Recycled House, Recycled Food, Really Nice People

Brian and Karen Gubb are downright lovely people. One day Brian decided that he would build a house out of recycled tyres and earth so he did a bit of research and found the concept already existed and was called an Earthship – pioneered by Mike Reynolds in New Mexico back in the 70s. Six years and two thousand tyres later Brian and his family have a unique dwelling that is nearing completion.

Northern side of the Gubb Earthship

Life on their 18 acre farm is a far cry from most urban dwellings. The loo is ‘composting’, which is code for an outdoor shed with a large tub to catch whatever falls through the rickety hole over it – I never did find out where it was emptied and I think it’s best that way.

The chickens and pigs wander around checking any passers by for food and at times I wondered if the pigs were going to have a little nibble just to see how I tasted. Some of the sows topped 200kg so it was no wonder the kids (& I) were a bit wary of them.

Power comes from their solar and set up and backup generator, hot water from a wood fired water heater.

The indoor vege garden was not producing a whole lot yet, but never fear, there was loads of recycled food.

Inside the Earthship - top floor

Actually, I would like to dedicate a couple of paragraphs to this topic as it may be new to many of you, and although I was well aware of it, this was to be my first encounter.

Some call it free-ganism, others call it unthinkable, the Gubbs called it ‘shopping’, but most people will know it by the term ‘dumpster diving’.

Brian would take half a dozen 44 gallon drums into town where he would get a load of discarded fruit, vegies and breads/cakes ‘for the pigs’.

Strictly speaking, most of it was for the pigs, but a fair proportion was skimmed off for the humans.

The truck would turn up with a trailer load of these drums and we would have the rather inglorious task of rummaging through the bruised and squished fruit, the packets of bread the unique aroma that only overripe food can produce, to find our staples for the next few days.

Once sorted, it would be taken inside, scrubbed and stashed in the ‘cool room’, which was a room about as far from the image that is generated by the word ‘cool room’ as one can get. Picture tyres and dried mud, loose pallets for flooring and an ever present  musty smell. Granted, it was cooler than the rest of the house.

After my first unload of ‘the shopping’ I was faced with a tasty looking grape. Now this grape, after its little bath, looked like any grape I had eaten before. It was red, plump and full of the promise of sweet grapey goodness – but I knew that minutes before it had been covered with a fine combination of squished banana and slightly moldy rockmelon.

Had I swanned into a fruit and veg store and seen this little grape on the shelf I would not have hesitated popping it into my mouth, however I knew this grape’s recent history far too well. Swallowing my fears (sorry for the pun) I overcame prejudice and found that after all, it was still a rather tasty red grape.

Really it was a bit sad that simply because a couple of its brothers and sisters on the bunch were a bit past their used by date, it had been thrown out. In fact much of the food was still in packets and was chucked simply because it was close to its used by date or had damaged packaging.

After a week of free-ganism (I like that term) I am convinced that it is a good way to save a whole bunch of wasted food from landfill, at this stage however I am not yet prepared to rummage through the dumpsters myself.

Hiking through the native Ponga forests around the farm

Now I’m not quite sure how a mormon security guard decided upon the path that he did, but there is no doubting Brian’s talent for ingenious thinking and ‘going with the flow’ during a build that has lasted twice as long as he first thought (and there is at least a year or two in it by my reckoning).

The house is large. around 300 square meters of floor space and it has been carefully oriented to the North to maximise passive heating and the growth of indoor plants, which dominate the glasshouse style windows, that were actually from a glasshouse (apart from a few safety glass sheets that had to be installed over the bathroom and staircase due to building codes).

The house is split level and has a lovely view of the forested hills that surround the property. Interestingly, the Waikato District Council were pretty untroubled by his unorthodox building and it went from sketches to approval in only a few weeks.

When completed, it will be a triumph to building a place out of waste materials and it will serve as an inspiration to others. Brian and Karen reckon it will cost them less than 30K to build their dream home. You can find out a bunch more about their place at http://homepages.callplus.net.nz/~b.gubb/earthship.html

It was a pleasure working with the Gubbs and they certainly brought us into their family and shared their lives with us. We learnt many new skills and techniques and loved spending time with our fellow WWOOFers Deanna & James (Canadians) and Lel (New Zealander).

First week of WWOOFing, thumbs up.

Brian Gubb, Earthship creator and lovely WWOOF host.