Abstract

The aim of the master's thesis is to present the idea of earthships and compare them with conventional buildings in terms of investment and operating costs. Earthships are buildings erected from tires and other wastes whose characteristic feature is their self-sufficiency. The first part of the master's thesis is to discuss the basic issues related to the earthship building. The beginnings of tire homes and their development are discussed, as well as six elements on which their concept is based: material recycling, solar heating / thermal mass, electricity, water extraction, wastewater treatment and food production. There are also described the next stages of building the earthship, as well as examples from Europe and the world. The second part of the master thesis concerns the comparative analysis of earthships and conventional buildings. The costs of construction of both types of buildings and the costs of use related to heating of houses, use of water and electricity were given. After calculations, it can be observed that investment costs are comparable in both cases. Exploitation, in turn, is definitely cheaper in earthships. If it were not for problems with building regulations and the non-universality of the Reynold’s global model, there would surely be more earthships around the world.

Author (1)