ANOTHER SHANTY IDEA
And yet another wild hair brained idea for shelter. So far my one idea fits all sizes was to live in a travel trailer. Tow it on to your land, unhitch, hook up a propane bottle and a PV panel. You can now live rent free. Well, that pesky Peak Oil is getting in the way of my shelter utopia. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you, no more cheap propane ( or gas or food or anything else ). So you need a good bit of insulation between your trailer and the outside elements. It used to be propane was cheap enough for heating a trailer all winter but those days are long gone. If you don’t live in a region with abundant wood ( meaning abundant enough when everyone starts switching over to it ) you are literally staking your life on the amount of insulation you have. Due to the cost of zero, my favorite insulation is dirt.
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Unfortunately dirt needs to be contained so as not to crush you like the small pathetic insect that you will become, burrowing deep into the earth to avoid freezing to death in the winter or roasting in the summer. That is what costs the money. I have already suggested sandbags and stucco, but that carries a cost of near $300 for a thousand bags. Alternately you could use tires as they are free. They are a bit harder to stucco, however. You could build a shredded newspaper in cement structure, providing a insulated light weight structure. But you need a home built shredder/mixer for that. Fortunately for you my little brain has been furiously at work while you have been scratching yourself and playing your PlayStation 3 games on your big screen TV.
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A wood pallet adobe hovel is just the thing. It is free other than the roof. There is no need to form blocks of adobe. You have an easy area to stucco. And the walls are four feet thick, just the thing to stop bullets and some radioactive fallout. It should be very comfortable with minimal fuel inputs. The only things you need other than what is available on the building site is a bit of cement and chicken wire. Some sheets of plywood. A lot of wood pallets and plenty of digging. The roof is going to be the bugger. If you aren’t near a forest with nearly free timber you are going to need to figure out how to roof the place cheaply. I figure a number of 4x4’s are not going to be cheap, but it beats casting cement and rebar beams and hoisting them in place.
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Take your free wood pallets you were able to scrounge. Place them down flat over a rock trench if you want to get fancy. Otherwise just lay flat on the ground ( and later dig a drain trench outside the wall ). Stack the pallets like a brick wall. You will need to cut one in half for the ends of each row. Make your wall as high as desired. Since a normal pallet is only five or six inches tall laying flat you will need at least a dozen to two dozen high for each wall. An eight by sixteen foot by eight foot tall ( interior space ) is a lot of pallets-around 200. Place plywood on either side of the wall and nail/screw on. Place braces along wall on both sides. Then pour in mud ( preferably with a binder such as sawdust ). When dry enough remove the plywood and reuse for the roof. The outside is cement stucco and the inside can be sheetrock if you are wanting to reduce fire hazards.
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You could build down in a hole, both to make it easier to fill with mud and to allow more dirt to surround it. A straight up from the ground structure is going to be difficult to fill, but if it is on a slight rise it will also drain water better. Remember, this is a nearly free structure, not the perfectly engineered Yuppie mansion you would prefer. I like the idea of building it as a garage and parking the travel trailer inside. Then you need less finishing ( or a floor for that matter ) and leaks won’t matter as much. You could build the walls underground and face with plastic sheeting and then there is no need to stucco. So, dig a hole for your home, setting the dirt aside. Allow for drainage ( my land in all gentle slope so water will escape easily ). Set the pallets down and prepare the mud above the hole for easy filling. Line the earth facing wall with plastic sheeting. Rocks on the inside floor. Plywood is only needed on the inside facing wall as the walls of the holes are earth and will hold the mud.
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Roof over and insulate well. Perhaps fiberglass bats, or foam. Weatherproof the roof and build at a slight angle. The above 8x16 would run about $700 if using new 4x4 and outdoor plywood. Waterproofing/insulation would be extra. This assumes you can’t get trees for a pole roof. If you are living in a water rich environment, consider your building carefully. Underground might not work. And you might need a bit more cement and waterproof coatings. Just don’t get too darn fancy. This is a dirt sheltered home. Think more of military field fortifications than fancy homes featured in Sunset color books. And consider the tax implications. A trailer on an axle with it wheels still on is considered a vehicle and thus not a home with property taxes. And the earth building has no plumbing or wiring to be subject to code.
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This is just a basic idea. You will need to fill in the blanks and add building expertise. But a quick and dirty guide to winterizing your trailer.
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12 comments:
Off the subject, but local wally-world stopped selling firearms and I'm told ammo is going to be cut way back. We are going to run out of everything, and in this country, we ain't gonna survive, cause we're too far gone.
Yep building underground is great. I spent a little more but i got a hole school bus coverd.
I have used pallets to make a small stable for my horses. I stood them on end and bolted them together. 2 rows high and lots bolts. Used 4x4's to stableize and make a pitched roof. One way pitch.
Very inexpensive.
I also use pallets to stack my fire wood on. Helps circulate air from the bottom up and dry the wood.
I am thinking about using them as a base structure for an ice house. Coupled with a couple of rows of baled hay and should hold ice for quite a while.
Relative to the previous comment. You are right we are way too far gone to be redeemed.
Hillary will be president and we are all screwd to support her and the rest of the "Overclass" she thinks her and Al the whore Gore belong to.
There are to many snouts in the trough.
There is a theory that societies collapse when the unproductive (government, social security recipients including OAP's) demands exceed what the productive (workers, business owners etc) can/are prepared to deliver.
I work for a large gov't agency. The waste is huge. If a private business was run like we are we'd be broke. But hey! Why am I complaining? I'm earning more money than I ever have before even when I was working two jobs, I'm never going to get fired and i'm gauraneteed 4 more substantial pay rises in the next 3 years. Plus I get a flash looking uniform that commands respect. LOL when I first wore it in public I was shocked how people thought I was someone worthy of respect.
Wally-world is also a great place for aquiring pallets. We use them for firewood, Most being hardwood. Also our localWalmartski stopped selling firearms and ammo
If one uses his head the lowly pallet can be used for all sorts of projects, pens for critters, fire wood, lining for outhouse holes, skirting for live in busses in winter, it gives cardboard a place to be stappled to, prochway steps, beds, chairs, both indoor and lawn chairs, I built a simple footon once, looked good once I covered it with a quilt, just use your emagination. to the snout in the trough guy, enjoy your big easy paycheck while you can, you will be some of the first to get a RFID chip in you
Jim, I read your instructions 3 times and they still don't make sense to me (I've had way too much to drink tonight, I reckon), it would seem to me that you could do this with far fewer pallets. I'd go two foot wide walls with vertical pallets for the outsides, and the dirt well tamped between them, sort of modified rammed earth.
"... you are going to need to figure out how to roof the place cheaply."
Ferrocement ... with 2x4s (although 2x2s would probably work as well) as framework / wire support. Rebar is a little too flexible, but salvaged water pipe works okay.
There's something under-engineered about this design, to the point of being dangerous. Mud is not a good building material, particularly in 4 foot widths. The problem lies with the water in it, which you want to eventually leave the structure, correct? It makes up a good deal of the structure of mud and the dirt left behind IS NOT cementous, doesn't dry hard and is not stable! It would take *forever* for a wall like that to dry, and in the meantime, moisture is sitting against every inch of coarse-sawn wood of the pallets, weakening them with rot. When the wood rots away you'd be left with a network of relatively empty spaces in dirt that (when finally dry) is more like dust in terms of it's rigidity. You'd be much safer using the pallets for smaller forms (think about the hydralic pressure of an 8 foot high wall that is 4 feet thick....it'd be fairly gigantic, requiring 3/4" plywood facing and minimum 3" screws every two inches or so...a lotta screws!) and dirt rather than mud, rammed earth-style as spoken of by an earlier poster. You're on the right track Jim, but you've taken a wrong turn with this design. Back up and keep heading down the "cheap ways to build" road.
maybe you ought to listen to the 'mystical mother of the oak tree'.... for under a $100 you could fill plastic bags with leaves and hold 'em place around your travel trailer with a few tarps...i don't understand all this heavy duty construction stuff that is sure to atract the neighbors and the man's attention.
This topic tripped a memory in me. There is a company in the mid-west that manufactures fall out shelters and the main construction material is plain old culvert piping (with a few tricks). There was also a site showing one such shelter used as sort of live-in tornado shelter. In both, the ends are welded shut and the pipe buried. Not as cheap as a trailer, but less conspicuos and safer in some regards. Lighting and ventilation would be the main problems, as well as building a level floor.
Regarding the culvert shelter, I found a sight with some pictures. Go to: waltonfeed.com/old/cellar3.html
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