These strange looking houses are totally energy self sufficient! NO UTILITY BILLS!!
The community we visited is near Taos, New Mexico....they even have a visitors center set up so curious people can see first hand how they are made.
Made of used tires filled with compacted earth for U shaped walls, and either dug into the side of a hill or earth bermed up against the tires, these houses are cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
They have a couple houses that are nightly rentals. We stayed in this one bedroom ($190)...it was below freezing when we woke up, but the inside was 68 degrees (farenheight).
The 9" of annual rainfall is collected and cycled through the house 4 times before it is put into the common greenbelt or landscape. Solar is the main energy producer though some folks have wind power too. The water was piping hot the next morning.....solar hot water heater..must be a heck of an insulated tank! The entire south facing front is made of glass at a slant......the idea is that in the winter when the sun is low in the sky it penetrates the house to the back wall and heats it up. In the summer the sun is high and so does not enter so much. There is a greenhouse inside against the glass. Plants for food, oxygen and humidity. Therfore, this is a passive solar home.....no mechanical heating or cooling system. The solar panels are mostly for the lights, refrigerator and water pump.
There were some really cool ideas and uses of different materials, like this storage building made of cement, bottles and cans.
This living room fireplace had a WATERFALL in front of it!
Most of the inside non-structural walls are made of cans and bottles, either arranged in a design and letting light through as in this wall surrounding the bathtub, or plastered over for an adobe effect.
This chandalier made of coiled rope lights!
Notice the thick wall made of tires and covered with plaster. All the floors I saw were either poured cement or flagstone.
Since the rooms are U shaped and no corners, the bedroom closets are behind the built in headboards.
Gas stove and solar DC refrigerator. Someone just told me DC does not shock you...is that true?
The visitor home left an interior wall unplastered so you could see how the tires are stacked and the empty spaces filled with cans.
Here is one under construction. This community is 633 acres and there are 43 homes on it now. They are selling lots, cost depends on location and size, and the build turn key price is $175 per square foot.
And finally I cannot end without including this photo of the Angel's Nest. That is a hydrogen powered stretch Hummer. These folks are producing hydrogen and also have the coolest wind turbins I have seen....DNA helix shaped...they are bird and bat safe. I am including the link to the YouTube video because they give a nice tour of the inside and they have a water machine that produces 8 gallons of water each day from the air.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZpId9ZrT0AkI saw in the Austin paper last week that Willie Nelson is selling the water machines for $1600.
Having a toast before the meal. Not all of us here for this photo as there were 16 total! We had turkey, smoked hams, cornbread dressing, Asian rice dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, green beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry dressing, rolls, fruit salad, and lots of desserts...I am probably forgetting something....it was a huge meal! 
Some of the chefs
We have a tradition of baking sugar cookies, cutting out the shapes and then decorating them...its always fun to laugh at each others creations.
Louie and Bella (Chinese Cresteds) resting after all the excitement.
