Editing Talk:Earthships

It is silly and wasteful not to just copy this kind of article from WP.  Just put a note at the bottom saying that it was copied from WP on whatever date. Both sites use compatible copylefts.  WP gets much more contributions, but everything there is always subject to partial or total deletion.  Duplication is better than loss!-[[Special:Contributions/69.87.204.190|69.87.204.190]] 20:52, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

:Duplication can be good as a starting point, and I agree we should do more of it - adapting the articles to the focus here. But [[Appropedia is different from Wikipedia]], and many of the contributions here would not be accepted there, because they want a more limited type of content. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 00:18, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

:I have just done this with some pages, including adapting [[Wikipedia:Bedbug]] to make [[Bedbugs]] and [[Control and treatment of bedbugs]]. It's a lot of work to do it well, but it's yields good pages that invite more contributions.

:See [[User:Chriswaterguy/Wikipedia pages to adapt]] for pages to adapt in future. It will only be practical on a large scale if we have a team of people doing it. --[[User:Chriswaterguy|Chriswaterguy]] 19:44, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

== Merge? ==

I'd like for either [[Earthship]] and [[Earthships]] to be merged or for the latter to be retitled. I left a message on the talk page of [[User:Cuddles]], creator of [[Earthships]], to see which course of action they would prefer. --[[User:Ethan|Ethan]] ([[User talk:Ethan|talk]]) 21:52, 11 December 2015 (PST)
:Yes agree. [[User:Moribund|Moribund]] ([[User talk:Moribund|talk]]) 16:57, 17 February 2017 (PST)
::I decided to move that article to [[Earthships]] to leave it in its original form, but we can easily merge in info where needed. The greater challenge I see with this article is that it's a copy-and-paste from the article on Wikipedia, from over eight years ago. If you'd like I can make a cleaned-up copy of the current Wikipedia article that can be merged in. I already made [[Earthship sites|a separate article]] from [https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Earthship%23Examples one section of the Wikipedia article]. --[[User:Ethan|Ethan]] ([[User talk:Ethan|talk]]) 22:54, 22 February 2017 (PST)
:::Is there need to have a separate original, as that version would be available via the "view history" function? [[User:Moribund|Moribund]] ([[User talk:Moribund|talk]]) 09:54, 24 February 2017 (PST)

== Earthships hype vs earthship reality  ==

It would be good to provide more content on criticisms / failings of earthships and the for profit organisation earthship biotecture. Many times online I have read people saying that earthships do not perform as promised. The best summary of the arguments and criticisms against can be found on this page titled "Earthship Hype and Earthship Reality" [http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/earthship-hype-and-earthship-reality]. [[User:Moribund|Moribund]] ([[User talk:Moribund|talk]]) 11:56, 25 February 2017 (PST)
:Absolutely. One of the major focuses of Appropedia is to document the deployments of various techniques/technologies. Can we replicate the same results in different contexts? This is something I'd also like to see more of in the permaculture community also. I'll have to take a closer look at that article. From what I've read, it sounds like earthships are more [[appropriate]] to arid climates (where they were developed) than the cool-temperate climates that many people have built them in (Eastern N. America and Europe). --[[User:Ethan|Ethan]] ([[User talk:Ethan|talk]]) 17:45, 25 February 2017 (PST)
:Lots of good points worth considering in that article. Supposedly one-size-fits-all solutions are almost always bound to fail somewhere. The article notes several sites where climatic differences seem to have not been taken into consideration. Another point that I'd wondered about with earthships as well as other material reuse is off-gassing. The article mentions the problem of off-gassing tires has happened at least once. I haven't heard the criticism of off-grid design before: "Off-grid homes require large battery systems, and these batteries need to be replaced every six or eight years; that’s why off-grid electricity is almost always more expensive than grid-supplied electricity." Definitely worth investigating. --[[User:Ethan|Ethan]] ([[User talk:Ethan|talk]]) 18:43, 25 February 2017 (PST)

::Yes some people are saying it is a bad thing to try and store heat in the ground around your home if the ground is too cold and is mostly going to be sucking heat out of your home rather than giving heat back. Unless there is a way to artificially hold the earth surrounding the home at a higher temperature, [[passive annual heat storage|but that is another story]]. Furthermore, different climates will have different levels of precipitation and different number of sunny days per year, therefore rainwater catchment and solar power systems need to be sized appropriately for the climate. 
::Michael Reynolds seems to make some good arguments, with scientific evidence to support, that there is no off gassing if the tires are old and hidden from the sun, both of which will be the case in an earthship as they are just picking tires from the scrap heap and they will be plastered over. The main problem with making a tire wall from my point of view is that you need a large work force to pull it off. Earthship Biotecture seem to have crews of 40 people.
::Haven't done much research into battery banks for off grid power systems, but I have seen some people repurposing mass produced batteries like golf cart batteries. Surely such batteries wouldn't be that expensive to replace. [[User:Moribund|Moribund]] ([[User talk:Moribund|talk]]) 01:24, 26 February 2017 (PST)