Water From The Sky

I don't think its worth buying unless you're going to build one

This book helped me in making the decision to start planning a house in the Dominican Republic based on the principles of an earthship. The harvesting and storage of sufficient rainwater and the use of botanical cells to clean the greywater ( from bathing, washing and the kitchen ) to make it suitable for flushing the toilets and the blackwater ( from the septic tank ) to make it suitable for irrigation purposes. The harvested water is used in such a way that you don't need another watersource. The only limitation is the annual precipitation combined with the watercatching roof surface. In these botanical cells you can grow, for starters, plants like bananas, lime and lemons, aloe vera, grapes and avocados. The book describes all of the principles and most of the technical details. But to really draw up construction plans and to execute the actual construction on site you will need sufficient engineering skills or hire an expert. The illustrations are clear enough but I expected more uniformity and a clear architectural signature. The recycled paper is not a problem since the whole idea behind earthships is to live in harmony with our earth. What is a problem is the odd shape of the book, it doesn't fit well on my bookshelf....

Having lived through recent drought years in California and Texas, and now living in a sub-division that uses a communal well fed by a spring, I've become very sensitive to water quantity and quality. This book is the best I've found offering both a broad perspective on water issues as well as methods to conserve it.Since recently adding rainbarrels to our existing gutter system, we've found that even small rainstorms that leave a 1/4" reading in the gauge fill our 55 gallon barrels to overflowing.

The product is excellent and it arrived on time! Thank you Donnis Crowe

This notes are well received by people who want to make them free from the world economic debts and infra structure by this new construction with less contamination and destruction to the environment to the planet Earth.

This is an awesome resource and a most welcome addition to my library of information for living in harmony with nature.

There are things to like about this book. Photos of the beautiful earthships that Michael Reynolds has built will have you yearning for one of your own. He is an inventive and original thinker, and it is fun to read about what he has tried over the years, what has worked and what hasn't. But if you are looking for a "how-to" book, to build your own rainwater collection system, this is not it. At least half of it is a preachy thesis about everything that is wrong with the world and how earthships will fix it. Mr. Reynolds writes in a folksy vernacular that I personally find very irritating. If ya gotta charge thirty bucks for a book, at least ya can use darn good grammar and make it easy on the folks reading yer book. Also, his system is very complicated, though he will make it easy on you by selling you his plans and filters etc, available for thousands of dollars on his website. I have no objection to a man making a living, but it would be nice if he also offered simpler solutions for those of us who cannot afford his pre-made systems. He goes all over the world helping impoverished people build earthships, and presumably those do not have the expensive systems in them.

Not in-depth enough for my expectations...but ok if you're new to the idea of earthships and "living off the grid"

EarthShipのMichael Reynoldsによる自身の作ったGlobal Modelにおける水の活用法に焦点を当てた一冊。立地条件が乾燥した荒野にあるだけに水をどのように取得し貯水/再利用/重層利用し排水するかは大きな課題となる。植物を利用した中水の浄化や排便等の太陽光を利用したコンポストによる堆肥化など様々な仕組みが取り入れられている。EarthShipはセルフビルドを基本とした枠組みの中で作られ営まれることを方針としているので、それらを実際にどのように施工し、どのような設備機器を使い、運用するかを比較的詳細に記してある。大枠はEarthShipのH.P.で知ることが出来るのでまずはそれを参考にし、興味を持てそうなら購入してみるのも良い。日本に直接応用できる面がどれほどあるかは気候の違いが大きいのでやってみないとわからない部分が多いと思うが、実際に全てを自然の営みに委ねようとする試みが実を結んでいることを実感することは出来るだろう。