Building your own evacuee shed/house/home

I recognize that very dry and hot place.

 

Me and the wife live very comfortably in 736 sq feet with room for company to pull the hide a bed couch open. Before we got married and bought a old mobile home and long before we bought the portable building and turned it into a cabin.......... There was my home that I built right beside my sawmill with green lumber as I milled it. Had just finished it and built my bed when I took the picture. 20' wide and 12' deep solid post oak frame and floor, hickory walls inside and out with spray foam insulation between the inner and outer walls. Put it together with joints, holes and pegs. As the green wood cured and shrunk it pulled the whole building together real tight. I cheated and used tin and screws for the roof.

Loved laying there at night and listening to it creak and pop as it dried down and pulled together. Later I put the up and down bats on the boards to seal up the gaps between the boards and then sprayed the insulation in. Boards shrink a lot side to side and end to end....... well a half inch to 2" depending on the wood. What was boards tight against each other by the end of fall when the boards were dried out good and cured had inch and half gaps between the boards.

Kind of miss living in it, although I still could but it became the storage shed for all of the wife's stuff errr some of the wife's stuff to be more exact. Still has a sink with a hand pump to the well, a ancient wood fired stove and oven that cooks better than any electric or gas range. A built in oak dinner table against the west wall with 3 chairs I built. And a little voglezang box stove that more than kept it warm in the winter. LOL everyone made fun of the little shack I lived in for 6 years, but it served its purpose and met all my needs and truth be told I was a hell of a lot happier calling that home than anything before or since.

 

Much the same here as far as enjoyment in building.

Except mine was a 20 year time span where I still lived 285 miles away and had 3 kids and a full time Day Job.
Great thing to build what you want and have it paid for!

 

just bought another one of these at a local garage sale - $5 - older model when the movable wood vice deck was more substantial and had a "V" shaped "jaw" configuration ... I use them for portable saw & tool benches in my shop - solid & sturdy as hell and good undershelf storage ...

 

Do you have the schematics for this? I did a quick google and came up with one that had 8 foot walls. I like that yours fits easily on cars.

 

Glad to help

Try Hexayurt book - Appropedia: The sustainability wiki - multiple picklist videos for hexayurt

Building a folding rigid insulation hexayurt | John Clarke Mills' Blog this is the guy with the cartopper - many photos

Hexayurt for Burning Man
compact hexa that folds tightly - many step by step images

Camp Danger Hexayurt Hinge Technique - Appropedia: The sustainability wiki
likely the best of all hexyurt sites.


Enjoy!

 

What can you use for a shelter that is sturdy enough for long term use (1 to 6 months) that can keep you out of the weather and provide a place for a bed and some storage with at some minimal privacy.

What is the minimum requirement to consider?

1) Stand up headroom. Anything else quickly becomes tiresome - or worse.

2) Room enough to leave your bed, a bed. (I had a smaller self-contained pull-behind trailer and sold it mainly because the daily ordeal of tearing down the forward couch to make a bed became a total PITA.)

3) Room for at least some storage; say in Kitchen Maid tubs under cots , for example. These cots are left in place and can serve as seating.

4) Dry in the rain, proof against the wind and possibly insulated for the winter. I don't care where you live, one of these three is always going to be a major issue...oh, don't forget the bugs.

5) The opportunity for some privacy. Quiet privacy would be even better.

6) You should be able to fit this 'shelter (kit or parts) into the back of a pickup or into a small ute trailer. Setup and use should only require level ground.

One thing I did find that would be just the things for one of these shelters is a 'stacking' cot



Disc-O-bad bunk cot. A couch, stacked beds or separate cots.
See review here

The Disc-O-Bed is a collapsible sleep system. It collapses completely for transportation, so you have a bundle of 34 x 16 x 11 inches (86.4 x 40.6 x 27.9 cm) for the full system.
Cost? ~ $250 to $300+, vendor prices vary based on model and location.
The capacity of each cot is impressive, 500 lb (159 kg); so again this is even for very big guys. There a lot of accessories for this system

including a covered 'closet'

Here is how small this is stowed -


At 63 pounds total weight, these are not something backpacking

 

Back to the hexayurt that @Motomom34 asked about

These are quite live-able for an extended period, even with the 4 ft sidewalls.

Note the use of a chaise lounge as a single bed.

Putting up a Hexayurt is straightforward


Building your own.. This is done by Bennie himself!

 

Another variation of the Hexayurt is the Elkins pyramid. I've some of his stuff before - this fellow is quite prolific.

Burningman Foam Board Shelter - Creative Ideas | Elkins DIY

This design uses fewer board panels and actually had more space in side.

 

I have to admit, the single biggest 'workshop/experimentation' driver I know of in the US today is Burning Man.

While many use RVs, the vast majority roll their own (no pun really intended) for shelter, water use and conservation, hygiene (no, really!) and cooking/food storage in the heat. There is also a number of very well done trash incinerators and gray water disposal systems...

Burners (to include Mr Elkins) have spent some real time and Engineering talent oncoming up with working shelters and the plans (w/photos) to share both the shelter and how well it works.

Searching with 'Burning man shelter' or 'Burning man hexayurt' (for something specific) usually limits the number of naked hippie pics that pop up. I find it amazing that folks actually take their kids to this "Arts Festable", but I suppose that is just the way things are nowadays...

 

Hmmm a place to go and leave the kids at home.

The Green Sand Beach on the Big Island.

Things really heat up as the sun goes down but of course some really push for the Total Tan Look!

 

If you have title to the property and or written permission to be there and build something to live in why not build a more permanent home or have materials and foundation ready in the event it comes to that ?
Take shipping container and load it on site with all the materials for building what you believe you need and when the collapse occurs you both have all your materials and a some what secure place to live while doing it . I might include a garden tractor and dump trailer for gathering stones for cementing in against the structures ,a bit of bullet proofing. I've lived in the boonies and stray bullets are always possible , more so now days. a lot more liberals with guns.

 

Typical camp boat down here, Please note the spuds.