Recycled Pole Building Home With Greenhouse

This blog continues to amaze me! It's been a very busy summer and I haven't posted since June 9th, but I still get an average of 30 hits a day! And most of those have been from legitimate sources, not spammers :)

What I've posted so far is the result of sitting around and dreaming about stuff I'd like to build. Today, I want to show you a project Grampa Tom and I are planning to actually do!

The 16'x72', 4 bedroom portion in the middle is our current trailer. The roof and some of the windows are leaking, so we've got to do something. We decided the most practical solution would be to just put a pole building roof over it and then enclose it.

We've been talking about doing something like this for years, but a few weeks ago Grampa Tom was talking to a couple of friends of ours. They thought it was a great idea and offered to help us with it. That is a very good thing, because Grampa Tom and I remodeled a 5'x6' bathroom one time and nearly got a divorce :) Neither of us are carpenters, but our friends are very talented carpenters! Anyway, they came up with all kinds of neat ideas about using recycled materials and we are thinking we can get it done for under $10,000. 

Our trailer sits at an angle, so there is no true south side, but that's going to work out fine, because that means we have two south sides to make into a huge green house. Our plan is to build raised beds just outside the pole roof line and place cattle panels at an angle so they reach from the beds to the inside of the roof line. We will have retractable green house plastic that we can cover these with during the winter and during the summer we can grow vines up them to shade the house. We are planning to find used brick to cover the inside of this area and we'd like to build a rocket fired thermal-mass wood stove for supplemental heat on cold nights or cloudy days. 

On the north-west side we will have an 8' wide shed. We need a place to store fresh vegetables during the market season, so our friend Dan suggested that we partition part of it off, insulate it and put a window air-conditioner in it. Sounds good to us! Grampa Tom thought we ought to close in the north-east wall to provide a wind break. We hope to find a whole lot of used windows to frame into it. We also want to put a mudroom/entry at the back door. 

We were also thinking we need to put large tanks at each corner to collect rainwater for our gardens. A summer kitchen out in the green house would be nice too!

Between the utility bill savings, the additional income we will be able to earn from the greenhouse and the ability to keep our produce fresher on hot summer days, this project should more than pay for itself in a few years.

Here's our list of stuff to scavenge for this project. If you know of someone who is tearing down an old house or a barn in our area, please let us know!

Used electric poles

roof or siding metal sheets

2"x6" or larger lumber

large beams

old windows

bricks

concrete blocks

cattle panels

fire brick

an old water heater

6 inch diameter stainless stove pipe

large tanks for rainwater collection

nice oak pallets for the front deck and steps

Styrofoam sheet insulation

Thanks!

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

Trailer Gold

We have some friends who took an old trailer, gutted it and added on to it. The result is a beautiful home that didn't cost them much.

We have lived in our 16 x 72 food trailer for 15 years now. It's paid for and we've talked about doing this too. The other day I thought, I'm just going to sit down and play with this for awhile. I came up with two designs that I like. This is the simpler one. I'll post the the other one next week.

Remember, if you want to see a bigger version of the plan, all you have to do is hold down your Ctrl button and push the + button!

I left the master bedroom and bath that are currently there, but I put a door where the water heater currently is. I'd move the water heater to the closet just outside the master bedroom and I'd leave the furnace where it currently is in the pantry. Either that or just build a little utility shed out in the sun room near the rocket stove heated hot tub so some heat from the thermal mass could be tapped.

One of the things I dream about a lot is adding some passive solar capacity to my home. I probably wouldn't go so far as to put a permanent sun room on. This space could be as simple as patio and a hoop structure with clear plastic tarps that could be rolled up or removed in the summer. I think I this would be cooler in the summer and it wouldn't be taxed like a real sun room.

My oldest son has a hot tub. We went out there last fall and had a chance to play in it. A hot tub is now one of my highest goals! But I don't want to pay the electric bill and the idea of running through any amount of cold snowy weather to get out to one on a deck like they have would keep me from using it. I don't think I have an ounce of Viking blood in me! But, I came across instructions for how to build a rocket fired thermal massstove a while back and I thought a hot tub would be the perfect thermal mass. I could put it in a sun room! Voila! Problem solved. This concept is in a lot of my designs now.

The pantry and ½ bath are carved out of what currently is a bedroom and the kitchen/dining room area are what currently is the kitchen/living room area. I really miss the gigantic kitchen we had in the old farm house. This area isn't quite as big, but the pantry ought to make up for that.

The other end of the house then becomes a large living area that opens to the kitchen/dining area with sliding pocket doors. They allow an open feeling when wanted, but the kitchen can be closed off from the living room during the summer so the living room can be kept cooler while cooking.

I also added a mud room with a toilet room, walk-in shower and a large closet.

If you wanted to build this home new, I'm sure any modular home builder could build this. If you put it on a basement there would be plenty of room for bedrooms for kids and storage.

Your feed back would be greatly appreciated!

What do you like about this home?

What would you change?

God Bless You All!

~Grama Sue

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