Lesson in storm hut construction

Kylie DellaBarca Steel and son Judah Steel, 2, in the entrance of the Earthship hut being built on a farm near Te Puke. Photo / Alan Gibson

Used tyres filled with gravel and dirt, bamboo and sacks of leaves are being combined to build a stormproof house in Te Puke.

Fruit of the Pacific are building an Earthship Hut at Branns Farm to teach seasonal workers from the Pacific Islands, particularly Vanuatu, how to build the low-cost stormproof shelters.

Director Kylie DellaBarca Steel, who is behind the project, was in Vanuatu during Cyclone Pam and wanted to do something to help.

Volunteers Zane Holloway and Sam Charrington went to Fiji to learn how to build the homes and are now teaching seasonal workers in the Te Puke project.

Mr Holloway said the build, which started on June 14, was going well.

"We've got the tyre walls up and our bamboo is just about finished. We're almost ready for the cobbing on the inside. We've got sacks of leaves we're using for insulation and tarps on the roof.

"We're really, really close to finishing," he said.

The house is made of eight layers of tyres stacked on top of each other and filled with gravel and dirt.

Octagons made of wooden posts are then overlaid on top to lock the tyres together before more octagons made of bamboo, each slightly smaller than the last, are laid on top to make a dome-shaped roof which has a vent in the top.

At least 40 seasonal workers have been on site most days helping with the construction.

Mr Holloway said the workers, mostly from Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, were excited to be a part of the project. "They are really enthusiastic about it. It's a relatively simple thing to learn.

Architectural designer Mark Keogh looks on as construction on the Earthship hut picks up pace on a farm near Te Puke. Photo / Alan Gibson

"It's just leaning some tricks about how to fix things as you go. Because it's such an organic structure you're having to adjust as you go."

The project was on hold yesterday as most of the workers were needed at the packhouses but the hut would be finished on weekends and days when they were not required, Mr Holloway said.

He said another few full days of work would be needed to finish it.

The doors and windows were to be installed this weekend.

What is an Earthship?
An Earthship is typically made up of an external wall of rammed-earth tyres, with a fully glazed, equatorially facing frontage to maximise the passive solar gain from the sun's rays.

The sides of the Earthship are surrounded by banked earth, creating a large thermal capacitor with which to store the thermal energy.

Throughout the day, when the air is warmer than the earth, thermal energy is absorbed into the tyre walls. When the air cools, especially at night, the thermal energy is released by the tyre walls, equalising the temperature and providing a consistent ambient temperature throughout the year.