The House of Tires - Odessa, TX

This post is a little unusual in that I only took two of the photographs. It's a cool story, though, so I'm putting it here. My sister and her husband are building a house... with dirt and truck tires. The other day, I got a text from her that they had filled the last tire and they were done with that portion of the house. Cause for celebration, indeed! I had previously encouraged her to post a blog, but between being a Mom, a wife, a vet tech, and, well, building a house with a lot of dirt and a lot of tires, she just didn't have the time. So I'm telling the story in my blog while she gets comfortable with a celebratory glass of champagne and this blogger software.

The details (I have to check my phone, she texted it all to me):

• Concrete for foundation poured 11/17/09, and they started packing dirt about 5 days later
• 539 tires
• 67 tons/130 cubic yards of dirt, around 90 of which got sledgehammered into tires. the left over dirt will get spread inside the perimeter to raise it to a 4" slab
• Approximately 250-300 pounds of dirt per tire. That was about three wheelbarrows full of dirt per tire, until after the third tier was complete and the fourth tier was too high. From then on, they used kitty litter buckets, and most tires used about eight kitty litter buckets full of dirt
• Now they are going to "slap some concrete mixed with dirt in the v's between the tires utilizing three soda cans to take up space to further the energy efficiency"
• Last tire packed 4/12/11

Without further ado, here are the photos.

J. measuring:

Frames for the concrete:

Foundation and first tire:

First tire filled:

The process:

Third tier:

My sister said that as they built the wall of tires, people would pull up and ask if they were building a track for go-karts.

Filling the last tire:

J. with the completed wall of tires:

My sister will take on the story from here, since there is a lot more house to build. You can follow the story at Tread Lightly - H.O.T.