Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Pond Boss Instant house

This thread is a short documentary of affordable housing. No, it's not a pond home, but it (or one of it's cousins) could be. I just wanted to share it with you, knowing that the actual process is kinda cool and that it might spark some imagination with my brethren pondmeisters.
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Have you ever driven by an empty lot in the morning and returned that evening and a house was sittin' there? That's how Dski and I did it 12 years ago. This collection of photos will be boring and old hat for some of you that have seen this procedure. I bet there will be some that haven't actually seen it; setting a modular home.

Some of the specifications: 28' x 56' x 9 foot basement foundation; home sections are 14' x 56'; roof pitch 12/12

(ALL THESE PHOTOS ARE SCANS OF ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS)

The parts of the home arrive on 3 separate trucks. One truck has 1/2 the house, another truck has the other 1/2 the house, and the third truck has 4 dormers and some second floor wall sections

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The 3 trailers are staged around the basement foundation

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A crane is delivered to the site and fun begins. The first half of the house (14' x 56' section) is prepared to be set. The entire thing is picked up by 2 nylon straps. When they get it close to where it belongs, the crane operator drops it about 2" above the foundation and one guy steers the entire mass with his hands.

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A look at how the 2 sections marry up.

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1/2 of the entire roof is folded up and attached to the top of this section. This step is to unfold it. The rafter framing is 2 x 6 @ 16" o.c. Each one is engineered with a hinge on it in 2 places. All the roof sheathing is attached along with 95% of the shingles.

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Prefab kneewall sections are hiding underneath the folded roof. They are set up and nailed in to help support the newly unfolded roof.

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The gable end wall sections are removed from the 3rd trailer and staged to prepare for later installation. Additional poles are temporarily set to support the ridge of the roof section.

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The second half of the house is prepared. The roof has to be unfolded before it is removed from the trailer and set into place. The straps are wrapped around the section and hooked up to the crane. If you look closely at the first section (already set), you can see the 56' long soffit section still folded up at the eaves. It is also on engineered hinges. At the end, they remove a few straps that hold it in place, give it a kick, and it flops over creating a finished 12" eave.

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The second section (14' x 56') is lifted into place

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The dormers are lifted into place. It took 15 minutes per dormer for installation.

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The second floor gable walls are installed

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At the end of the day, this is what we have.

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Shortly thereafter, the custom front door we purchased (didn't like the factory option) is installed and Dski and I install T&G cedar siding on the front facade

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Part of our contract included on-site installation of a baseball cap visor across the front of the house. Dski and I installed the deck framing and decking.

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The basic package is done (happy Halloween)

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A quick peak into the kitchen, exhibiting how the thing arrives at the jobsite. The stack of boards are the collar ties for the roof framing upstairs.

Wow. That's not your Grandpa's double-wide.

Back in the 1940's, that's pretty much how SF author Robert Heinlein thought all houses should be constructed in the future. He thought it was crazy that cars were mass produced, but houses were still one-off custom construction, with no economies of scale wrt manufacturing built in.

P.S. Move the refrigerator 90 degrees clockwise, to the wall opposite the open end of the bar, and that is our exact kitchen layout. Freaky.

P.P.S. Is that the place on the river?

My "Instant Tractor Garage" isn't quite as fancy, but for $600 delivered, it was hard to beat.

Arrival:



Drop Off:


But, it just goes to show that instant shelter is easily available at a reasonable cost. Heck, I've even got great hardwood floors in my portable garage.

Nah, the place on the river was a true 14' x 70' mobile home metal mansion (Catman-ese) with a stick-built roof over it. This is my principal residence from which I type.

Those are very cool photos Bski.

almost as fast as JHAPs tuffshed.