NOMADICISTA

Well Sharky, now that I'm blasting past your Spam Filters (with both fingers a'flailing) you might just find yourself cursing yourself for letting me through. There's no telling what might happen next.

I must say this whole notion of getting "recognized" for having built a rolling home is something I've been studying quite thoroughly. First of all, we live in very strange times, where "creativity" as-I-imagine-it, has very little value. To find someone under 35 these days who would actually repair something, as opposed to simply buying a new better bigger newer one, is very rare. My joke at the end of my page (on this site) about "I could have bought a Winnebago for the same price" ... has actually been directed at me on several occasions.
I feel that we have gone from a "you are what you create" 1967'ish culture, through a "you are what you own" 1975'ish culture to a "you are whatever you can make other people think you are" type of culture. The substance doesn't really come into it.
I have basically built the largest most-sophisticated technological palace on 10 tires, that anyone ever has (I welcome anyone wishing to challenge this point) ... built almost exclusively out of bits and pieces scrounged from garage sales, flea markets and my travels all over the world; with satellite hookups (even though I don't watch TV by-the-way) and a laptop in every desk ... damn ... I even have a built-in on-board vac-system for vacuuming the rugs .... and the entire bell-cable contents of a defunked telemarketing boiler-room running through my walls ....... and on and on and on (13 years of creative effort), and you should see the hoops I have to jump through, anytime the media decides to do any kind of story on me.
So far it has cost me a fortune in taking time off work, mailing negatives, long phone interviews, rearranged weekends, you-name-it. And the stories have essentially been about this guy who lives in a junk-yard and has to scrounge everything he uses because he's doing this on the cheap. Well folks ... I earn six figures, easily, wear a suit-and-tie when around my secretary, but these days, since I'm building a house in a firetruck, I'm portrayed as this struggling ex-hippie (used twice in the Canadian Meida to describe me).
Worse, just to add insult to injury, I happen to be a very close relative of someone very famous who lives in a huge mansion in the heart of Beverly Hills. So now they have this angle of this struggling sibling who lives in a junk-yard, vs this big successful superstar, and they pin me again. If I ever do visit my sister (only twice in 15 years) It takes about three days of chopping wood and rolling around in the muck, to bring myself back to my "reality".
This idea of the media paying YOU to do a story on YOU is not only wrong, it's completely backwards.
If you can imagine this: I spent an entire weekend with a whole film crew that flew up from Los Angeles to do a story on my truck. I had beer in my fridge ... spent an entire day with my girlfriend filming this thing. Then the head guy suggests we all go out for supper to celebrate a successful shoot. So we have this dinner at a local "roadhouse" place ... and at the end of it we're all asked to cough up our portion of the bill. My girlfriends veggieburger and coke came to $6.25 I do recall. This is how it goes, and how it will always be. I've been running around getting stuff for this "Old House" spot ... and then they tell me it's going to be about "165 words long". That's the article that we're all talking about.
It extremely amusing to watch how both people and the media approach something that I presume is a wonderous thing. It's not. If I had a brand new high-end BMW parked next to my firetruck, the place would be swarming with kids coming to check out the cool car.
Those days are over man. You're on your own. Why didn't you buy a Winnebago ? I hope you know this is rather tongue-in-cheek, sorta.
Which only has me adding how thoroughly happy this all makes me. Nothing would screw up my whole lifestyle more than all my clients at work suddenly deciding to drop-on by. In 14 years not a single one has ever done so ... even those who have seen my spot on Weird Homes and so-forth. First I was distressed ... then enthralled, when contemplating my retreat being invaded.
And now .... a bit of Christmas Cheer.
(Well I wanted to add a picture here, one with a bit of snow on it, and one of a pary I held with 32 people on-board ... but Sharky seems to have left out an upload feature or I'm too stupid to figure out where it is ... so until then.

I remain: Damien

As for the "Exciting Home Based Earnings" ... You simply move into your rolling "home" full-time, and rent out your house. It's that easy.

FOR THE PHOTOS SEE THE NIGERIAN PRINCESS POST ABOVE. SHARKEY WAS KIND ENOUGH TO FILL ME IN ON THE DETAILS.

Private Message For Sharkey: One bottle of 15 tablets costs about $23.50, or as you requested, the more powerful stuff is $34.20. You're pre-approved at 3.1% and a "risk-free starter pack" is on it's way ... and her name is Burkala Faskamutu. One of her agents will be contacting you shortly ... since I've passed on your number. This Old What ... who ?

DONT MESS WITH WINNEBAGO
i really like your house truck, and im quite impressed. My friend an I thought, or dreamed is more like it, of makeing a house truck from an articulated fire truck. You know, those "hook and ladder" types they got in San Francisco and other places with tall buildings.

good job

dadeo

Hmmm, well I guess I should have expected that adding a forum would invite all manner of penniless riff-raff to post embarrassing stuff.

However, Damien, you have provided the seeds of your own containment. Keep it polite and I won't have to supply the name of your famous sister, resulting in who knows how much family discord.

BTW, did you ever convince her that she needs to own a White Guitar?

And yes, as I mentioned in the other thread, media types are happy to use up your (my) time providing free content for their programs/publications. And why shouldn't they? Imagine not having to pay royalties to writers or hire actors? They just find oddballs like me and hold us up to the masses as an example of counterculture living.

But be honest now Damien, you are still enjoying your 15 minutes of fame, yes?

Thank you for the compliments dadeo,

On a funky-scale of 1 to 10 the "articulated" firetruck idea would be a 10, about on-level with buying a London double-decker bus, or something similar. House-Truckers should be aware that as-of last year all the double-deckers in London are being done-away-with and pulled out of service. Quite the opportunity I would imagine, but not for a guy whose six three. You obvioulsy can't raise the roof.

This whole concept of "articulation" is quite complex. True articulation means that the vehicle has a point of pivot with the power coming from the back ... or both front and back. Both Toronto and Amsterdam have truely articulated street-cars, with electric motors on both sides providing power. Truly articulated gas vehicles have always been engineering disasters from what I've heard. Toronto had a whole fleet of diesel buses with an engine in the rear driving the rear wheels ... and the thrust from these tires pushed an articulated body. I think mean-time between failures was about a week. Within two years they were gone.
So many times "articulated" simply means a "tractor" front half, pulling essentially a trailer behind it. The tractor-trailer link is often a bit more than a simple hitch ... and I think in some instances the rear "trailer" wheels can pivot. This would be for the long fire-engine to navigate tight corners on narrow downtown streets.

Two myths in the housetruck mind-set relate to weight and length.
A fully loaded housetruck is essensially an "empty truck" driving down the road. Imagine a semi trailer loaded up with skids of Pepsi cans. Now that's weight ! Everything you put into a housetruck ... your wood, your furniture, wood-stove and so-forth, probably doesn't weigh as much as a skid-load of Pepsi.
It's quite funny to see people look at my firetruck and ponder whether it has a big enough engine to move such a huge rolling home. The counterweight for the ladder alone was 9,000 lbs and the water holding capacity was 1000 gallons (10,000 lbs) plus.
When I removed the truck's body and ladder the suspension rose about 4 inches. With everything I've put on there it's barely down an inch. How many people have I seen out looking for cranes and other heavy equipment to "build a house on".
They build Winnebagos on K-car frames ... and that's why.
Incredably neat, phenominally functional and structurally sound housetrucks can be built on rather small frames. Why?: because everything you own, if it were ground-up and compacted, would fit nicely on a small skid at the back of a very large empty truck.

My firetruck drives like a Sherman Tank grinding through the mud with it's rear axles locked.

The next issue is size. The legal height limit of 13ft 6" is actually very high. If you fall off a ladder at that height you might kill yourself. The height of the top of the truck-frame to the ground dictates how "high" the interior space is going to be. My firetruck has a very low frame and inside It feels like the palace of Versilles (?). I'm six three ... and I have to stand on the very top of a three-step step-ladder to reach the ceiling.
Psychologically interior height is key to making you feel open and free and not "stuck inside a truck " (with the Memphis blues again). Width is always dictated (102") and length keeps on going up. I'm at 41 feet, but I think you can now go a bit longer than that now. US and Canadian rules differ.
So my directorates are: pick a vehicle that's not overly powerful or doesn't have power-structure overkill. No cranes, enormous earth-moving equipment and such ... in-fact my firetruck is somewhat overkill in that department, but the very low-slung narrow frame really opens up the usable upper space.
Actually logging trucks and so-forth are very good (overkill again) and probably fit into the same genre as my firetruck. Schoolbuses are fantastic ... largely because they aren't really buses ... they're built along the lines of a "truck turned into a bus". I lived for a year in Vancouver (1984) in a 1959 Dodge Fargo Schoolbus, my first low-budget rolling-home attempt. Schoolbuses are actually smaller-trucks, and that is why they fit so perfectly the requirements of a rolling home. If gas consumption is an issue then undertaxing large engines is not the way to go.

Funkyness is a big wonderful artistic notion, and I'll stand by anyone with a zany idea if I think they might be able to do-it. But doing unique things puts you into spaces where no-one-has-gone-before. You'll be working things from the ground up and however tough something appears to be ... multiply it by ten or 100 when you actually tackle it.

The articulated firetruck sounds absolutely fantastic. If you think it will cost you $20,000 it will cost you $200,000 ... and if you think it will take three years ... it will take you nine. If you can pay others to do the work for you, you're way-ahead, and you might just find you'll get it done on time. Nothing can stop-you if you really want to do-it. I have a hang-up about doing everything myself ... and that IS a hang-up. Don't be afraid to enlist others if you can.

One thing that rather puzzles me: Why is no-one building incredible rolling homes in Transport Truck Trailers? Up here in Canada a standard length for a truck-trailer is 53 feet. That's my firetruck plus 13 feet. They even have these new trailers with the little wheels at the back and the floor of the trailer about 18" above the ground.
I've walked up and down a few of these on the inside, and almost started crying. The possibilities are overwhelming. Not only that, but the tractor part at the front can be unhitched and used for driving into town once the wood-stoves been fired up and dinner is being served.
Structurally you couldn't dream of such perfect walls and solid floors. Like I said ... when it's empty, that's about how much it's going to weigh once you've finished, relative to what it's designed for. Just throw a skid of Pepsi can's under the back door.

Well it's late. I just had a root canal yesterday ... so things can't possibly get any worse ... or better for that matter. It's friday night and guess where I'm off to in about fifteen minutes ? You guessed it ... Know Where To Go, my firetruck. I currently live in a super-cool brand new "loft" condo (18 foot ceilings) in the very-heart of Toronto looking out over the skyscrapers ... and in exactly 45 minutes (at 130kph) I'll be locked inside my junk-yard (with my wife) punching in my passcode to open the front door of the firetruck. My onboard timer will have clicked on all the electric heaters about four hours ago, and it will be toasty warm on arrival. Currently minus 6 C. This weekend fixing up my rear door is the big project ... the dead-bolt mechanism is stuck. Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas ..... and to all a GOOD night.
May our dreams be of housetrucks, articulated or not.

Damien
(must'a 'bin the anesthetic)

wow, well i said my dream was to build an articualted firetruck house, and thats one.. but its more like a daydream. but my real dream is ,as you mentioned, to make a housetruck from a doubledecker bus. Especially an old one with the spiral staircase in the back and the notched front end:

apperently rare is are the ones with tandem rear axles, and that would be even better. I have a good picture of one ill try to post on my web page. And me being born in England, it seems even more appropriate!!

now, i can totally agree with you as to the topic of weight on trucks.
I drive a truck (smaller streight truck) and my truck can hold its own weight in cargo. Now if you take for example a standard configuration 53' trailer pulled with a tandem axle tractor, it can hold about 3 of my school busses in weight, or arrox. 22 of my hondas. You could put all your grand pianos and wood stoves in it and still have room for a few cars and your friends house bus, if it were nicely crushed up. It couls be a palace!!
alternatly, you could do something like this:
and have a small mobile shtetl.
we'll see

dadeo