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WALLS THAT TALK TRASH

Thursday, June 28, 2001
FEATURES - ACCENT & ARTS   01E
By Mike Lafferty
Dispatch Staff Reporter
Illustration: Photo, MAP

GAYSPORT, Ohio -- Once-discarded cans, bottles and tires jut from the walls, providing proof that the owners don't just talk the talk of environmental correctness; they build the house.
When completed in 2004, the structure will resemble an adobe abode.
The trash-imbued walls -- eventually covered with mud -- will look like stucco; the floors will be fashioned from trendy slate and wood salvaged from old barns intended for demolition.
A nakedly obvious testament to the commitment of Candice and Jay Warmke, the five-room, 1,650-square-foot house stands on a remote, wooded ridge in southern Muskingum County.
"We want to utilize resources wisely and try to get people to think differently," Mrs. Warmke said. "The idea of this house is to realize that there is not an unlimited amount of resources."
The couple lives most of the year in Dade City, Fla., where Mrs. Warmke, a Columbus native and 1982 graduate of Ohio University, serves as president of the Women's Peacepower Foundation -- which awards grants to women involved in community-improvement projects. Mr. Warmke works for a telecommunications association there.
They return several times a year to help laborers build the house in an area about 60 miles east of Columbus, near the Muskingum River.
Experts, Mrs. Warmke said, handle the technical or more complicated jobs.
But they go home at night.
The Warmkes live where they work, on concrete floors and amid can-pocked walls.
Their conventional furniture seems at odds with the look.
"People ask, 'How can you live like this?' " Mrs. Warmke said. "I don't mind living in the dirt, but I'll be glad when I don't have to."
The first couple of years were rough.
"This is luxury now," she said. "Before, we were living in a shed. The tools were in one half, and we slept in the other."
The walls incorporate 1,100 tires and uncounted cans and bottles, reducing the need for lumber. For support, metal rods are driven vertically through the tires -- each of them filled with compacted soil and weighing 350 pounds.
"I notice the solidness," Mr. Warmke said. "It's almost a sense of security. In a regular home, you don't notice how things are shifting. This feels safe and solid and impenetrable."
The "Earthship" style -- employed mostly in the western United States -- was coined by Taos, N.M., architect Michael Reynolds, who designed the Muskingum County house and instructed Mrs. Warmke in his methods.
Reynolds advocates using materials found nearby.
As many as 1,000 Earthships -- including the 10,000-square-foot Colorado hacienda of actor Dennis Weaver -- have gone up worldwide, according to architect Alix Woolsey, who works with Reynolds.
The idea didn't grow, however, from a notion of luxury; instead, it occurred to Reynolds during a housing shortage in the 1970s.
"His first was a house built out of beer cans," Woolsey said.
Later, Reynolds discovered that a structure using tires could store more heat from sunlight.
Every Earthship builder begins with a common set of plans, Woolsey said, but adds unique touches involving, for example, the number of rooms and solar panels.
The Warmkes collect cans and bottles from roadsides and trash bins, and they get tires -- delivered free -- from contractors cleaning up illegal dumps.
For summer cooling, their house is built atop a concrete slab and into a bank. For winter warmth, it relies on a wood stove and the sunlight that shines through large, south-facing windows.
"The house is really a machine," Mrs. Warmke said.
Rainwater that flows from the roof is captured and stored in a 5,000-gallon cistern for cooking and washing. Some is piped to irrigate two 10-by-4-foot flower beds indoors.
"I haven't had to water my canna lily in three years," she said.
Given the remoteness, conventional zoning restrictions don't apply.
So, instead of a septic system, the Warmkes have a composting toilet, which turns human waste into garden fertilizer.
Low-impact, though, isn't necessarily inexpensive: Not counting their labor, the couple estimate their total spending at $85,000.
Hillsboro resident Marilyn Hiestand became interested in the technique after visiting the Reynolds studio in New Mexico.
Folks there referred her to the Warmkes, who she hopes will pass along the finer points of "trash" construction.
Hiestand designed and built a passive solar home 20 years ago.
"It's very comfortable and easy to heat," she said. "The Earthship does the same thing but does it out of things people want to get rid of."
mlafferty@dispatch.com

All content herein is © 2001 The Columbus Dispatch and may not be republished without permission.

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