humility, we think is one of the greatest things ever people in our ships there’s.

You’re always going to survive. You’re never going to be homeless. You’re never going to be have poverty. You’re never going to run out of food. You’re never going to freeze in your bed. You know, you’re always going to be able to flush your toilet, all of these things. And when you have that, You don’t have the stress struggle to survive.

You don’t need the nine to five job. Right. Working becomes a choice. Every, everyone becomes an artist kind of thing. Everyone starts to treat each other much, much better because they’re just happy. You know, they’re not all stressed out from the rat race, you know, to be brief about it. So everything we do is teaching.

Everything on our website for nine 95 a month you know, we gotta keep the lights on. We have full construction sets for that price, you know, so yeah, so you can join for a month, download the drawings, cancel your membership, get access to all the webinars and all kinds of other stuff we throw in there to try and keep you on monthly.

And, and so you can take these drawings with the books that we have. Get yourself some land, maybe attend our online Academy. Again, that’s leadership.com or not. You can just get our book, get our drawings, build your ownership and your set, you know? And so we have a school, a full-on school that we’ve been doing for about 15 years now called the Earthship Academy.

Where you can. It’s a tuition it’s classrooms, it’s tests, it’s teachers it’s in the field. We are the only, the world’s most advanced. We are way ahead of any other school. And I’ve heard the university of Oregon is at the top of the heat for the whatever UC system. Nothing is really in the field to PR and not to talk shit about them or anything.

You know, we’re all moving forward and we’re all in the home team, but. There is no field studies, you know, they don’t actually do what they’re teaching. And so we partner with schools like a Western college out of, out of Colorado and university of New Mexico and other other places, you know, I’ve taught at temple university in Pennsylvania and outside of the United States, but we have a full on school where, where.

People of all ages can come here. It’s a full on classroom setting, but it’s in the, I feel and it’s based on yeah, 50 years of research and development. If you want to call it of us traveling the world. I mean, we’ve been to some incredibly harsh environments not just climate, but poverty after disasters.

We’ve learned from building and teaching in Africa, building and teaching in the current, in the Caribbean building and teaching in Bolivia. And we integrate that into what we have in, in what we call the earth now, because people live differently on wherever you are, certain continents, you know? Most of human history.

People have lived as a community, not just a single family like that, you know, which is much more sustainable as a community. So we have a on school, we have four or five semesters a year, you know it’s about a month or two months long. You can graduate. We have a whole program where you go through three builds, beginning to end.

You have a field study. Tests and quizzes, and then we would recommend you to potential clients. If that’s your angle, if that’s what you want to do, or we’ll just hire you and bring you onto our crew. So it’s a full on school. And again, because of COVID we have an online school as well, where you can do everything.

Obviously you can get into the field. But yeah, everything’s at earthship.com and there’s the school. And then, like I said, we have books the light years ahead and obviously relevant today and decades ahead, still that break everything down so you can get the book. And this has happened many times where we’ll get a post volumes, one, two, and three, three books.

We built our ship things and that’s it. So, yes, there’s education is extremely important and, and it is critical. And this might be a little socialist or whatever you call it, that our government should mandate this, that this is taught for free and accessible, right. Water should be a right. Healthcare should be right.

Accessible to shelter that will take care of you for no utility bills should be a right.

Ben: [00:48:13] Yeah. And I’ll make sure and link to all of these things in the show notes, because it’s fascinating all of these different links and resources that you guys are providing. we’ve talked about the benefits, what these look like the construction, how they’re off grid.

All of these things. Like it makes sense. Right? I think the best next portion of the conversation would be around cost. you’re using packed earth and tires and all of these other things, but what is kind of the range of costs for these things? Is there a secondary market or people living in them for a few years and then selling them so you can buy used earth ships?

You know, if you could just expand on all of these things. what I’m looking for is the cost per square foot to build would be X. You know, some sort of range and then touch on the resale sort of thing.

Jonah: [00:49:08] So we have a few different designs, the simple survival, which is simple and small and smaller systems that can be as low as $140 a square foot, depending on, you know, some, some details and finishes, always tweak that we have something called the encounter or ship, which is aimed at.

You know, conventional buildings, it’s rectangle it’s, it’s right around you know, one 90 a square foot. And I know that’s more than conventional buildings. And then there’s the global model or a ship, which is nice. And that’s maybe two 20, a square foot. The global model is gonna work a little better.

You know, that temperature change is going to be a little minute more minimal, you know, things like that. That’s not to say that they all will keep you comfortable in any content. But you’re not going to have any utility bills. Right. So typically when you, when you build them and our ship or have a contractor build you a building, you know, we travel the world and build for everyone.

Yeah. Anywhere.  You’re gonna have a mortgage, right? In a conventional situation. You’re going to have utility bills, probably another $700 for all of them together. In ownership. You’re not going to have that. So even in your first few months of being in an ownership, you’re paying less per month.

Right because nine times out of 10 it’s fighting nest. If you happen to have 300, 400 grand laying around, you don’t have to finance it. You’re extremely rare and extremely lucky. Because building a building is very expensive. It is, you know, it is between two and 200 grand and up. And so that’s that those are new builds.

Like I said, we’ll, we’ll do them all over the place and we have a few communities in Taos, New Mexico kind of aimed at getting people to get land easier. With their ship concept. And then we built for them also.

Ben: [00:50:59] it’s normally a thousand square foot is kind of the minimum. you’re looking, you know, 120 plus 300 K kind of, kind of minimum.

Jonah: [00:51:09] Yeah. Yeah. Give or take, you know, and, and things can be tweaked. You can get into a smaller ship first, get established, save money each month. Cause it’s cheaper each month and then either have us back or do it yourself. Or hire local subcontractors that we work with because that is also more affordable and it spreads the knowledge and spreads the love and add on a few more bedrooms kind of a thing, right?

It’s very important that you get into inertia for the easiest way, and then you’re safe forever. Then you can really add more, build more room and all that.

Ben: [00:51:42] you can buy the smallest one and then kind of expand and turn it into like your own kind of earth ship that fits more of your needs at that time.

Jonah: [00:51:50] That’s especially when it gets more affordable. Right? So, so there’s that those are new builds and keep in mind that the most sustainable building is the building that is already built. So we highly recommend retrofitting where you can, even though that can be expensive, but the grand scheme of things, a million.

The buildings is going to be a huge, positive difference compared to a million new worships. Even though we use respect materials and all that now, yes. People do get into ownership and then sometimes yeah, they sell them. You know, there’s been our shifts that have been over the years have sold three, four or five times.

And so what we found is that, and that all, that’s all normal things, you know title companies, insurance companies, it’s all, you know, banks that finance them. It’s all normal, you know a normal process it’s happened many, many times, but what we found is that insurance companies actually prefer or ships because the, there.

They’re not going to be a total loss. There’s not gonna be a total loss when there’s an earthquake or hurricane. So insurance companies basically have to pay out less, right. As opposed to, you know, in the Midwest, in the U S a tornado comes by and just wipes it clean out. Right. Banks like to finance our ships, whether they’re new or reselling and all that better because they’re again, a lower risk.

So. Therefore your payments could potentially be less on an ownership as opposed to a conventional building. And of course, anything, environmental, these days is more valuable. So it’s better to, you know, it’s a good investment to buy in our shit. We also have our ships that we build is this happens with clients that become nightly rentals on Airbnb, right?

So people can experience that. It’s a great investment that way. And that happens all the time. Totally normal, the most popular Airbnb. In fact, the top five most popular Airbnb is in Taos County are all our ships. People are actively seeking out green environmental stuff. So it’s good there. And, and so, so, you know, earth ships you know, I’d say 20 years ago, we, we would probably have to hold the hand of getting, you know, our ships financed or ships resold, or any of those things, but these days it’s normal.

And, and I’d actually say in most cases it’s actually better and easier. Okay.

Ben: [00:54:16] And what is. What is the timeline for construction? I say, Hey, I want an earth ship. I want you guys to do the whole thing. I want the top of the line. You know, here’s, I’ve got financing or I’ve got 350 K ready to go. What does, what does it kind of look like?

Jonah: [00:54:35] Right. So typically on a construction loan banks will Dole out the money so that they see progress, or you’re not just take a whole chunk and nothing happens. So that will but you know, if you show progress enough, like typically it’s every two weeks and then we’ll get another big chunk, but that’s with financing.

But like, like you said, if, if the whole budget is there and we we’ve. Even though banks do Dole it out. It doesn’t really slow us down. Yeah. So a global model, two, three bedroom worship we’ll do in about eight or nine weeks and that’s moving quick, right? That’s like, think about a Lego set.

Right? All the little bags of Legos are laid out and they’re organized. You have your instruction book. You have your space where you’re going to build all the Lego pieces are all like in the right order. So you don’t have to go over other Lego bags to get to those same thing on a, on an ship bill. We lay out all the, all the materials so that the things we’re going to use sooner or closer to us, you know, that kind of thing.

We have our crew of about 12 people and we’ll set up tents or use local classrooms, universities, and partner with them for the classroom space and of course dorms or, or Airbnb or whatever. And so that’s how we’re able to build, you know, a typical two, three bedroom worship in eight to 10 weeks.

Right. That’s moving quick. I’d say most of the time it could get to, you know 12 weeks maybe four months kind of a thing. It depends on what the needs are of the client. If we’re getting closer to the winter, you know, whatever, that kind of thing. So we might move faster to avoid that or slower for whatever reason, but typically it’s, you know, three months, four months or so obviously it depends on the sties.

The simple survival or ships are much faster and easier. They typically use a lot less wood but that’s generally the timeline. And of course the more affordable it is, cause you know, Eight weeks of labor is cheaper than 12 week, 12 weeks of labor, but that’s us doing it, turnkey all finished.

We’ll also do a shell and systems so that, you know, we’re specialized, right? Your average it’s contractor, your average electrician, plumber, whatever in your area, probably doesn’t know how to do an Earthship. But that’s why we have our ship Academy. And so we’ll typically come in and we’ll do the shell and system.

So on the outside it looks done. It’s weathered in it’s the structure. Is there all the systems. That are different and fairly unique are done. And you know, the client has the peace of mind that it’s done, right? It’s going to function. All of our systems are designed so that a local electrician, local plumber, local finisher, local whomever can come in.

Why are the house normal connect to our power module? Come in plumb the house, normal connect to the water module and the gray Blackwater planters, all the finishes or whatever, you know, the walls can be drywall. On top of the tire walls, which you get into a flat plane. So the shell and systems can be 30% cheaper and obviously faster.

And then, you know, but still you got to have locals finish it. And then when you’re building yourself, right, like if you go to our ship Academy and then go home and build, or if you get our books and build, typically that takes longer. But when you’re doing it yourself, it’s a lot cheaper, right? So you can spend maybe two years building your own small two bedroom or shit for, you know, less than half of what it costs to have us come in, if that.

Ben: [00:58:10] Right. And that makes sense. I mean leverage you guys as knowledge and experience for certain key aspects and then hire out local contractors to do like some of the other stuff. I totally get that. I’m curious. who is your ideal? Obviously, these things can be built everywhere, but what is the perfect.

Location for something like this, lots of sunlight, mid mid-level temperatures year round, like what is paint me the perfect picture of the climate for where an earth ship should be.

Jonah: [00:58:45] Well, I’ll get to the physical climate, but the ideal situation is disasters, poverty, homelessness, inner cities. Which is a disaster in every single inner city.

It is, it is horrible. What’s, what’s what’s going on. That’s the ideal place that we, that we go to. And every disaster we hear about, like the just happened in Beirut, which we’re getting ready to go to. That’s why we do what we do so we can get there. Obviously we, we teach, but we go to these demonstrate, teach.

And then it spreads the ideal climate. We don’t really have a preference.  You know, like I was saying earlier, I’d say Taos New Mexico is one of the harder climates, just because we get so little amount of precipitation and water is life. And we do get extremely cold winter so that we, so, you know, nothing like way Northern Canada, but we’re able to figure out how to make our ship perform when it is super, super crazy cold and super crazy hot, and you know, not enough water.

You know, wastewater doesn’t really matter where you are planters on the inside planters on the outside. So anywhere else besides Taos New Mexico is easy for that matter, because we’ve been here for 50 years, it is also easy. We just know what to do. So it’s, nothing’s really new here. So, but I deal the easiest place is where you get at least 14 inches to 15 inches of rain a year.

It doesn’t get to halt, you know, Goldilocks zone, doesn’t get too hot. It doesn’t get too cold. But you know, when you tell when, when you, you know, basically the tropics is the easiest, but when you ask me what’s the ideal place, I’m going to say the place where the need is the greatest, where there’s the most suffering, where there’s the most need.

That’s where we want to go. And that’s where we do go.

Ben: [01:00:35] What sort of person should not go into an Earthship? Like, are there any issues with mold or anything like this that like, you know, claustrophobic, I hate caves, like there’s cave, like aspects of the depths of the house. you shouldn’t be there. Like, who would you just say?

You know, I know these things are great for the world, but like, you’re just not a good fit. So, sorry.

Jonah: [01:01:02] Right, right. Well, you know, the short answer is nobody you know but earthships are really form follows function, so they look like they do so that we can provide comfort. With no fossil fuels, no, no machine, no moving parts.

But you know, like, like like the, the point about the shell and systems so that once we learn about what the current client needs or a disaster zone needs but you know, typical clients in a Western world, when we see that their budget isn’t that. Hi, or quite enough, or they like a certain view or they don’t like bugs or they don’t like plants or anything, anything, it doesn’t matter what it is.

It’s the responsibility of the design professionals to create an environment where they’re comfortable and everyone has a right to live, however they want and they should live. However they want. Not. As long as it doesn’t hurt the planet, you know, or hurt other people or other life and all that. So we have a standard design and then we can tweak it for a view, right.

Or we can tweak it for any kind of a personal preference. You know, we’ve had clients that have had 20 lights over around the mirror in their bathroom because they wanted it. That’s okay. Or they want to. They have a bunch of toasters or whatever it is. That’s okay. That’s okay. You know, we’re, we’re not going to judge, we’re going to say, we’re going to make sure they’re making an informed decision and we’re gonna make sure they’re spending their money properly and there, we’re gonna make sure they’re getting into a building that they’re going to be happy with.

We’re not doing it just to make a sale or just to make money, even though we use every penny of profit and beyond that to go to these disaster relief zones. But. That’s kind of, that’s what we do when we have clients and situations, climate as well as disaster that needs certain things. And it doesn’t matter what it is we can, we can accommodate so that the building is still doing its thing without any fossil fuels at all.

And can still be affordable for that particular budget. Right. And, and but to specifically answer your question, if there is someone that I would say shouldn’t be in an ownership I would probably want to make sure that, that the information is understood so that. You know yes, I’m my political views might lean a little to the left.

So what just popped into my head is someone that is extremely opposite of, you know, the typical person you might judge to be in an environmentally friendly home, which are ships are actually. Just right-wing as much as they are. Left-wing because they provide security, they provide safety there, you know, maybe a lot of people have fought that.

Typical Republican values is, is, is what is it called? Financial responsibility, even though that’s nonsense, because it seems like every Republican president destroys the budget, but you know, whatever for, for right wing or, or, or, or certain viewpoints that are just have no care or love or anything for.

The Beaver or the wasp, or, you know, whatever, just making a point here. Those are still ideal people to be in our ships. You’re going to walk into your house and you’re going to live and that building should take care of you period, with no fossil fuels. So therefore there is no person that I would say shouldn’t be an ownership and there are tweaks to make earth ships do make you.

Interface with plants and weather and the rhythms of the planet. So I’d say if you don’t even want to deal with that, if you don’t want any plants in your room or whatever fine, we’ll, we’ll tweak it a little, not a big deal.

Ben: [01:05:05] Right. Makes sense. This earth, you know, I think this whole off-grid especially with the rise of this work remotely work from anywhere sort of mentality.

I mean, you know, I was saying before we started I’m in LA and you’re looking at. $1,500 per square foot in most places like on the coast. And it’s just crazy. For me, that people still think that this is, you know, you get caught up in it and it’s yeah, it’s, it’s a great deal.  Yeah, I really liked the idea.

I romanticize about it. You know, buying some low cost land in a desirable spot that fits this, you know, 14 inches of rain, lots of sunshine, lower cost building one of these earth ships and, and living a pretty nice little life there. I think lastly, I just wanted to say, you know, Jonah, thanks for all of your time.

And where can people find out more about what you guys are working on? Where do you suggest my listeners go to you know, start their journey down and find out more about earthships.

Jonah: [01:06:08] Yeah. Check us out at earth, ship.com E a R T H S H I p.com. Everything is there from, you know, the books and videos and school and all kinds of news items about people doing our ships all over the world.

Our projects that’s the place and, you know, there’s a lot of webinars and things that you can do while we’re all quarantined. And but yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s at earthship.com and You know, definitely tell your friends all about this. Everyone who’s listening. Cause this is really good stuff and take care of each other.

Ben: [01:06:42] Awesome. Thank you so much, Jonah. I really appreciate it.

Jonah: [01:06:46] All right. Thank you.

Ben: [01:06:47] There you go. Jonah Reynolds with her ship. So firstly, thanks for listening. And if you enjoyed that, please share it with somebody that you think might be interested in learning a little bit more about living off grid or living in earth ships.

I really appreciate it. Also just wanted to mention that I’m always. Open for feedback or recommendations. If you have a platform, an alternative investment that you’d like me to feature or investigate in a little bit more detail, please just send me a message on any of the social medias or info at all.

Asset allocation.com. Lastly, please subscribe to the podcast or on YouTube. And then these sorts of likes or comments. These are always appreciated and help other people find the podcast or YouTube out there. Thanks a lot. Have a great day and good luck investing.