Rising housing prices have created anxiety for those entering the home-buying market, but Nic Botek and Monika Perry have taken an alternate route to living in Toledo.
Catalyzed by the 2008 housing collapse and the eviction of local man Keith Sadler that involved a police standoff in 2010, Mr. Botek attempted to find community-based solutions for housing.
“Everybody needs food and housing,” he said. “So those are the areas we kind of honed in on.”
It wasn’t until 2013 that they became familiar with the Earthship model, pioneered by Michael Reynolds in New Mexico.
Earthship is a trademarked term referring to specific natural building methods and upcycling of materials to create a dwelling that is more connected to nature.
“I took a monthlong intensive course at the Strawbale Studio up in Oxford, Michigan, where I learned natural building,” Mr. Botek said. Under the tutelage of Deanne Bednar, originally of Archbold, Ohio, both Toledoans were given an introduction to accessible and communal methods for building homes.
Natural practices learned from Strawbale Studio fueled what is now an almost finished home in central Toledo, with the walls mostly made of cob, and the foundation made of limestone from a quarry in Perrysburg.
“Cob is straw, sand, and clay. You mix it together with water, and then you can make it into a material that’s about as strong as concrete and build with it,” Mr. Botek said. “And it’s all from on site, like all this is dirt from on right here in the property.”
Mr. Botek and Ms. Perry approached a designer to plan out their project and get it approved by the city of Toledo for occupancy.
“I am the designer on the project,” said Trayvone Mathis, a project manager at Sav’Ayn, a design outsourcing service. “I can tell you, it’s different than most of my other projects, because there’s so much passion in it.”
In 2018, Mr. Mathis started drafting up the plans for the Earthship-style home to be used in northwest Ohio and worked to troubleshoot around a problem most homeowners are familiar with in the Black Swamp.
“In a traditional Earthship you have structures that are deeply recessed underground to increase the thermal efficiency of the structure by maintaining the constant temperature of the earth after you get below the frost level,” Mr. Mathis said. “With our high water table, water can push up from beneath the slab, but there is no slab here, right? There’s an earth floor that we designed. So mitigating these things were some big challenges with the Earthship in northwest Ohio.”
There have been a few compromises, using more common material like two-by-fours and fiberglass insulation to meet inspection safety standards and deadlines with construction.
“When they first told me how they were going to take it on, I was skeptical,” he said. “It’s hard enough to build a house with a fully trained contractor and crew, but they didn’t want to use machinery.”
Now, Mr. Mathis sees the method as a viable option for housing.
All that’s needed according to Mr. Mathis is “a strong support system and,” Mr. Mathis paused, then continued, “and really just a strong support system.”
The plot of land in the Old West End was bought for a few hundred dollars at auction, and materials over the years have cost Mr. Botek and Ms. Perry somewhere between $25,000 and $30,000.
“The fact that we are doing 100 percent of the labor ourselves, yes, saves, I don’t know how much it would cost, but a lot of money,” Ms. Perry said.
Harnessing the passion of their community, Mr. Botek and Ms. Perry have had hundreds of people help them build their new home. Much of the construction process has been slow, but the two have been constant in their dedication.
“The skills that went into doing it so far are actually pretty low-level skills,” Mr. Mathis said. “If they had five or 10 people who really would commit to helping out then I think they’d be able to do it pretty, relatively, painlessly.”
Laying limestone for the foundation was the most difficult part of early construction, because it required an understanding of laying the stones.
“I did a lot of mortar mixing for the foundation,” Ms. Perry said, and “Nick did a lot of the actual stacking of the stones.”
It took about nine months of 12 to 14-hour days for the two to put in a strong foundation, but, when it was finished, it opened up the project to more casual help from enthusiasts. Even with regular commitment from their community, Mr. Botek and Ms. Perry have sectioned off most of their free time to work on the natural home.
Cob walls, a limestone foundation, and a metal roof with various two-by-fours are what make up the building now, which is close to completion.
“Spend some time sitting there with Nic and Monika, or find one of their videos online, and you’ll see they’re living the dream, right?” Mr. Mathis said.
“They will grow food in their backyard. They can quit their jobs wholesale if they want,” he said. “Once this thing is built, they’re debt free. Once this thing is built, they don’t have to work.”
Part of the Earthship movement is not only about conservation of resources but about living independently off-grid, which means sourcing local materials, growing their own food, catching water in cisterns, treating the water themselves, and installing solar power.
Heating and cooling is designed meticulously to operate without electricity or gas.
“The main heating and cooling system is called passive annual heat storage,” Mr. Botek said. “It is a very new and experimental system.”
Harnessing the energy of the sun into the earth via piping “like the coils in an air conditioner,” the heat is stored in the ground like a battery and released over the winter months.
“Who cares if the electricity goes off? The house maintains a constant temperature” of about 70 degrees, Mr. Mathis said.
Implements like these are what really drew the attention of Mr. Mathis.
“In my house, winter will hit, and I am going to spend $500 a month on electricity,” he said. “Their motivation is, is eco-preservation, which I commend. My motivation is a way-of-life preservation.”
“Traditional construction, right now, is all about taking away the responsibility and control of the space from the occupant,” Mr. Mathis said, and explained that modern building techniques involve skilled labor and mechanical infrastructure to make a product of convenience that is fairly inconvenient for the person who lives there to work on.
“No, it’s not convenient,” Mr. Mathis said of the Earthship structure, explaining the different duties the couple will have in maintenance.
“So they plan to go out every every year, outside of their home, and apply new lime plaster. So touch up the plaster and be actively involved in its growth and maintenance,” he said. “Yes, they do have responsibilities to the house, right? But they’re comfortable and they’re happy, and it’s going to grow and live with them.”
In the next year Mr. Mathis hopes to design more Earthship-style homes in the area, modifying the plans he made for Mr. Botek and Ms. Perry.
“As it stands right now, no, I do not think that most people will take these plans and execute them this way because of the level of commitment,” Mr. Mathis said.
Over time Mr. Mathis believes people will “see the lifestyle that Nic and Monika live” and become motivated to try something similar.
Currently construction has halted on the building as the two apply for permits and inspections with the city of Toledo. Mr. Mathis said the city has been “lenient” with the project.
If everything goes according to plan, the natural dwelling will be completed within a year and may end up being the first building using natural building methods in an urban area in the United States.
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