Events

Tours

Pat and Chuck offer tours of their house, by appointment only. Tours cost $20.00. Please call +1 613 474 0435 to make an appointment.

Course: Earth Home Construction

Learn to build a house like that of the Potters!

Participants will learn the techniques of building with used automobile tires to construct a passive solar home, while gathering information on sustainable living and touring the earth home on the premises. This is a hands-on class; participants are expected to dress for construction work and for the weather, and to be interested in two full days of physical activity. Discussion, and an information book written by the instructor, are included in the course.

Participants are asked to bring safety glasses, leather work gloves, rubber or latex gloves for cement work, a sledge hammer (6 lb or 8 lb) and steel-toed safety boots.

We really recommend that all participants read "Earthship -- Volume 1: How to build your own Earthship" by Michael Reynolds. (Published by Solar Survival Press; ISBN 0-9626767-0-5). (Link to review of this book and its companion volumes) Reading this book will give you a full understanding of the basic design concepts behind the house, enabling you to get much more out of the course's hands-on experience.

The course includes a complimentary copy of "Earth Home Living" by Chuck Potter and a tour of a cabin retrofitted usig these techniques.

Courses usually run for two days on a Saturday and Sunday from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Course Content:

Day one:

• Introduction.
• Safety requirements.
• Site rules.
• Course materials.
• Reading tire size numbers and sorting tires.
• Rain water removal from tires.
• Building layout and orientation.
• Site elevations and lowest point.
• Trench width, depth and leveling in relation to floor level.
• Installation positions of plumbing and footing drains.
• Trenching through obstacles such as roots and rocks.
• Door footings.
• Insulating outwards from footings and walls.
• Placing the first tire.
• Installing the vapour barrier.
• Placing cardboard inserts in tires.
• Filling buckets with dirt.
• Packing the first row of tires.
• Aligning the tire wall, horizontally and vertically.
• Placing the second row of tires.
• Half-tire spacers: rock fill in a box.
• Mixing concrete.
• Covering the tire wall.
• Cement storage.
• Tool clean up and storage.

Day two:

• Techniques for parging walls.
• Safety precautions.
• Tools and materials.
• Mixing concrete.
• Mixing parge.
• Hands-on mixing parge.
• Hands-on mixing concrete.
• Hands-on pop-can fill.
• Hands-on first and second coats of parge.
• Hands-on final parge.
• Hands-on smooth concrete finish.
• Tool clean-up and storage.

Dates:

To be announced.

Cost:

$250.00 per day per person ($500.00 total) plus provincial sales tax ($500.00 + $20.00 PST = $520.00). Payment due before 9:00 Am on Saturday. Cash, cheque, or Visa. Please make cheques payable to "Earth Home Gallery".

There is a maximum of six participants for this course. Participants must pre-register.

Location:

For both courses:
Earth Home Gallery, 22227 Highway 62 (approximately 20 km south of Bancroft; approximately 30 km north of Highway 7).

Students are asked to bring safety glasses, gloves, and steel-toed work boots. Bring sledge hammers (preferably 6lb+) for the tire packing.

Dress for the weather. Remember to bring water and sunscreen (and insect repellent if needed). Please bring all food and beverages. 

Contact:

Pat or Chuck Potter, +1 613 474 0435, for more information or to reserve a space in either of these courses.