A House Made of Dirt

Sunday at church I talked to my friends Kevin and Maureen Hartnett. They're in the middle of building their dream home: a house made out of dirt. Okay, it's not all dirt. But the walls are made of Compressed Earth Blocks. Yeah, I'd never heard of them either. Evidently, they use the dirt excavated for the foundation, mix it with cement and then compress it into super hard blocks. If you've seen the movie WALL-E, I imagine it's something like the little robot does to trash. (Kevin explains how the blocks are made in a blog post entitled "How to Make a Compressed Earth Block").

The story behind the house is that, because Maureen is very sensitive to chemicals, the Hartnetts set out to build a single level, energy efficient, three bedroom home with an art studio that was also low in outgassing bad smells and chemicals. As the project has progressed, the house has turned into an amazingly earth-friendly structure. It will be the first Terrabuilt earth block home in Maryland and will combine solar elements (the house is positioned astronomically North-South to allow for passive solar heating in the wintertime), geothermal radiant floor heating, and a French Bonart-Gonay fireplace that can heat the whole house if needed. They even have this cool system that catches and uses rain water. Isn't that cool?

Anyway, you can follow the house's progress at the blog, The Hartnett House.

Comments (11)

OK
question...so are they building this to be more "green" or truly because he has problems with "chemicals"?

Anyways, I'm not trying to be a downer, but if they are doing this due to the fact that the liberals are wanting everyone to live like this, except for Al Gore, why?

Posted by CR | July 3, 2008 8:22 AM

Hello,

I'd like that is blog is available in spanish.

More people can read it.

Posted by Joel | July 3, 2008 10:09 AM

Unlike CR, I hope it is a purposefully "Green" house. It is an exciting project and one that I hope inspires others. There is a lot of garbage (pun intended) that comes along with political conservatism, and Christians have ended up on the wrong side of the conservative/liberal line an embarrassing number of times. Loving my neighbor doesn't seem to fit well with demanding my right to pollute those environmental resources we share. Man's first assignment in Eden was to manage the environment - something we've failed at quite spectacularly.

I hope more Christians become environmentally wise. Extremists in the environmental movement don't invalidate environmentalism any more than abortion clinic bombers invalidate the pro-life movement. Imagine the effect of a "Green" church facility on our extremely eco-conscience society. That would violate all sorts of stereotypes and might make a lot of unreached people more open to checking us out.

Posted by Drew | July 3, 2008 2:13 PM

The environmental stuff (at least as a political issue) aside, this is just really, really cool. Compressed earth blocks...who knew? And personally, I'd love to have a fireplace that heated my whole house, because fireplaces are just nice. This sounds like it's going to be a really fun house, not to mention the long-haul savings on utilities and such.

And Drew, I agree with you about political conservatism on environmental issues. I mean, what could be harmful about trying to take a little better care of all that the Lord has made? Why would we oppose that?

Posted by DV | July 3, 2008 4:23 PM

The home sounds like a God-send for the Hartnetts. Praise the Lord for human ingenuity!

To answer DV's post, there's nothing wrong with caring for the environment. The problem is that, as Christians, we need to be careful not to take our Christian stewardship cues straight from non-Christians who hold very different presuppositions about the earth, human nature, and the existence/nature of God.

The Cornwall Alliance (http://www.cornwallalliance.org/) is a great resource for eco-conscious Christians.

Posted by Bethany | July 4, 2008 6:09 PM

hey,

I do not consider myself on the "crazy" right...but I do see some problems with the "Green movement" as a whole. I hope and pray that this will not go the Al Gore route. Ya know that, if you drive an SUV, the planet will be under water in 10 years, or whatever he says.

I am not saying that the house is a bad idea. I think it's cool, but nevertheless, we need to make sure that we are jumping on the "green train" just because it's popular.

later!
CR

Posted by CR | July 7, 2008 2:53 PM

CR,

I'm curious if you've watched "An Inconvenient Truth." And if you have what exactly are you afraid of people doing in terms of what you called the "Al Gore route"? I ask this only because I want to understand what your concerns would be...government restrictions, etc?

Thanks for commenting!

Joshua

Posted by Joshua Harris | July 7, 2008 3:57 PM

Josh,
Not sure if this is Mr. Harris or not, but if so i own all of your books!

Now, to your question at hand.

I disagree with Al Gore due to the fact that he is WRONG! He has been proven wrong in most everything in that movie. check out a guy named LORD MONCKTON OF BRENCHLEY ( http://www.realcrash.com/gore-carbon-futures-lord-monkton/ )

My major issue is that the purposed idea of the "Green people" is to force their beliefs on others. (IE the infamous "Carbon Tax" http://www.carbontax.org/ ) I look at this as another form of Catholic Indulgences. Al Gore and his type look at anyone who has a massive carbon foot print (which I think it's funny that his carbon foot print is 3 times the amount of a "normal American") should have to pay for their "sins" of driving an SUV, or not using the new curly light bulbs. There is a move a foot to make this a "global tax" I just don't think we should have to change our lives around because a small group of rich/famous people think we should. IF they want to wear hemp clothes/shoes/underwear, and drive mini cars, and build "green homes" that's awesome, we live in America they have that right, but don't look at me and say because I don't that I'm harming "mother earth." OK sorry for rambling, just venting there.

Do I make any since at all?

Thanks!

I think we should take care of the Earth, it our home.

Posted by CR | July 8, 2008 12:26 PM

If you are ever in the Greenbelt Maryland area, check out the Goddard Space Flight Center visitor's center "Science on a Sphere" It is a visually stunning way of presenting raw data coming down from the earth observing satellites and sobering. It cuts through the politics of the effect of man made pollution and simply shows the raw data. It is both awe inspiring and disturbing. The massive spread of coal fired power plant exhaust from China and India are especially troubling.
http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/visitor/exhibits/sphere.html

Posted by Drew | July 10, 2008 12:17 PM

I personally know the Hartnetts and remember the first time Michael (my former care group leader) told us about this project and how crazy and yet incredible this sounded to me! I would just like to say that I hold the Hartnett family in very high regard and that they have always been an inspiration to me in their ingenuity and enthusiasm for pioneering into new and undiscovered territory when it comes to technology and alternate ways of doing everyday tasks.

It is interesting how quickly this discussion has turned to the political element of environmentalism in America today. I have never been an outspoken proponent of the "Green" paradigm, primarily because I have never really given it that much thought. Much of the time I have reacted somewhat unenthusiastically to ideas about how I, personally, can adopt a more environmentally responsible lifestyle. However, as I analyze my motives for those reactions, I have found them to be frequently riddled through with sin. For instance, I would love to drive a 6-wheel F-350 pickup truck or a Ford Expedition or any number of other large, gasoline-thirsty, pollution-promoting vehicles. Why? Is it because I have a need to transfer large amounts of material from one place to another or to pull a boat or horse trailer behind my vehicle? No. Is it because I need that much power to go off-road on a hunting trip? No. In actuality, it is because I want to look "cool", "powerful", "manly". I want people to look up to me because of what I drive. For me, this is a clear and undisputable depiction of pride in my life. Other desires that I have which conflict with environmental responsibility are usually rooted in the same sin, pride, or in materialism, greed, of a love of ease - laziness. Just something to think about...

In searching for online discussion about what Scripture says regarding our role in the environment, I found this excellent article on the subject by Milton Stanley from PA on his blog, "To the Word: Reflections on the call to live by the Word of God": http://totheword.blogspot.com/2005/02/toward-biblical-environmentalism.html. Check out his 13 Principles of Biblical Environmentalism!

Posted by Malcolm Royer | July 28, 2008 11:35 PM

Hmm, looks like the link doesn't want to work. Well, you can read this great article by going to the To the Word blog and it was the posting for February 13, 2005.

Posted by Malcolm Royer | July 29, 2008 11:42 AM

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