UK Housetruckers

[Caravan Monster]

Hi all, I' m new here on Sharkey' s Forum and first of all, I have to thank Sharkey for all the information on the site, which has been invaluable in beginning to formulate my plans.

I' m planning to park up on my own land. My question to uk housetruckers is what experiences have you had of doing this? I know this is not a straight forward thing to do.

More importantly, to the house trailer itself. An agricultural trailer will be the base- 8' x 40' flatbed with eye and hook type hitch. Hopefully, timber for cladding will be UK grown, although this will not be possible with the 2"x4" and ply for framing. Interior fittings will be salvage so far as is practicable. I am keen on a curved roof, but am struggling to come up with a design that I am happy with- have even considered a canvas roof as per bow top horse drawn gypsy wagons- well made examples are 100% waterproof and have excellent insulation properties, but I would be concerned about longeveity.

It' s all such an exciting prospect- a 14' touring caravan has been home for over five years now, and its about time for a change- I' m self employed and very busy outside of the depths of winter and its tough at times having such limited acommodation.

Any hints, tips and house trailer advice will be very gratefully received.

[maldoran]

I have a somewhat gypsy style camper that I constructed with a curved roof. I cut the rafters out of 2inch by 10inch pine. I cut the radius with a skill saw set to a depth of 2inch and was able to negotiate the curve by periodically lifting the tail of the saw as needed. I put the rafters 2 feet on center and anchored them with hurricane clips to the top plate. I covered the roof with batten strips spaced 4 inches to keep the weight down. The sheathing was 4 foot by 8 foot 22 gauge galvanized metal roofing which amounted to only 350 pounds total. This kept the center of gravity low. You can see my construction photos and a link to many more on sharkeys site under kevins gypsy wagon. hope to hear back, kevin oh I used a strip of quarter inch luan to make the radius I wanted.

[Caravan Monster]

Thanks for your reply Kevin. Galvanised sheet sounds like a very good idea for roofing. I think a similar design was used on living wagons that were drawn behind steam powered traction engines. I will start posting when build is underway, Tom.

[Caravan Monster]

Kevin, I can't quite see what type of fastners you used on your galv. steel roof. The photos on your picassa album look like the roof is fixed on the edges of each sheet and along the battens. Did you use pop rivets or allen head bolts? Can I see welding tacks on the joints between the sheets? Any reliability problems?

The build is now iminent- I have been gathering some materials and made a major step today by purchasing my trailer today. It has the remains of what was a building company' s site office on it and I am fairly sure that it was used by the Royal Air Force for some purpose prior to that. It has a really weird steering system on the front axle. I will employ a fabricator to extend the chassis to 25' as I do not have the necessary welding skills. My timber order is more or less sorted, so I must put that in next week.

My funds are organised so that when the current wall is finished, I can take about two months off work to get a good start on my house trailer (I' m a self employed waller mason, so I can take this length of time off). Once it is all underway, I will do my best to make regular posts. Tom.

[maldoran]

hey i used metal roofing sheet metal screws with a neoprene washer. the only think i would have done different would have been to use silicone or roofing tar under the lap over seams instead of latex caulk. i dont think it cured well and i had to tar over the seams. keep me posted, kevin

[Corwen]

Sorry for the thread necrophilia, caravan Monster if you are still looking at this take my advice and get in touch with Chapter 7 of This Land IS Ours, better still buy their DIY planning papers booklet, its the best thing to read to find out about UK planning loopholes and how to park up on your own land here and not get evicted.

http://www.tlio.org.uk/chapter7/

[Sharkey]

Hi Corwen, glad to see you made it to the forum.

This is probably as good a place as any to share the links you emailed me. I haven't had a chance to view everything presented on those pages, but the sampling I saw looked good.

I've always heard that living in a vehicle in the UK was made difficult by the authorities, but had never seen any examples of house trucks or house buses in the British Isles. The following links will take the interested viewer to a treasure trove of photos of all manner of home-built mobile homes and their owners:

http://www.travellerhomes.co.uk

http://tash.gn.apc.org/photo_1.htm

There is one image that I'm going to "steal" from the travellerhomes site, just because I can't resist, and because our forum moderator, TMAX has a close association with the type of vehicle depicted:


Zebra Morris Minor

GO LOOK AT THESE SITES! Very entertaining!

[TMAX]

Sharkey, thanks for the Morris fix. I needed that.

TMAX

[dburt]

The UK house and bus truck website is a kick! Thier buses look so quaint and English. (I guess they should, being in England!) Thier troubles finding places to camp out and live in thier rolling homes makes me appreciate all the BLM, National Forest and state lands we can live on if we want to. We have it pretty good over here compared to what they seem to have to deal with over there. It appears that they are somewhat into the hippie type thing over there, about 40 years after we went thru it here. "Hey Blokes, keep on trucking!" DB

[Caravan Monster]

Thanks Corwen, I had seen that Chapter 7 link before, but luckily things are ok on that front. From the looks of those sites, travellers in the UK have had it tough over the years. I was never part of any 'scene' or 'lifestyle' myself and have no inclination to live on the road. For me, living in the caravan has just been an independent and practical solution to the housing problems in this country.