From: sail4free
Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 19:37:00 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [cheap-shelters] PALLETS or USED MOBILES?
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ADH: "I'm a major fan of quonsets. The quonset shape, anyway. I'm not
so sure about the pallets. I'm not sure about gettin' them fer free.
Pallets wouldn't be my first choice to use."
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With a little "footwork", you can line out unlimited sources for free
pallets -- some of them might be damaged, but there's still a lot of
GOOD left in 'em.
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Some folks can take $200 dollars worth of materials and make it look
like a $20 dollar job. Others can take $20 dollars worth of materials
and make it look like a $200 job. The difference is what I call
workmanship -- attention to detail. While I lived with my Grandpa --
37 years ago -- we built three buildings which are still standing (in
heavy snow country) today. I never ONCE saw him in a hardware store or
a lumberyard -- everything was built with "experienced" lumber or
lodgepole pine (for rafters and poles) which we hand-peeled and
treated before planting them in holes and firmly tamping dirt around
them -- he didn't "do" concrete either for some reason I'll never
know. Something must have stuck. To this day, I make my living as a
carpenter (using mostly "new" wood) but I still prefer working with
old, seasoned, "experienced" wood. It's so rewarding to recycle wood
that others would have buried in a landfill somewhere or chopped up
into bedding for cows and build something useful and long lasting out
of free materials. I think it's a lot like recycling in general -- if
you do it all -- you do it because it makes intellectual sense to you
. . . NOT because it makes any financial sense. You do it for the same
reason my Grandpa & I straightened old, rusty nails and sorted them in
the winter while we contemplated life -- with no TV, only a radio in
the house -- sitting there by that old wood stove. It's not about
justifying the time spent in any financial way -- it's a deep
spiritual gratification on a much more meaningful plane.
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Personally, I truly love salvaging a 3' long 2X4 -- cutting the
"magic" angles on each end and tossing the little scraps of wood into
a bucket for my next campfire. Same thing when I cut the plywood
gussets -- trying to get as many as I can out of a piece of free scrap
plywood or OSB and tossing the "crumbs" into the campfire buckets --
nothing is wasted -- nothing ends up in a stupid landfill somewhere
that I have to buy gas to drive to AND then pay a fee to get into once
I get there! There IS a better way and I wish it on EVERYONE.
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ADH: "Now getting a singlewide or two for super low cost, to recycle
the materials from, is making more and more sense to me."
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I think old mobiles are a wonderful -- and vastly underutilized --
resource. In our area, dozens of folks are paying storage on their
empty homes month after month as they can't find a place to put them
and/or can't afford to move them far enough way from this bloated
gas-passing yuppiedom that Boise, ID has become. They know there is so
much intrinsic value there; they know what they're paying each month
for no better space in some apartment building somewhere so they can't
bear to part with them either. Of course many of them are filled with
storage STUFF (like mine is) so we're getting some value out of them
that way.
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On the other hand -- because of how they are constructed --
disassembling them is NOT as easy as one might think. Interior
paneling is usually glued and stapled. Flooring is glued and stapled
-- what we call "glued, blued and tattooed" (and often these huge 6' X
14' sheets -- on 14-wides anyway -- that are virtually impossible to
remove in any size that would be practical to re-use -- they're
usually particleboard "junk" anyway). VERY lightweight roof trusses
(made out of 1X2s) have the ceiling panels "trapped" between the wall
top plates and the bottom chord of the truss because these are
assembled upside down and then flipped over on top of all the walls.
Requires more patience than I have anymore to salvage the ceiling
panels for re-use and the roof trusses are SO lightweight that it will
require some real creativity to re-use them for anything long term.
Floor joists and floor insulation are good salvage but you have to go
to considerable work to get them freed up and "cleaned up"
(removing all metal fasteners and bits of wood debris). Wall studs and
wall insulation are good salvage but they have metal hurricane straps
at each stud top tied into the roof truss AND at each stud bottom tied
into the floor assembly -- these require large staples to be clipped
and removed -- one leg at a time to remove the metal strap = a REAL
labor of love! All to say, "GREAT resource but NOT easy either -- I've
done enough of it to know."
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The only easy part -- once you've pried the roof metal loose one
staple at a time -- is removing the metal siding and taking it to the
recycle yard. And we haven't even mentioned the MILES of Romex and
outlets and switches and boxes and plumbing and sinks and toilets and
counters and light fixtures and cabinets which have to be removed --
most of which can be RE-used if you know what you're doing and can
keep it organized enough to actually find WHAT you need WHEN you need
it. In the end, you still have a metal frame with axles and tires
which must be sold, traded, or otherwise disposed of.
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I think a better value with used mobiles -- especially single wides --
is remodeling and converting the space in such a way that it looks
more like a conventional stick-built home when you're done. Of course,
this requires locating them in an area where the code-breathing dragon
isn't shooting flames down the back of your neck. For example, I have
a 14 X 70 (counting the tongue) with a "box" size of 14 X 66. It would
be a lot of work but conceivable to remove the front kitchen, the
adjacent living room and the master bedroom at the back end. This
would leave a 14X32 "wet core" which includes the power supply panel,
the utility alcove for washer and dryer -- virtually all of the
plumbing and most of the electrical work. It would also leave the
larger hall bath with combo tub/shower and the "Jack and Jill"
bedrooms with the half bath between them.
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One could move the kitchen into the new "front" bedroom and have a
functional small house -- albeit with one very small bedroom --
complete with closet and built-in dresser and barely enough room for a
twin-size bed . . . but VERY close to its own half bath with a "short
cut" to the kitchen which is kinda' cool. The first year, one could
move this "wet core" to their land and have something which would get
them through their first winter. The following summer -- tear off the
roof/cheapo trusses/ceiling -- construct a 2nd floor, build walls and
a real roof to create two bedrooms upstairs and make it through their
2nd winter. The following summer -- site-build a one-story attached
living room to end up with a very nice looking, 3 bedroom,
bath-and-a-half house. Again, a very cost-effective approach to
getting a "real" house which no building inspector would ever approve
and no bank appraiser would ever value as worth a dime so it has to be
done pay-as-you-go -- no loans allowed -- and beyond their reach. All
this means -- if you ever decide to sell -- is you have to find a
buyer who has their own money and doesn't have to kiss up to some
banker just to have a place to BE or -- as the seller -- carry the
contract yourself and earn some interest income as a bonus. If the
price is right, who cares about those scamming insurance companies and
all their high-rise real estate investments? Put your premium money
into savings and if the sucker burns down, do it again -- or pay
someone like me to do it for you if you're too old by then to be
climbing ladders and playing with power tools.
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sail4free
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