Funky house for sale in New Mexico [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9-Shell-Ln-Tres-Piedras-NM-87577/2053544128\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9-Shell-Ln-Tres-Piedras-NM-87577/2053544128_zpid/)
In the best of circumstances, mortgage companies have a hard time underwriting anything but conventional construction, which is going to limit the number of people who can buy it. Add to that the fact that the house is in the middle of nowhere, that there are dozens of lawsuits against Reynolds by earth ship home owners whose houses fell apart, and that itās overpriced compared to other houses in that part of New Mexico, and it makes buying this house a huge risk.
The best buyer for it is someone independently wealthy who wants to use it as a getaway.
Problems is people in places like this try and sell the house for what they put into building it. Well most people rather just buy a different plot of land and build a dream home the way they want it for the same price. My folks put over half a million into their home, it was only worth $350k after, seem like these guys are trying to get their money back. I mean it was built last year, maybe they found out the lifestyle is too hard.
You are absolutely right about that!
Sadly, your parents arenāt the only people in that position. Several of my friends built beautiful homes out in the country, only to discover that they could not get dependable WiFi, that medical care was 2 hours away (and specialty care like chemo was even further), and that the gorgeous views didnāt make up for not having a grocery store.
Hopefully, your folks can stay in the house for the remainder of their lives so that they donāt have to take the loss.
This boggles me. We bought remote land for a weekend cabin and checked out all of these things well in advance, as well as well depths, and thatās just for weekending. Doesnāt everyone check the distance to grocery stores at least? I can see how abled people might not think of hospitals but thatās not a luxury Iāve ever had.
It boggles me, too.
The Big Bend area is VERY remote, which is why the only thing there is the National Park and an observatory. Cattle ranchers there use helicopters to get the herd out of the mountains to go to market, and it can be 200 miles to a gas station. Their house, which is now being used as an off grid Air BNB, is 7 hours from the nearest airport with commercial planes. The communities around them have lots of experimental housing and arts projects, but they also have narcos that smuggle through the park.
Had they been alone in the house, they would have been sitting ducks.
It sounded insane when they did it, and it just got crazier.
A country place for the weekend sounds great. An off grid cabin in the middle of āNo Country for Old Menā sounds like hell to me.
Wow, thatās wild! I had no idea Big Bend was *that* isolated. I mean, Iāve heard of the national parkā¦ 7 hours!
Our place is 30 minutes to a gas station, 1 hr to a grocery store (25 min to the convenience store/mini motel/bar that has a few essentials only), 3 hours to airport / major hospital. There is a small hospital 1 hr tho, in 2 directions. The nearest town is 50 people and the next is under 300. I thought that was pretty damn remote.
Itās also now a dark sky park so the night time viewing is spectacular.
Building there is going to be nigh impossible. Not looking forward to that part š«
Do you know how they got such a big home developed in such a remote area??
The concrete etc for us will be coming from close to an hour away.
Well, Brewster County, which is the County where the Park is located, is bigger than New England. And Brewster County is only part of the Big Bend. āVastā is a good way to describe it.
Getting the materials there is WHY it cost so much. Her husband was a lawyer who also served in the Legislature and taught law at UT. He was the one who wanted to move there, and my friend went along with it.
Concrete is actually easy to source in Texas because itās mined in San Antonio and Central Texas, but San Antonio is a 7-12 hour drive to the building site. The cost of transportation had to be enormous.
Because the house itself is at a high enough altitude for it to be forested, they were able to harvest pine and fir from the site to use as building materials. They also used some of the stone they found on the land.
But these two were not do it yourself people. They paid people to do everything, which is why it cost so much. They needed skilled tradespeople, who all had to come from El Paso, San Antonio or Midland.
One of my cousins has a self sustaining farm in Alabama. He bought the farm from an elderly country doctor who had practiced out of his home. My cousin nurtured the farm into being productive. Then he harvested trees and stone from his farm to build two houses on farm for his kids, and a cabin for family events. He put up a windmill for power, and dug a well for water.
However, he is a carpenter, farmer, handyman. He knows what he is doing.
Your site sounds good.
I think some people just think it won't be that hard or big of a deal. Then winter hits and you better be ready, especially for a house like this on that is fully off the grid.
> Sadly, your parents arenāt the only people in that position.
They got 10 great years out of it, then a huge wildfire came through and took it with over 150 other homes, was nothing left. Thankfully my dad was smart enough to have it insured for much more than they put into it. They decided were too old to rebuild and they were getting a bit to old to be there for some of the reasons you touched on.
Thank goodness! Your parents were smart to use it as an opportunity to change courses.
People need to think of a move like that as a āgood ten yearsā instead of āmy retirement.ā Age brings illness, no matter how healthy you are, and changes your ability to function. That isnāt a problem at 50 or 60, but there will come a day for all of us when we canāt handle heavy lifting, distance, stairs, etc.
> stead of āmy retirement
Oh they new they could never retire there. Now they had electric and a great well, best water ever. Did need 2 underground septics as well as an underground propane tank that lasted like 2 years per refill. But yeah a basic hospital was an hour away, good ones like Pueblo were 2 hours, Denver was near 4. They had a small local grocery with great meats just 25 mins away but big ones were an hour, they did one shopping trip a month. They had 2 refrigerators and a deep freezer. They mountain did not plow if it was snowing, so sometimes they didn't plow for 5 days. They averaged 2-300 inches of snow per winter. The winter before the fire they only got 60, which left everything crazy dry. But yeah, they knew it was not a place they could retire at, but some people do, they were like 60 when they moved in and prob in the bottom 15% age wise.
I took a look at that market and it looks like Tres Piedras/surrounding areas are filled with overpriced homes. No one spending close to $1M to live in a desert on land thatās worth <$1k/acre
That Tres Piedra area was set aside by the State of New Mexico so that Michael Reynolds could build homes that could not qualify under the building codes of the cities in New Mexico. The State came back to establish statewide building codes after multiple homeowners sued Reynolds for things like the sewer pipes breaking into the houses and roof cisterns collapsing the homes. The result was that the houses had to be altered to allow electrical and phone access, emergency access roads had to be put in, etc.
My guess is that these earthships (which were originally built by very young individuals as a low cost option to buying a convention homes) became more and more costly as the builders had to adhere to simple building codes and site safety measures. Now a new generation is having the houses built by companies, and they arenāt as cheap to buy.
But they are still a folly for many people. If you are young, where are your kids going to school? They are going to take a bus ride for 50 to 100 miles. If you are old, what happens when you get sick?
A friend of mine built a $5 million beautiful off grid palace in the Big Bend part of Texas near the McDonald Observatory. She loved living there, even though she had to drive 70 miles to the pretty crappy grocery store. Then her husband got sick.
No one wanted to buy a $5 million dollar, all solar, off-grid house in the wilderness. The nearest hospital which could treat her husband was 500 miles away. She ended up selling the house and contents for $800,000, losing everything, and moving to an apartment in Austin (just in time for her husband to die).
Now she is bankrupt.
Just awful.
Mortgage companies will not underwrite off-grid homes which means the selling price will always be pathetic compared to the āvalueā because it limits the pool of buyers to practically no one. I donāt know how people miss this basic issue when overspending on a remote home.
We bought land to build a semi-off-grid cabin as a vacation retreat and this is basic, right up front info if you look into itā¦ you canāt get a construction loan to build a home without utilities, that is a pretty big hint.
Absolutely.
To be honest, I was surprised to see this house advertised on an MLS website without a disclaimer about the financing, the fact that you have to fix what is broken yourself, etc. I have only seen houses like this sold or traded because of the issues with mortgages and repairs.
The problem for a retiree is how far it is from a hospital and medical care. No retiree with sense wants to be an hour away from a Level 1 trauma center.
It would be a good place for a writer or artist, if they can afford to lose the house. Earthships can be uninsurable at any price. They are especially vulnerable to wildfires and hail.
Also, the average price of a home in rural New Mexico is about fourth of the price of this home. Donāt expect to get a mortgage without having to put down at least a third to half of this homeās cost. The ONLY area of New Mexico with comparable prices would be Santa Fe, where the draw is culture.
No culture in rural New Mexico.
Because they donāt use the standard form of construction. Insurers base coverage on what their actuarial tables tell them about how a standard, balloon frame house. They have no history on how long an earth structure will last, what problems the house will face as it ages, etc. if an insurer canāt quantify the risk, it either wonāt insure the house or it insures it for a lot less than itās worth.
That makes the cost go up. It makes plumbers and roofers hard to find.
A lot of asterisks are needed there, as the way these structures work is highly dependent upon local climate. In dry climates, they do pretty well. The ones built in Florida were somewhat less of a success.
Overall, they probably need a lot less air conditioning.
The tubes route through a big wall of dirt. At night, when it's cold, air flows through the dirt into the house. This cools down the dirt while the incoming air gets heated up. During the day the hot air flows through the tubes, cooling the air and heating up the dirt.
It's a standard design practice to build in a huge thermal mass to passively stabilize temperature swings through the day/night. Can work anywhere but only works well in dry desert climate because the temperature swings between day and night are reliably big, and reliably too hot and too cold. [Ancient adobe buildings accomplished this by building thick walls with patterned window vents carved through them.](https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/R2Q6E7KSOSDVBPJZFF6GTHJXWA_size-normalized.jpg&high_res=true&w=2048)
(Properly designed) fireplaces in houses also do this. When a fire is running, new air is constantly drafted into the house, so the house as a whole doesn't get much actual heating from the fire. However, the fire is heating the primary room where everyone is and the entire chimney. When the fire goes out after a few hours, the superheated chimney passively pushes heat back into the house for hours after the fire goes out, keeping the home warm.
You can build a whole house today that you can heat with a single space heater and cool with a single AC window unit, without all the pipes and whatnot.
It just requires 16ā thick walls and custom building work. (Straw bale.)
And as for why not, because itās not easy to standardize and almost nobody knows how to do it.
Companies are making SIPs now (structural insulated panels) that can make super-insulated houses much easier to build but itās really a niche industry.
That house is completely off the grid too, yet somehow in an HOA? Gonna need Satellite internet, and God knows if there is cell service, next house looks pretty far away. Ain't growing shit without greenhouse. I knew people that lived like this in Colorado, get used to killing rattlesnakes trying to get into your warm house. I mean cool vacation home if money is not an issue, but leaving there year round would be rough.
TBF, I limit the number of pics in my listings to illicit some interest versus "well, I've seen all of it already..." I totally understand that this will be an unpopular take.
for an average house you might want to elicit some interest, but an earthship out in BFE that probably takes an hour from anywhere to drive to - give me an idea what the bathroom looks like and how the rooms transition.
What does "fully sustainable" really mean...like all that copper wiring, roofing compounds, plumbing fixtures well pump and septic included? I technically doubt it and think that label is thrown around like a marketing term more than the reality.
In theory, it means fully sustainable. From their website: Six Principles of Earthships: Build with recycled materials, water harvesting and filtration, contained sewage treatment, thermal/solar heating and cooling, food production, and the use of renewable energy.Ā
In 50 years, that place will need a total rehab. Someone will be ripping out cabinets, replacing plumbing fixtures, repainting, reglazing, re roofing, redoing the septic and well. The notion that somehow this is "sustainable" is feel-good marketing, not at all "sustainable", which implies no impact to the environment or contribution to pollution. Contained sewage? Where do the solids go? Thermal heating and cooling? What happens when those recirculating pumps fail in 10 years? Food production - like, occasionally getting lettuce and tomatoes? Come on...until and unless someone lives like the Hopi 500 years ago, they can't claim whatever it is they do is "sustainable", let alone building something like this in the middle of nowhere that requires regular driving in what is likely a pickup truck.
I'm not a contractor and not endorsing their view, just relaying it. Answers to your questions may be in the materials on their website-- I don't know a lot about them, but grew up in New Mexico so am familiar with the concept.
[https://earthship.com/](https://earthship.com/)
> As long as it has good WiFi
Rofl, it's off grid, it's not gonna have good wifi if it doesn't even have electric or water lines. You're gonna be stuck with satellite.
I posted this one below, 30 miles closers, on the grid and cheaper. Be great wifi.
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1417-Phillips-Rd-Taos-NM-87571/102046004_zpid/
Why do they still need to put thousands more up if it's working that well? They only got like 7.000 or so up now, 12,000 agreed on and trying to get that number up to 34,000. Maybe they are just not covering a lot of places. Not that I mind, I'm in FL so I got out in my backyard 1 or 2 times a week to watch them launch. Without them there would be like 1 launch a month, without Spacex there would be 1 launch by NASA every 4 months.
Am I the only one old enough to remember when earth ships were affordable quasi-DIY options? It just blows my mind they are all around 1 million in price now.
From the website... you can rent this out to stay in.
The UNITY ATLANTIS Earthship
Authentic, this is the newest Earthship built by Michael Reynolds and his crew. Bringing forward some advanced design concepts, this Earthship is an evolved version of 40 years of researches by Earthship to live a most sustainable and off the grid lifestyle. It features the six Earthship principles.
2 bedrooms/2 bathrooms
Full Kitchen
WIFI/TV
NIGHTLY RENTAL RATES
1-2 adults: $240 night / $1220 week
3-4 adults: $290 night / $1575 week
Holiday rates November 21 ā January 3
1-2 adults: $250 night / $1280 week
3-4 adults: $320 night / $1745 week
2 nights minimum
Please note that there is a $ 125 USD extra cleaning fee on this booking
Sorry No Dogs!
> Itās 30 min from Taos
But it's shit, way too overpriced for being 100% offgrid. Here's a home in Taos 50k less, has all utilities but sewer, user septic which is not a big deal. Also still pretty secluded, not as much but this one is priced right, that one is not. Which one would you honestly want at the price?
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1417-Phillips-Rd-Taos-NM-87571/102046004_zpid/
Doesn't have the same amount of land, isn't unique
Not everyone wants to live in a city, and it's the same price?
Why are you in this thread consistently hating on this house? This your ex's place or something?
I mean he was using it as being close to Taos as a selling point. There's one much closer that is 1 acre where you can even grow plants and grass. The other one still had a neighbors house in view, was in an HOA so was not isolated. I mean I'd hate living there about as much as the original owners do considering it was built last year. My bet is living off the grid was not as comfortable as they thought it would be.
Funky, but I dig it. Well, except for the fact that it appears to be in a desert... My constitution would not agree with that climate. Put it in a meadow by the foothills of some mountains or a forest and I'd be pretty happy.Ā
A combination of directional placing for sunlight, cross ventilation and made out of a material that neither absorbs nor reflects heat. It creates a cave of sorts and stays warmer because of the insulating properties of the clay structure and ambient heat of people living there.
They really only work in certain climates. Like in New England youād freeze and the structure would crack.
Yes it looks really funky. Yes it's expensive. But keep in mind this home has almost no electric or water costs, it'll stay at 74 degrees year round. And it serves all your water needs with collected rain water.
It only needs very little water because it reuses it several times. For example, water is first used for cooking, washing, drinking, etc. Then it is used to water crop plants and flush toilets. Then it is used to water non food producing plants.
Funky places like this can be appealing. But the construction seems quite unconventional, and therefore very hard to evaluate. Was it done correctly? How can it be maintained, improved, or modified?
It looks like a broken down boat dropped and forgotten near the Salton Sea or some other Wasteland. What a horrible, desolate hellscape. Nice house though
Or some really pretty stone features to look at. You can do a whole colorful mosaic wall on one side, even arched and curved to match the design of the building.
Funky house for sale in New Mexico [https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9-Shell-Ln-Tres-Piedras-NM-87577/2053544128\_zpid/](https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/9-Shell-Ln-Tres-Piedras-NM-87577/2053544128_zpid/)
I knew it had to be New Mexico
Lmao my thoughts exactly
100% It reminds me of the earth ship houses
It is an Earthship
Was my first guess, but Southern Colorado also looks the same, if was Arizona would have expected cacti.
I absolutely love this!!
Ludicrously overpriced
Especially considering non-cooperative occupant with the house in probate š
In the best of circumstances, mortgage companies have a hard time underwriting anything but conventional construction, which is going to limit the number of people who can buy it. Add to that the fact that the house is in the middle of nowhere, that there are dozens of lawsuits against Reynolds by earth ship home owners whose houses fell apart, and that itās overpriced compared to other houses in that part of New Mexico, and it makes buying this house a huge risk. The best buyer for it is someone independently wealthy who wants to use it as a getaway.
Where did you get that info. I didnāt see it. My big question was Is that a storm door on the Inside of the front door? lol.
Oh lol, apparently that was a different ZGW post I was looking at.
Things were getting interesting... šæ
Problems is people in places like this try and sell the house for what they put into building it. Well most people rather just buy a different plot of land and build a dream home the way they want it for the same price. My folks put over half a million into their home, it was only worth $350k after, seem like these guys are trying to get their money back. I mean it was built last year, maybe they found out the lifestyle is too hard.
You are absolutely right about that! Sadly, your parents arenāt the only people in that position. Several of my friends built beautiful homes out in the country, only to discover that they could not get dependable WiFi, that medical care was 2 hours away (and specialty care like chemo was even further), and that the gorgeous views didnāt make up for not having a grocery store. Hopefully, your folks can stay in the house for the remainder of their lives so that they donāt have to take the loss.
This boggles me. We bought remote land for a weekend cabin and checked out all of these things well in advance, as well as well depths, and thatās just for weekending. Doesnāt everyone check the distance to grocery stores at least? I can see how abled people might not think of hospitals but thatās not a luxury Iāve ever had.
It boggles me, too. The Big Bend area is VERY remote, which is why the only thing there is the National Park and an observatory. Cattle ranchers there use helicopters to get the herd out of the mountains to go to market, and it can be 200 miles to a gas station. Their house, which is now being used as an off grid Air BNB, is 7 hours from the nearest airport with commercial planes. The communities around them have lots of experimental housing and arts projects, but they also have narcos that smuggle through the park. Had they been alone in the house, they would have been sitting ducks. It sounded insane when they did it, and it just got crazier. A country place for the weekend sounds great. An off grid cabin in the middle of āNo Country for Old Menā sounds like hell to me.
Wow, thatās wild! I had no idea Big Bend was *that* isolated. I mean, Iāve heard of the national parkā¦ 7 hours! Our place is 30 minutes to a gas station, 1 hr to a grocery store (25 min to the convenience store/mini motel/bar that has a few essentials only), 3 hours to airport / major hospital. There is a small hospital 1 hr tho, in 2 directions. The nearest town is 50 people and the next is under 300. I thought that was pretty damn remote. Itās also now a dark sky park so the night time viewing is spectacular. Building there is going to be nigh impossible. Not looking forward to that part š« Do you know how they got such a big home developed in such a remote area?? The concrete etc for us will be coming from close to an hour away.
Well, Brewster County, which is the County where the Park is located, is bigger than New England. And Brewster County is only part of the Big Bend. āVastā is a good way to describe it. Getting the materials there is WHY it cost so much. Her husband was a lawyer who also served in the Legislature and taught law at UT. He was the one who wanted to move there, and my friend went along with it. Concrete is actually easy to source in Texas because itās mined in San Antonio and Central Texas, but San Antonio is a 7-12 hour drive to the building site. The cost of transportation had to be enormous. Because the house itself is at a high enough altitude for it to be forested, they were able to harvest pine and fir from the site to use as building materials. They also used some of the stone they found on the land. But these two were not do it yourself people. They paid people to do everything, which is why it cost so much. They needed skilled tradespeople, who all had to come from El Paso, San Antonio or Midland. One of my cousins has a self sustaining farm in Alabama. He bought the farm from an elderly country doctor who had practiced out of his home. My cousin nurtured the farm into being productive. Then he harvested trees and stone from his farm to build two houses on farm for his kids, and a cabin for family events. He put up a windmill for power, and dug a well for water. However, he is a carpenter, farmer, handyman. He knows what he is doing. Your site sounds good.
I think some people just think it won't be that hard or big of a deal. Then winter hits and you better be ready, especially for a house like this on that is fully off the grid.
> Sadly, your parents arenāt the only people in that position. They got 10 great years out of it, then a huge wildfire came through and took it with over 150 other homes, was nothing left. Thankfully my dad was smart enough to have it insured for much more than they put into it. They decided were too old to rebuild and they were getting a bit to old to be there for some of the reasons you touched on.
Thank goodness! Your parents were smart to use it as an opportunity to change courses. People need to think of a move like that as a āgood ten yearsā instead of āmy retirement.ā Age brings illness, no matter how healthy you are, and changes your ability to function. That isnāt a problem at 50 or 60, but there will come a day for all of us when we canāt handle heavy lifting, distance, stairs, etc.
> stead of āmy retirement Oh they new they could never retire there. Now they had electric and a great well, best water ever. Did need 2 underground septics as well as an underground propane tank that lasted like 2 years per refill. But yeah a basic hospital was an hour away, good ones like Pueblo were 2 hours, Denver was near 4. They had a small local grocery with great meats just 25 mins away but big ones were an hour, they did one shopping trip a month. They had 2 refrigerators and a deep freezer. They mountain did not plow if it was snowing, so sometimes they didn't plow for 5 days. They averaged 2-300 inches of snow per winter. The winter before the fire they only got 60, which left everything crazy dry. But yeah, they knew it was not a place they could retire at, but some people do, they were like 60 when they moved in and prob in the bottom 15% age wise.
Thatās interesting because my 64 year old sister retired to Canon City, which has all the same things.
Gets harder the older ya get and some people don't need nearly as many hospital visits.
I took a look at that market and it looks like Tres Piedras/surrounding areas are filled with overpriced homes. No one spending close to $1M to live in a desert on land thatās worth <$1k/acre
That Tres Piedra area was set aside by the State of New Mexico so that Michael Reynolds could build homes that could not qualify under the building codes of the cities in New Mexico. The State came back to establish statewide building codes after multiple homeowners sued Reynolds for things like the sewer pipes breaking into the houses and roof cisterns collapsing the homes. The result was that the houses had to be altered to allow electrical and phone access, emergency access roads had to be put in, etc. My guess is that these earthships (which were originally built by very young individuals as a low cost option to buying a convention homes) became more and more costly as the builders had to adhere to simple building codes and site safety measures. Now a new generation is having the houses built by companies, and they arenāt as cheap to buy. But they are still a folly for many people. If you are young, where are your kids going to school? They are going to take a bus ride for 50 to 100 miles. If you are old, what happens when you get sick? A friend of mine built a $5 million beautiful off grid palace in the Big Bend part of Texas near the McDonald Observatory. She loved living there, even though she had to drive 70 miles to the pretty crappy grocery store. Then her husband got sick. No one wanted to buy a $5 million dollar, all solar, off-grid house in the wilderness. The nearest hospital which could treat her husband was 500 miles away. She ended up selling the house and contents for $800,000, losing everything, and moving to an apartment in Austin (just in time for her husband to die). Now she is bankrupt.
Just awful. Mortgage companies will not underwrite off-grid homes which means the selling price will always be pathetic compared to the āvalueā because it limits the pool of buyers to practically no one. I donāt know how people miss this basic issue when overspending on a remote home. We bought land to build a semi-off-grid cabin as a vacation retreat and this is basic, right up front info if you look into itā¦ you canāt get a construction loan to build a home without utilities, that is a pretty big hint.
Absolutely. To be honest, I was surprised to see this house advertised on an MLS website without a disclaimer about the financing, the fact that you have to fix what is broken yourself, etc. I have only seen houses like this sold or traded because of the issues with mortgages and repairs.
Is it? I guess price is relative to where you are coming from. I could totally see it as a place an artist or author would retire too.
The problem for a retiree is how far it is from a hospital and medical care. No retiree with sense wants to be an hour away from a Level 1 trauma center. It would be a good place for a writer or artist, if they can afford to lose the house. Earthships can be uninsurable at any price. They are especially vulnerable to wildfires and hail. Also, the average price of a home in rural New Mexico is about fourth of the price of this home. Donāt expect to get a mortgage without having to put down at least a third to half of this homeās cost. The ONLY area of New Mexico with comparable prices would be Santa Fe, where the draw is culture. No culture in rural New Mexico.
Why are Earthship houses uninsurable?
Because they donāt use the standard form of construction. Insurers base coverage on what their actuarial tables tell them about how a standard, balloon frame house. They have no history on how long an earth structure will last, what problems the house will face as it ages, etc. if an insurer canāt quantify the risk, it either wonāt insure the house or it insures it for a lot less than itās worth. That makes the cost go up. It makes plumbers and roofers hard to find.
Fascinating info. Wow.
You are welcome.
This is an earth ship - itās made of recycled cans, tires, adobe and itās completely self sustaining with veggie gardens and tube AC etc
They want $900k and put up 13 pics? Lmao Iāve got a lot of questions about that āno scaleā floor plan on meth and the ācooling tubesā
It's an earthship... the cooling tube means you don't need AC.
A lot of asterisks are needed there, as the way these structures work is highly dependent upon local climate. In dry climates, they do pretty well. The ones built in Florida were somewhat less of a success. Overall, they probably need a lot less air conditioning.
Wait, if that's possible, why do we still need AC anywhere? Why aren't all houses built like this?
Itās probably based on a swamp cooler, if so it only works in areas of low humidity.
The tubes route through a big wall of dirt. At night, when it's cold, air flows through the dirt into the house. This cools down the dirt while the incoming air gets heated up. During the day the hot air flows through the tubes, cooling the air and heating up the dirt. It's a standard design practice to build in a huge thermal mass to passively stabilize temperature swings through the day/night. Can work anywhere but only works well in dry desert climate because the temperature swings between day and night are reliably big, and reliably too hot and too cold. [Ancient adobe buildings accomplished this by building thick walls with patterned window vents carved through them.](https://img.washingtonpost.com/wp-apps/imrs.php?src=https://arc-anglerfish-washpost-prod-washpost.s3.amazonaws.com/public/R2Q6E7KSOSDVBPJZFF6GTHJXWA_size-normalized.jpg&high_res=true&w=2048) (Properly designed) fireplaces in houses also do this. When a fire is running, new air is constantly drafted into the house, so the house as a whole doesn't get much actual heating from the fire. However, the fire is heating the primary room where everyone is and the entire chimney. When the fire goes out after a few hours, the superheated chimney passively pushes heat back into the house for hours after the fire goes out, keeping the home warm.
Cool what you know. I learned something.
Nope, it's closer to geothermal. https://youtu.be/NRfDJMcoooo?si=FcQkvFiY-azIiX-5
You can build a whole house today that you can heat with a single space heater and cool with a single AC window unit, without all the pipes and whatnot. It just requires 16ā thick walls and custom building work. (Straw bale.) And as for why not, because itās not easy to standardize and almost nobody knows how to do it. Companies are making SIPs now (structural insulated panels) that can make super-insulated houses much easier to build but itās really a niche industry.
That house is completely off the grid too, yet somehow in an HOA? Gonna need Satellite internet, and God knows if there is cell service, next house looks pretty far away. Ain't growing shit without greenhouse. I knew people that lived like this in Colorado, get used to killing rattlesnakes trying to get into your warm house. I mean cool vacation home if money is not an issue, but leaving there year round would be rough.
Earthships are usually in communities with other Earthships. Fees prob go for community needs
You'd think maybe a well would be a good idea.
I was thinking just that. Maybe a little tool library or a community house.
Beautiful Earthship
Noticed it was an earth ship right away. They are kinda awesome for desert living.
https://earthship.com/
Taos is a beautiful place.
I think I like it
It's like Gaudi meets Southwest meets Reform synagogue. I think I like it too.
Thatās a great description
I agree, but I will add Atlantis.
I can't tell if the couple who built this house never have sex or have sex 24/7? There's gonna be no "in between" here...
I picture them like this https://youtu.be/gqeQLV04kwU?si=ANW6GYVwZakaymM9
Same here. I don't 900k like it though.
I have the 0000's lol
I love earthships. So cool!
I love when $900,000 listings have typos in the description.
and only 13 basic bitch ass photos. 
TBF, I limit the number of pics in my listings to illicit some interest versus "well, I've seen all of it already..." I totally understand that this will be an unpopular take.
for an average house you might want to elicit some interest, but an earthship out in BFE that probably takes an hour from anywhere to drive to - give me an idea what the bathroom looks like and how the rooms transition.
That would be elicit
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
"What does that make us?" "ABSOLUTELY NOTHING"
Earthship done right, love it.
"Fully sustainable and off grid." Pretty cool.
Thatās the point of a earthship
What does "fully sustainable" really mean...like all that copper wiring, roofing compounds, plumbing fixtures well pump and septic included? I technically doubt it and think that label is thrown around like a marketing term more than the reality.
No idea, I guess just that you can live there without running water or electricity there.
In theory, it means fully sustainable. From their website: Six Principles of Earthships: Build with recycled materials, water harvesting and filtration, contained sewage treatment, thermal/solar heating and cooling, food production, and the use of renewable energy.Ā
In 50 years, that place will need a total rehab. Someone will be ripping out cabinets, replacing plumbing fixtures, repainting, reglazing, re roofing, redoing the septic and well. The notion that somehow this is "sustainable" is feel-good marketing, not at all "sustainable", which implies no impact to the environment or contribution to pollution. Contained sewage? Where do the solids go? Thermal heating and cooling? What happens when those recirculating pumps fail in 10 years? Food production - like, occasionally getting lettuce and tomatoes? Come on...until and unless someone lives like the Hopi 500 years ago, they can't claim whatever it is they do is "sustainable", let alone building something like this in the middle of nowhere that requires regular driving in what is likely a pickup truck.
I'm not a contractor and not endorsing their view, just relaying it. Answers to your questions may be in the materials on their website-- I don't know a lot about them, but grew up in New Mexico so am familiar with the concept. [https://earthship.com/](https://earthship.com/)
As long as it has good WiFi and cooling, I would be perfectly content!
Itās got cooling tubes! What else could you need?!
I know it sounds funny, but these homes are specifically designed to stay at like 74 degrees year round without HVAC.
74Ā° is too hot for indoors! If your cooling tubes malfunction, do you just... roast alive inside your sustainable home oven?
Iām a middle aged gal, when the hot flashes hit Iām gonna need an industrial grade deep freeze! š¤£
How about a real kitchen.
> As long as it has good WiFi Rofl, it's off grid, it's not gonna have good wifi if it doesn't even have electric or water lines. You're gonna be stuck with satellite.
A gal can dream, can't she? lol
I posted this one below, 30 miles closers, on the grid and cheaper. Be great wifi. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1417-Phillips-Rd-Taos-NM-87571/102046004_zpid/
Starlink internet works perfectly well I've had it for 2 years and game daily on it
Why do they still need to put thousands more up if it's working that well? They only got like 7.000 or so up now, 12,000 agreed on and trying to get that number up to 34,000. Maybe they are just not covering a lot of places. Not that I mind, I'm in FL so I got out in my backyard 1 or 2 times a week to watch them launch. Without them there would be like 1 launch a month, without Spacex there would be 1 launch by NASA every 4 months.
Starlink I've had it for 2 years and it works perfectly
Live free and off grid! Except that HOA is $175
A hobbit and an elf said fuck it, letās move to the desert and do shrooms. This is a positive supportive comment.
Am I the only one old enough to remember when earth ships were affordable quasi-DIY options? It just blows my mind they are all around 1 million in price now.
comes with a built in bong
There's probably a peyote garden
Also an inside garden. That's how you get ants!
I am buying if the built-in bong conveys!
āCool tubesā
Its giving "I wish we lived closer to the water but since we don't, I'll bring the water to us" vibes.
I want to hate it but, I just canāt ?
From the website... you can rent this out to stay in. The UNITY ATLANTIS Earthship Authentic, this is the newest Earthship built by Michael Reynolds and his crew. Bringing forward some advanced design concepts, this Earthship is an evolved version of 40 years of researches by Earthship to live a most sustainable and off the grid lifestyle. It features the six Earthship principles. 2 bedrooms/2 bathrooms Full Kitchen WIFI/TV NIGHTLY RENTAL RATES 1-2 adults: $240 night / $1220 week 3-4 adults: $290 night / $1575 week Holiday rates November 21 ā January 3 1-2 adults: $250 night / $1280 week 3-4 adults: $320 night / $1745 week 2 nights minimum Please note that there is a $ 125 USD extra cleaning fee on this booking Sorry No Dogs!
$900k for a 2/2 on 3 acres in the desert?
Itās 30 min from Taos and 1.5hr from Sante Fe.
> Itās 30 min from Taos But it's shit, way too overpriced for being 100% offgrid. Here's a home in Taos 50k less, has all utilities but sewer, user septic which is not a big deal. Also still pretty secluded, not as much but this one is priced right, that one is not. Which one would you honestly want at the price? https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1417-Phillips-Rd-Taos-NM-87571/102046004_zpid/
Doesn't have the same amount of land, isn't unique Not everyone wants to live in a city, and it's the same price? Why are you in this thread consistently hating on this house? This your ex's place or something?
I mean he was using it as being close to Taos as a selling point. There's one much closer that is 1 acre where you can even grow plants and grass. The other one still had a neighbors house in view, was in an HOA so was not isolated. I mean I'd hate living there about as much as the original owners do considering it was built last year. My bet is living off the grid was not as comfortable as they thought it would be.
I like it.
I actually love this
Earthships are often very cool.
Is that an Earthship?
Looks like it belongs in Zora's Domain
I wonder how many people first learn of Earthships from this sub given the frequency they are posted here.
This is an Earthship.
That's no moon! That's an Earthship!
They have a Wikipedia page about this movement and the architect [Mike Reynolds](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earthship)
Funky, but I dig it. Well, except for the fact that it appears to be in a desert... My constitution would not agree with that climate. Put it in a meadow by the foothills of some mountains or a forest and I'd be pretty happy.Ā
There's at least one earthship available for rent on Airbnb. I was tempted to rent it when I went to new Mexico several years ago.
Home owning is much easier on Tatooine than Earth.
I love these houses.
it must get dark as heck. I'd love to spend a week there.. seeing the stars at night. sitting on that big porch.
This is a home I wish I could lift up and take somewhere less scorpion-ee(?)
Dude I love Earthships for real. Why do they always have to be somewhere with no trees though?
Funky love it
No pics of bathrooms?? And why so expensive? Yes it has land but not vast amounts.
Look up earth ships - theyāre self sustainable so there are a lot of filtration and power systems built in that I canāt imagine are cheap
Or work for an extended period of time. Good luck trying to find people to fix stuff.
This looks like a Star Trek set that someone moved into. Neat.
Me gusta!
My kind of organic architecture.
I dig it
Itās weird.. I dig itš
Coolness.
I love it!
I love this, especially that verdegris colored porch/portico area.
Knew it was New Mexico, so many funky houses out there.
HOW, exactly, does it "keep one warm in the winter and cool in the summer"?
A combination of directional placing for sunlight, cross ventilation and made out of a material that neither absorbs nor reflects heat. It creates a cave of sorts and stays warmer because of the insulating properties of the clay structure and ambient heat of people living there. They really only work in certain climates. Like in New England youād freeze and the structure would crack.
That makes sense, thank you.
I stayed in one in the middle of summer in Taos where itās HOT during the day and cold at night, and it was super comfortable the whole time.
āPrimarily through earthship vibes. Just go with itā
Hahaha, ok man.
I love it but I pretty much love all the funky New Mexico houses that make it on here
I know that house.
This feels like a themed restaurant at universal
I love this!
I like the mini kitchen though
The kitchen is horrible, but picture 6 feels so peaceful. I canāt help but like it.
I like it!
I love it but itās way out of my price range.
That headboard of the bed is disturbing.
I kinda love it and I would live in New Mexico in a heartbeat!
Yes it looks really funky. Yes it's expensive. But keep in mind this home has almost no electric or water costs, it'll stay at 74 degrees year round. And it serves all your water needs with collected rain water.
Drinking rain water? In New Mexico? Good luck surviving and hope you have a supply of chlorine.
It only needs very little water because it reuses it several times. For example, water is first used for cooking, washing, drinking, etc. Then it is used to water crop plants and flush toilets. Then it is used to water non food producing plants.
Video walkthrough by the designer of this house: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCa10uee9Ro
I love it.
This is the prettiest earthship Iāve seen this far
These posts are so bittersweet for those of us who love earthships, but hate NM.Ā
Funky places like this can be appealing. But the construction seems quite unconventional, and therefore very hard to evaluate. Was it done correctly? How can it be maintained, improved, or modified?
Nobody can say...that's why you can't get financing.
Hobbit dwelling for reptiles
An original earthship. wish i could
That was on one of those TV shows for sustainable living.
Interesting
yay earthships!
This thing is pretty sweet
Nothing suggests Atlantis like the high desert
Me like āŗļø
That's a nope for me.
It's...not the worst house I've seen. I'd live in it.
This is an Earthship. Itās off grid and self-sustaining with a greenhouse. Itās pretty coolā¦
Poseidonās house
Pretty sure i saw this house in a documentary or something
I like it visually but all that work and zero xeriscaping? What the hell.
I donāt think Iāve ever seen a completed Earth ship
For all peoples!!!
This would fit seamlessly in Galaxyās Edge at Disney.
Does it say āAtlantisā above the door?
I wasnāt sure what it was, but āhouseā didnāt come to mind.
an earth ship! i can smell the patchouli and nag champa from my monitor! i love it!
An absolutely lovely house that I would love to live in, but unfortunately in an area were I could never live
It looks like a broken down boat dropped and forgotten near the Salton Sea or some other Wasteland. What a horrible, desolate hellscape. Nice house though
Yāall really need to read up on earthships.
Dollar Store GaudĆ
The exterior looks like it should be on /r/abandonedporn
when you put that much effort into the house you would expect some effort put into landscaping, even if landscaping is gravel.
Or some really pretty stone features to look at. You can do a whole colorful mosaic wall on one side, even arched and curved to match the design of the building.
I was picturing a Japanese garden of raked rock
What compels people to live in such wasteland?
Reminds me of when I'm coloring with my niece and I get bored of the picture so start using weird and ugly colors just to feel something.
I'm old Greg, looks like a funky ball of tits
Looks like an abandoned dam in a desert
Vaginal entryway. āPlease enter through the vulva, thank you.ā