'Recycled' Solar Homes

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

LOW MAINTENANCE

Reynolds likes to compare his $55,000 creation (which is almost completed) with the $57,000 home bought by the average American last year: "For one thing, thermal mass and sun power drastically reduce the amount of money the owner will have to spend for heat, hot water, and climate control."

The unique dwelling is also relatively maintenance-free. As Mike points out: "We didn't need to build foundations, because the mass of the tire walls distributes the weight evenly. The pit also adds its own protection from the elements, so the structure's exterior walls require little care . . . and there's no danger of water or frost damage."

Another advantage of "litter" houses comes in the form of a substantial savings in material costs. Local garages paid Mike to haul away the tires, and he got cheap beverage cans by offering slightly more than the local recycling center. Thus, his structures save money both at the time of construction and in future energy and maintenance demands. On the other hand, Mr. Average's home is a notorious energy guzzler, deteriorates without constant maintenance, and is often aesthetically sterile.

A CAN HOUSE

A different example of a Reynolds-built house is underway for Taos artist Ron Gobel. However—while the structure illustrates Mike's building techniques—he cautions that it's designed to the tastes of its wealthy buyer.

Gobel's house is constructed of double layers of aluminum cans which surround three to six inches of fiberglass or polyurethane insulation. Reynolds has experimented with blocks made of six cans wired together, but this technique proved too costly in labor. Now, he works with individual cans cemented in place and adds wire lath at intervals to tie all the sections together.

In Mike's earlier can houses the containers forming the inner walls were filled with water to provide thermal mass. Although such a method works well, the designer dropped it because of the sheer number of cans required. (The Gobel house, for example, has already incorporated some 125,000 containers.) "I used to pay a brewery for water-filled cans," Mike says, "but I had to buy 'em in huge lots, and I felt I was just getting back into the system again." (Of course, while the cost in time and labor to fill several hundred thousand containers with water is naturally prohibitive to a commercial contractor, an individual home builder might do the work him- or herself.)

But since empty cans (which are used in Gobel's house) provide no thermal mass, Mike provides heat storage with "water walls" constructed of four-inch-thick steel tanks in which are set large solar collectors. He ran into a more serious problem, however, when the artist asked for windows on the north side of his studio. Such a "northern exposure", of course, completely contradicts the whole idea of solar heating.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print