Cottage Life Magazine Q&A

Ongoing, Teaching

Mark Fleischhaker, P.Eng., contributed to a Q&A with Cottage Life Magazine’s Early Summer 2018 Issue.

“GETTING THE OK FOR EARTHSHIPS

Why wouldn’t a municipality grant permits to build an earthship?

“In most cases, the design of earthship-like buildings—with tire walls and no concrete foundation—means they fall outside the part of the building code that deals with small residential buildings.

This doesn’t mean you can’t get a permit to build one. “There are lots of buildings that fall outside this part of the code—hospitals, schools—and those things are built all the time,” says Mark Fleischhaker, a structural engineer based in B.C. But it does mean that you’ll need to equip yourself with the right professional services. As soon as you want to build something unconventional, “you better have professionals to back you up,” says Fleischhaker. “You need their stamps on the drawings.” You’ll require, at the very least, input from a structural engineer, but you might also need help from a mechanical or an electrical engineer, depending on the features you plan to include in the structure.”