Cheap Housing Appalachia: Indigenous Materials

We recently moved to a condo since our home was being torn down to build a new development. We considered several options on our “next” home.

I really favor shipping container homes, but I wonder how available they are “close” to where we want to build. I’m still going to check local businesses that would be likely to receive goods via containers, and possibly they have a surplus, but I wonder what other materials are produced locally and can be used to build economical, sustainable housing?

Northeastern Tennessee/Southeastern Kentucky indigenous materials…what are they? We produce lots of lumber, but is it shipped someplace else to be processed? Maybe I can hook up with a local saw mill and get fresh timber, but that’s not the same as plywood.

Then you have things like insulation, etc.

I’m going to have to think on this a while.

A Bunch of Shipping Container Home Links

Taken from here.

This started in the NYC hurricane thread, which got to talking about emergency housing in New York. Midori said:

I recall a post-Katrina NPR interview with a fellow who studied them. It seems that after every major disaster, some architects (or arch school students) start designing “cheap, portable, easy to assemble” portable shelters. Apparently it makes for a good assignment.

The problem is, that though there are hundreds (!) of decent designs for such things, nobody makes them. Why? Basically there isn’t a manufacturing/distribution base for making them. Often because making them requires unusual (but eco friendly!) materials, or uncommon skill sets.

One proposed solution the sourcing problem was to abandon clever solutions in favor regular tradesmen and available materials. In the U.S., that means teams of ordinary builders use frame, drywall, paint, etc, the interiors of shipping containers. (Obviously a welder and a supply of cheap prefab windows would be a help.) Transportation of shipping containers is a solved problem if you can get a semi truck to your destination.

Shipping containers! I was impressed, and said so. We’re a port. We’ve got scads of shipping containers:

You could float them over on barges or container vessels. All you need then is a sturdy framework to hold them, and water, sewer, and electrical hookups. Windows would be a plus. At minimum they’d get you through the first weeks and months following the hurricane, though they’d be less congenial when the really cold weather set in.

Abi volunteered that

There are a couple of blocks of shipping containers turned into student housing not far from my office. I understand that they make quite cozy studio apartments. They are sought-after housing, in a funky area north of the Ij, a 15 minute (free) ferry ride from Centraal Station.

Looking at that led me to another student housing project. That was interesting. Were there any more? I absently typed shipping containers housing into Google.

Boom.

Did you know that we have a problem with too many shipping containers? These days, the United States doesn’t export much, but it imports a lot, and it’s not economical to send the containers back empty, so the shipping containers just keep stacking up. One source said there are 700,000 abandoned containers in U.S. ports. That number has undoubtedly gone up. More and more people are looking at the things as housing components.

Bob Vila likes the idea. He did a series of videos about it.

The New York Times says it’s being done.

MSNBC says it’s being done in Florida.

Container City says it’s being done by them, they’ve got it down to a system, and they’ve got lots of good-looking examples. (More.)

Another student housing project made of containers.

A compendious site about shipping container housing, including numerous articles.

Designs and examples from a prefab building enthusiast.

An excellent collection of designs and examples from frugal leftist green architecture guy Zack Smith, who says:

This is a webpage devoted to listing as many examples of people using shipping containers as architectural elements as I can find, in an effort to embolden people to use containers in building projects, when and where doing so is feasible and appropriate. Be aware that containers are not a perfect building material, since they tend to corrode, but they have been used effectively in some cases, especially in areas near saltwater.

A brief but link-dense treatment of the subject by a treehugger.

Earth Science Australia has a detailed account (with photos) of how they put together a container shipping house in a remote spot in a Queensland rainforest, including what happened when it got hit by Cyclone Larry, Cat. 5, with local wind gusts to 283kmh.

Mother Earth News is (of course) hazily in favor of the idea, but thinks it would be better with (of course) some hay bale insulation.

Wikipedia was way ahead of me. They’re all over this one. For instance:

Markets

Empty shipping containers are commonly used as market stalls and warehouses in the countries of the former USSR.

The biggest shopping mall or organized market in Europe is made up of alleys formed by stacked containers, on 170 acres of land, between the central part of Odessa in the Ukraine and its airport. Informally named “Tolchok” and officially known as the Seventh-Kilometer Market, it has 16,000 vendors and employs 1,200 security guards and maintenance workers.

In Central Asia, the Dordoy Bazaar in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, almost entirely composed of double-stacked containers, is of comparable size. It is popular with travelers coming from Kazakhstan and Russia to take advantage of the cheap prices and plethora of knock-off designers.

It also explains that shipping containers have been used as, for, or in emergency shelters, school buildings, urban homes, rural homes, large houses, apartment and office buildings, artists’ studios, sleeping rooms, stores, shopping malls, transportable factories, mobile exhibition spaces, telco hubs, bank vaults, medical clinics, radar stations, abstract art, data centers, experimental labs, and relocatable marijuana gardens

Used container dealers: W&K Container :: Chassis King :: Furbished-up containers to spec: The Mobile Storage Group :: Onsite Storage :: Sea Box :: K&K Containers :: RCS Group InterModals :: Other: B2B-Exchange.com: (Informative. Has a widget where you specify your needs and get free local price quotes.)

Mortgage News Daily says

Could America’s record balance of payments deficit with China be the solution to low cost housing? Might it even be an unprecedented opportunity to be Green? … If that sounds like two really stupid questions, well maybe not so much.

A mortgage broker (he probably picked up the story from Mortgage News Daily reassures us that shipping-container housing isn’t this era’s equivalent of the geodesic dome, and cites NJ architect Gregory La Vardera’s richly informative site as proof.

So anyway, it’s nice to know that if we crash our economy via trading in real estate derivatives and our atrocious trade imbalance with China, we’ll have a source of emergency low-cost housing easily to hand.

Mini Solar Greenhouse Sketch

Here is a sketch of a mini-greenhouse. It is not exactly to scale, it’s more of an idea of how one would work (Click for full size):

How it works…

Uses water filled, black painted milk jugs for thermal mass for nights and cloudy days. The milk jugs either need to be the non-biodegradable kind or will have to be changed out regularly.

The jugs and soil receive direct gain from the triple glazed window (hopefully salvaged.) If the greenhouse gets too warm it could be vented via a 12 vdc solar/battery powered mini fan (think computer cooling fan–another easy salvage) hooked to a thermal switch (salvaged home mercury thermostat.)

For nights and cloudy days a thermal shutter could be employed. The shutter could have a lower reflective surface and be able to be tilted to reflect the most sunlight into the space.

Some problems…

Air infiltration/heat loss around the shutter when closed would be a problem.

Ideally, the number of milk jugs should be 2 per sq ft of south facing glass in colder climates. Ideally the milk jugs should get direct sunlight. A 3′ x 4′ window area would mean 24 milk jugs. In a 5′ wide interior space you are looking at having a rear wall of water jugs 4-5 high. That might be a bit cumbersome.

I looked into other types of storage (water bed mattress for instance), but to get enough solar gain on sunny days there wasn’t a good way to expose enough of the surface to direct sunlight.

I think a design where you have a 3′ x 4′ glass coupled with 8-12 milk jugs should provide good heat retention for most days.

If I were building this I would probably want the growing area to be a slide out tray rather than making the window operable. That way you can seal the window well and prevent heat loss and create a tight seal on the side wall where the planting area pulls out.

This is not one of my best designs, and if one didn’t use salvaged materials the cost would be prohibitive for the minimal return.

An idea I did have while designing this would be a tiny greenhouse built from a scrapped refrigerator.

400 Sq Ft Living in Manhattan

Check out this video of a guy who built a livable 400 sq ft apartment. It has come great ideas on cheap construction for high-end looking fixtures.

Shipping Container Home

Tree Hugger has an interesting post about using shipping containers as a basis for a home.

It’s a great article with pictures and everything.

If you are interested, here’s the dimensions (interior/exterior) of standard shipping containers.

Looking on eBay you can get a container (without shipping) for around $2,000. That gives you a basic “under roof” area of about 320 sq ft for about $6.25 a sq ft.

Some problems I need to research:

• Insulation – in most climates (maybe all climates) these puppies are going to be way uncomfortable.
• Construction – How do you cut these puppies? Plasma cutter?
• Stress Dynamics – When you cut in a window or a doorway, how does that affect the structural integrity of the box? (This is especially crucial for stacking.)
• Location – While the boxes are cheap, they need to be transported to site as well as be off-loaded and stacked by a crane. That means you will want to build close to a large city (possibly a port city) where the crates have very little travel and a crane can be used without a large transportation cost.

Good article with pictures.

More pics on Google Image Search.

I may take some time today to think up some designs.

A great article on this here.

Notes on structural integrity.

(I couldn’t get it to load, so I used the Google Cache.)

What this article says is that 20′ shipping containers are actually have a steel frame that does not depend on any of the top, bottom or sides to maintain integrity. I haven’t found it yet, but I’ll bet money the 40′ have a frame where they have a support at 20′.

UPDATE:

This article has some interesting points about construction.

20′ containers can be transported on a “tilt truck” (usually used to transport cars) and slid into place. Also it mentions some companies sell wheels you can attach to the container to make it possible to move with almost any vehicle.

It also survived a cyclone with only minor damage.

Go Solar, Room by Room

This article talks about going progressively solar at about $600 per room.

A Cool Article and Plans for a $1000 Cabin

Taken from the Mother Earth News website:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Green-Home-Building/1977-03-01/We-Built-Our-Cabin-in-Just-Five-Days-for-1-000.aspx

They constructed this in just one week at a cost of less than $1,000 in 1971 dollars. This is without plumbing, etc.

It looks to be about 500 sq ft from the plans.

Property we are looking at…

Got some pics from our realtor. 1 acre lot, 2 bedroom cabin. It’s near the southern end of Cave Run Lake–an 83,000 acre lake in north eastern Kentucky.

If we bought this property we wouldn’t build the Tiny House, we would live here while we built a slightly larger house as our permanent residence.

Cheap and Easy Way to get High Value Transparent Insulation

When creating a solar receptor, use two thin clear mylar bags. The bottom of the container would be painted black. Then the bottom bag would be filler with water, the top bag would be filled with either air or argon gas.

Sandwiched together with some sort of insulated frame to keep out air infiltration from the sides as well as adding a sealing top shutter, these can be a good way to capture and retain heat.

I may try this design in a small solar water heater to see how well it works.

Tiny House Floor Plan – 909 sq ft @ $23/sq ft finished

OK, I drew up a plan for the main floor of the tiny house. This would be “livable,” but it is tight–especially the bathroom.

I you want to take a look at the plan, click on the thumbnail to see the full size plan.

Main Floor – 339 sq ft

Upper Floor – 340 sq ft

Basement – 230 sq ft

Total square footage: approx 909 sq ft

Total finished cost: approx $20,000

$/sq ft: $23.00