Earthship holiday

THE first earthship holiday home in Europe - a totally off-grid, power-generating, water-collecting miracle gite - is available for bookings, writes Kevin Telfer.

"YOU can't take that shampoo," I tell my wife as she chucks her normal brand into her bag. "It has to be biodegradable. Otherwise, it will upset the organic water filtration system."

It's safe to say that my wife is not as enthusiastic as I am about staying in a Norman eco-gite. She's seen the pictures of the glass and earth building on the website and is not impressed.

I knew that this trip would be a hard sell. We were going to stay in the first earthship holiday home in Europe - a totally off-grid, power-generating, water-collecting miracle cottage.

I've been hooked on earthships since I first set eyes on one in 2003, so much so that I wrote a book about them. But while my wife appreciates the intelligent design, she is less convinced about spending her hard-earned holiday in one. A pretty guest house or a chateau would do her nicely, thank you.

Invented by US architect Mike Reynolds in the desert of New Mexico, earthships got their name because they 'float free' from infrastructure - the pipes and cables that connect most homes to mains water, gas, electricity and sewerage - by providing these services themselves. And, also because earth, rammed into old car tyres, forms the main building material of their thick walls.

The French holiday home Earthship is on the edge of the small village of Ger, midway between Saint Malo and Caen - surrounded by hills, pastures, woods and orchards. It was built by an enthusiast, his wife and a team of volunteers who were inspired to get involved after a talk given by Reynolds.

After driving for just over an hour from Saint Malo, we find Ger and a friendly cyclist directs us to the earthship, 200 metres away.

"It looks like a giant greenhouse," says my wife. "Shame we're not staying in one of those instead." She points to the picturesque stone cottages dotted around the site.

But this, I insist, is a unique opportunity. It's the only earthship in Europe available to rent as a holiday home - the rest are either lived in or, non-residential buildings. It is a chance to have a go at genuine low-carbon living and also to marvel at - and understand - a home that can deliver almost all its occupants' needs with minimal running costs and practically no carbon emissions.

The reason it looks like a greenhouse is because it works in a similar way. The building faces south with vast windows to capture the maximum amount of sunlight and heat possible, so that only the very coldest of nights require heating - provided by a wood burning fire.

Inside, it smells of earth and wood. There is a kitchen and living room, three bedrooms and a bathroom. The view through the windows takes in cottages and fields. We settle in, relax and bathe in the warm sunlight, listening to birds and snorting horses.

It would be easy to do nothing here, but there's plenty to do around Ger. We explore the network of ancient sunken paths that wind through the fields, heathland and woods. The pace of life seems slow and the agriculture of low intensity.

We make it back from our walk as the rain sets in. "At the moment those 10,000-litre cisterns are filling up with water for us," I enthuse. My wife listens to my eco-babble patiently before taking a shower.

"Was your shower OK without the shampoo?" I ask later over goats cheese salad in the earthship kitchen. "Great. It's so nice knowing you're bathing in rainwater heated by the sun," she replies with unexpected enthusiasm. "When are we going to build ours?"

VISIT earthship-france.com for more information. Prices start from BD364 a week, peak period. The French earthship is a fully furnished, 3-bedroomed gite with a kitchen and bathroom. It has the fixtures and fittings of any conventionally designed house, but with an eco-twist. This rental offers the opportunity to experience earthship living first-hand and adds to the viability of making it a blue print for developments in the future

Earthships by Mark A Hewitt and Kevin Telfer is available from brebookshop.com