Will it be a Housewagon?
Posted: Sun Aug 28, 2011 12:57 pm
For more than a year I've been weighing options on what to build for two of us to live in full time. I had planned to finish converting our '87 Flxible Metro transit bus, but it proved to have too many serious design flaws. I've looked constantly for the right MCI bus, but the ones I want are still too pricy. I've considered building in a semi trailer drop deck van, but moving it would require a road tractor. Lately I've been looking at heavy-duty gooseneck trailers in the 24' range, but the right trailer at the right price has not appeared.
A couple of days ago I was in the next county on business and stopped by the lot where my motorhome has been sitting for the past five years. It's 27' long and is built on an '89 Chevy truck chassis. Like almost every class A motor home, the body is junk and has had serious leaks for most of the ten years I've owned it. I need to put the engine and transmission from it into my one-ton truck, and in the process of removing the motor, I'm planning to dismantle the body, salvage appliances, systems, generator and other stuff, and recycle what I can. I'd planned all along to end up with the bare chassis, and I've thought much about removing the front axle and building a gooseneck so I could build our house on it. I never got happy with that plan. This week it developed a new wrinkle.
We don't plan to move this house often, but we want to keep mobility as an option. I've built a number of wagons over the past 30 years, mostly to use with draft horses, so I'm going to build a wagon-style steering arrangement and tongue for the motorhome chassis and build our house on it. I can easily build 30' of length AND not lose the space that would have been occupied by a gooseneck. It will be like a large vardo or circus wagon. Since we won't move it much, I've decided to frame it with wood in the great hippie housetruck tradition. Of course I'll keep the brake system and rig it to operate from a controller in the tow vehicle. I don't have any way to guess the finished weight, but I'm confident I can move it with my ton truck. I'm not currently planning to install holding tanks, but that could change as the build progresses. This house will be so stationary that I can imagine blocking it up on piers and removing the wheels for long periods. That would make it easy to underpin and allow me to store the tires out of sunlight.
My first step is to get the motorhome running and move it forty miles to our home in the mountains. At that point, I'll begin posting photos so everyone here can follow the build. I am always interested in your observations and suggestions. We'll be in no hurry since I finally have our rented shack in comfortable shape. That's been an ordeal, but it's mostly done. I'm planning to learn stained glass so we can make the windows we want. I do some blacksmithing, so we'll have to have some pretty iron work. In spite of their current popularity, I do not plan to build slide outs. They look like guaranteed trouble down the road, and I don't think we'll need the extra space. Planning independent solar with generator backup. At least one of our short list of likely sites has serious wind potential.
After several years of pretending to be middle class, we're rapidly returning to our agrarian roots. Our housewagon will be surrounded by gardens and chickens and dairy goats and a community that understands such things. We'll be the first ones living in a "mobile" home, but we probably won't be the last. Lots of folks here — from every economic strata — have lost businesses and homes and farms and more over the past couple of years. Most of the people in our mountain county seem to have a sense that the world is changing. I'm not seeing an expectation of gloom and doom, but even many who have spent their lives in hock for consumer trinkets are working to get out of debt and into situations where they can provide their basic needs. I find this an exciting and challenging time to be alive. Even more so since I have a viable foundation for our new rolling home.
Best regards to all,
Jim in North Carolina
USA
A couple of days ago I was in the next county on business and stopped by the lot where my motorhome has been sitting for the past five years. It's 27' long and is built on an '89 Chevy truck chassis. Like almost every class A motor home, the body is junk and has had serious leaks for most of the ten years I've owned it. I need to put the engine and transmission from it into my one-ton truck, and in the process of removing the motor, I'm planning to dismantle the body, salvage appliances, systems, generator and other stuff, and recycle what I can. I'd planned all along to end up with the bare chassis, and I've thought much about removing the front axle and building a gooseneck so I could build our house on it. I never got happy with that plan. This week it developed a new wrinkle.
We don't plan to move this house often, but we want to keep mobility as an option. I've built a number of wagons over the past 30 years, mostly to use with draft horses, so I'm going to build a wagon-style steering arrangement and tongue for the motorhome chassis and build our house on it. I can easily build 30' of length AND not lose the space that would have been occupied by a gooseneck. It will be like a large vardo or circus wagon. Since we won't move it much, I've decided to frame it with wood in the great hippie housetruck tradition. Of course I'll keep the brake system and rig it to operate from a controller in the tow vehicle. I don't have any way to guess the finished weight, but I'm confident I can move it with my ton truck. I'm not currently planning to install holding tanks, but that could change as the build progresses. This house will be so stationary that I can imagine blocking it up on piers and removing the wheels for long periods. That would make it easy to underpin and allow me to store the tires out of sunlight.
My first step is to get the motorhome running and move it forty miles to our home in the mountains. At that point, I'll begin posting photos so everyone here can follow the build. I am always interested in your observations and suggestions. We'll be in no hurry since I finally have our rented shack in comfortable shape. That's been an ordeal, but it's mostly done. I'm planning to learn stained glass so we can make the windows we want. I do some blacksmithing, so we'll have to have some pretty iron work. In spite of their current popularity, I do not plan to build slide outs. They look like guaranteed trouble down the road, and I don't think we'll need the extra space. Planning independent solar with generator backup. At least one of our short list of likely sites has serious wind potential.
After several years of pretending to be middle class, we're rapidly returning to our agrarian roots. Our housewagon will be surrounded by gardens and chickens and dairy goats and a community that understands such things. We'll be the first ones living in a "mobile" home, but we probably won't be the last. Lots of folks here — from every economic strata — have lost businesses and homes and farms and more over the past couple of years. Most of the people in our mountain county seem to have a sense that the world is changing. I'm not seeing an expectation of gloom and doom, but even many who have spent their lives in hock for consumer trinkets are working to get out of debt and into situations where they can provide their basic needs. I find this an exciting and challenging time to be alive. Even more so since I have a viable foundation for our new rolling home.
Best regards to all,
Jim in North Carolina
USA