Meet the people
Owners of the Aardskip (Earthship)
Ludwig and Retha Everson began building their Aardskip house in 2009. Tucked away in Robyn Street on a hill, it is a practical expression of their desire to live in harmony with nature in a way that is as environmentally friendly, self-sustainable and independent as possible. They call it the greenest house in South Africa.
The Aardskip has been built with only natural and reclaimed materials – from car tyres, bottles and cans to sandbags, straw bales and cob bricks – and relies solely on sustainable energy such as a photovoltaic power system, solar geyser and solar cooker. The Eversons implement natural climate control through the principles of thermal mass, passive solar gain, ventilation and insulation.
“The house has been built into the hill, which keeps the internal temperature more constant,” explains Ludwig. “The thick external walls absorb the heat from the sun and help to keep the house cool in summer and warm in winter. The large north-facing windows and overhang help to invite the sun inside or keep it out when necessary. We mostly keep the smaller top windows open but close them before it gets hotter outside than inside. This works well. In yesterday’s scorching 42 ºC, the temperature was 32 ºC in the passageway at the vegetable garden and 28 ºC in the bedroom.
At the Aardskip all rainwater is collected and stored in eight tanks, each with a capacity of 40 kilolitres. This water is then used in four stages. “For every 3½ mm of rain, we end up with one kilolitre of water. The water is first filtered for household use; for drinking purposes, it goes through a second filter with ultraviolet light. The household grey water flows into the inside vegetable garden, where it is used to water the plants. The remaining water is
directed to an underground well, where it is stored and used to flush the toilets. The black water eventually goes into a septic tank and is used to water the outdoor plants.”
Ludwig, a software engineer who works from Orania for a company in Kempton Park that supplies construction software to the building industry, says they heard about the earthship concept when they lived in the Netherlands with their two children. They also visited the earthship in Zwolle and immediately thought it was a concept that would work very well in South Africa.
“Those years in the Netherlands were wonderful (the Eversons spent nine years in the country), but over time we began to feel that they were not our people,” says Retha, who manages the Betésda Gesondheidshuis. She laughs. “The Dutch are incredibly straightforward and say and do what they want, while our people are the kind who read between the lines.”
“We are less like the Dutch and Germans; we’re more flamboyant, like the French… And we ‘re not as hardworking as we think we are!” adds Ludwig.
The Eversons attended an Orania Movement information session in the Netherlands and decided to come take a look for themselves. “Orania was being sold as very ‘green’ in those days and households had to sort all their trash into five categories – non-recyclable, paper, plastic, glass and metal. So, the earthship idea fitted in well. Today, solar-powered geysers are compulsory in all new houses built in Orania, but it does feel like the environmentally friendly angle is not being driven as strongly as it was in the past.”
What stood out to the Eversons during their first visit to Orania was the friendliness and hospitality of the people, and the children playing in the streets without a care.
But the town has changed dramatically over the past 15 years, and nowadays, it sometimes feels like there are too many people, they say. When things get overwhelming, they pack their car and drive the 650 km to Jeffreys Bay, where both of their adult children live. But they always return to the Aardskip, the carbonneutral cocoon they built themselves. Contact aardskip.com Aardskip
info@aardskip.com 073 134 9671 >