Well, hello there. I’ve got one more installation in this series on Earthship design ideas.  This time we’re talking water. Same disclaimer as last week: this is a very simplistic description of some pretty ingenious engineering. I present it here as an idea starter…some inspiration for you in your quest to live more sustainably. For more details and (very helpful) pictures, go to Earthship.com and poke around. You’ll be amazed.

So, water. Modern housing is designed to keep water off you and your stuff, and this is a good thing. But rather than protecting yourself from a problem, why not encounter it? Why not see how you can use the situation to your advantage? The truth is, the water your roof is dispelling could be doing you a lot more good in your home than around it.

Rather than merely sheltering from the rain, the Earthship roof is designed to collect it, sloping down the back of the house and draining into buried cisterns. The water then enters the house through what they call a “water organizing module” (WOM). A series of filters, a pump and pressurization sends the purified water to faucets for drinking and washing.

The WOM then recycles this “gray” wastewater from faucets/drains through several more levels of usage in the house – showers, interior irrigation (greenhouse), toilet and outdoor landscaping. Through every step of the process, the water’s purpose is renewed in your house. Because of this efficiency, you only need 6 inches of rainfall in a given year to provide for all of your water needs. 6 inches! That covers most of y’all out there, I’d wager.

And think of the ramifications! If your house can capture and utilize enough water from the sky to sustain you, there wouldn’t be a need to tap other bodies of water. Lakes and rivers wouldn’t be drying up as they are in a growing number of regions around the US right now (droughts don’t need no help!). Dams would be ripe for the busting, restoring waterflow to so many parched ecosystems.

Living sustainably is nothing more than mindfulness of and responsibility for the way we live. Your home plays a very central role in that and, as such, could be considered an extension of yourself. Be aware of these footprints we all leave behind. Certainly, there’s a lot wrong with the way we try to do things right, but that shouldn’t stop us from trying. I hope that these Earthship blogs will encourage you to keep it up.