Building a house truck takes alot of wood.

August 28, 2007 10:45 PM

My 1952 Federal truck was originally a short frame water tank truck, I needed to lengthen the frame to accommodate the design of the house.
posted by bigmusic (36 comments total)

That was fascinating. No way of knowing if it was depicting something from 1960 or 2007.
posted by craniac at 11:00 PM on August 28, 2007

COMIC SANS!

Also: What?
posted by mrnutty at 11:02 PM on August 28, 2007

Also: Kiwi Housetrucks
posted by growabrain at 11:36 PM on August 28, 2007

I put two skylights in the bedroom loft so I could always look up at the stars at night.

f-in 'eh, bud.

Insulation...insulation, and more insulation. You can never have too much insulation

aerogel, I'm tellin' ya.

~~

That old beater had Love applied, something you can't find in any million dollar+ Prevost.
posted by Heywood Mogroot at 11:44 PM on August 28, 2007

while my first reaction was "Gaaaahhhhh! Hippies!" I have to admit that this guy's accomplished more over the course of the photos than I will likely accomplish over the course of my entire life.
posted by lekvar at 11:45 PM on August 28, 2007 [1 favorite]

Incredible, reminds me of the two women who built a steel boat in canada from the ground up a few years ago.
posted by iamabot at 11:49 PM on August 28, 2007

Similar to lekvar, I clicked on this expecting a LOLHIPPIEZ, but was very pleasantly surprised. I wish I were that good with hand tools, but even with Japanese hand saws I can't get a straight cut half the time.

Iamabot, if you have a link for the steel boat, please post it.
posted by BrotherCaine at 12:44 AM on August 29, 2007

Very cool. Not sure I want to drive my house around, but it's certainly charming. Not too sure about the engineering of the propane tank mounting, but that aside, cool.

I would think a '53 Federal would top out at about 50 mph, so you'd be forced to ply the backroads, not necessarily a bad thing.
posted by maxwelton at 12:45 AM on August 29, 2007

That was really cool. I can see this man being very happy. He gets to work with his hands and create things and be in a happiness inducing flow. He has his other hippie friends to keep him company. I donno seems like one of those idyllic simple lives none of us would ever understand or be able to pull off.
posted by Defenestrator at 1:23 AM on August 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

It's like the coolest fort you can imagine as a kid, but on wheels.
posted by stavrogin at 1:30 AM on August 29, 2007

that little house is sweet, but those roof joists look kinda flimsy to me. See, that's why i could never do something like this; i'd want to use fifteen-inch deep joists and 6x6's everywhere outta sheer superstition, and just weigh down the truck weigh too much.
posted by rudster at 1:51 AM on August 29, 2007

A nice antidote for the fratboy hotdog stand thread.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:30 AM on August 29, 2007

great project! Looks heavy: 3! layers of wood for walls.. I wonder how much fuel it uses, I guess it was build in the 60s...?
posted by borq at 2:39 AM on August 29, 2007

I would guess 1970's judging from this photo.

That's cool, and takes me back to my childhood when this was a relatively common thing. At Davis, every year they had the Whole Earth Festival, and hippies would come out of the woodwork in vehicles like this one. Selling jewelry mostly, but also stained glass and pottery. It was a cool vibe, but by the time I got to college in '82, it was really getting more commercial. Great link, thanks!
posted by Eekacat at 3:07 AM on August 29, 2007

Fantastic post, bigmusic. Not only has this guy built himself a house on the back of a truck, but he's built a wonderful, free, simple and apparently incredibly rewarding life in the process. It conjures memories of building other eccentric things out of lego as a child, weird and wonderful inventions that imagined characters lived their lives around. So heartening to see that these people do exist in real life, and take so much pride in their achievements. The commentary was great too:

"I designed the roof so it would have just enough pitch for water run-off since I also wanted to keep my overall height down. Clearance was an important consideration as I built my house on the back of a truck."
posted by Acey at 5:28 AM on August 29, 2007

Wait a minute, I'm not clear on this yet. He built his house where?
posted by newdaddy at 5:58 AM on August 29, 2007

I would guess 1970's judging from this photo.

I agree; that was also about the last time an itinerant hippy could afford redwood, vertical grain douglas fir, etc.

Great link, thanks. Reminds me of my parents' friends from when I was a kid.
posted by Forktine at 6:20 AM on August 29, 2007

I
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:42 AM on August 29, 2007

love
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:42 AM on August 29, 2007

the
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:42 AM on August 29, 2007

page
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:42 AM on August 29, 2007

design.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:42 AM on August 29, 2007

This is very cool, although idyllic fantasies of life in the road-fort are somewhat dampened by the realization that I would be cranky in no time without electricity, daily hot showers, the internet, and the thousands of material posessions that shackle me to a soulless bourgeoise existence.

However, I would give it all up in an eye-blink for the gorgeous contraption pictured lower right.
posted by hilatron at 6:57 AM on August 29, 2007

2 mpg downhill with the wind at your back.
But I lust for that little propane cookstove.
posted by Floydd at 7:24 AM on August 29, 2007

that was also about the last time an itinerant hippy could afford redwood, vertical grain douglas fir, etc.

My thought exactly.

Still, awesome and inspiring.
posted by dan g. at 7:40 AM on August 29, 2007

Good post! I saw this site linked from somewhere else a year or so ago, enjoyed it, forgot about it, and am pleased to see it again. Like others, I harbor fantasies of dropping out of my middle class existence and riding off into the sunset of a simple life in a crazy house of some sort. For indulging those fantasies, (or for just idle perusing) I find nothing better than the books Shelter and Home Work. Author Lloyd Kahn is a pretty cool guy, too.
posted by bepe at 8:15 AM on August 29, 2007 [1 favorite]

"A seventy-five gallon propane tank is ready to be bolted into position under the truck bed using heavy chain and turn buckles."

He's attaching it to the vehicle using only chains and turnbuckles.

I hope I'm not anywhere near him when they come adrift.
posted by Relay at 8:28 AM on August 29, 2007

I found the whole thing to be pretty damn charming. Including Blank Page.
posted by sklero at 9:46 AM on August 29, 2007

I'm looking at this while listen to a live concert by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (Wolfgangs Vault, free signups, good shit). They go great together, like getting all geeked on mescaline and going swimming in a lake in New Hampshire.

I'm going to grow my beard hell of long now.
posted by Divine_Wino at 10:02 AM on August 29, 2007

What kills me is the voice of the photograph's captions: taciturn, unreflexive, utterly without hyperbole or arousal, but not flat either. It's a, dare I say, zen project both in its actual execution and in its report. I truly believe that other housetruck dudes just stopped by to sit at his feet and watch him weld and saw for hours at a time, eagerly waiting for him to sit back in his rockin' chair for a rare break during a rainstorm to tell them about the time he scored 500 square feet of clear fir floorboards for a handful of hammered sterling sliver thumb rings.

This also reminds me that I've become a bit weary of living in the rural Pacific Northwest--zen or no. Don't get too excited to start scouting for a vintage bus to convert. Keep in mind you'll have to fight for a spot to park it--it's all bumper to porch out here.
posted by rumposinc at 10:18 AM on August 29, 2007 [2 favorites]

A sweet reminiscence of Whole Earth Catalogue/Mother Earth News days before the urge for simple independent living became stained by end-of-the-world paranoia. I also like how the site navigation scheme requires you to slow down and see things step-by-step - a perfect fit for this sort of subject.
posted by squalor at 10:54 AM on August 29, 2007

How would one of these things pass inspection? How many inspections would it have to pass anyway?
posted by ODiV at 12:12 PM on August 29, 2007

How would one of these things pass inspection? How many inspections would it have to pass anyway?

In the US, vehicle inspections (or the lack thereof) are a state-by-state issue. When I lived in Oregon, I never had to get a vehicle inspected in any way (things may be different now, though I doubt it). Even in places where inspections are required, the inspection would likely be limited to emissions testing; there is no national US equivalent of the UK's MOT controls or the German equivalent (is it TUV?), where the vehicle is checked out very thoroughly and has have all sorts of parts, from wipers to lights to bumper height to brakes, be in compliance. In most US states, if it isn't a commercial vehicle, there is little to no routine inspection of private vehicles for safety issues. (Since he doesn't have commercial plates, he probably doesn't have to go through weigh stations to check for overloading, either.)

Of course, you are required to be in compliance with any appropriate rules and regulations, and any police officer could pull you over if there was something obviously illegal about your vehicle. But that is reactive enforcement, not preventative, and unless you are doing something as outrageous as growing pot on the truck's roof, you are unlikely to get caught. So yes, come on down and build yourself a housetruck, no worries.
posted by Forktine at 12:54 PM on August 29, 2007

"A seventy-five gallon propane tank is ready to be bolted into position under the truck bed using heavy chain and turn buckles."

He's attaching it to the vehicle using only chains and turnbuckles.

I hope I'm not anywhere near him when they come adrift.

I turned my time machine off immediately when I read that.
posted by mecran01 at 3:22 PM on August 29, 2007

I loved this. So he's a hippie… so what. How many folks do you know that can revive a 50's truck, re-weld the frame, paint the cab, get the engine running and then build a house onto it? Without power tools.

But darn the luck, he's unreflexive and them turnbuckles may come adrift.
posted by jabo at 11:30 PM on August 29, 2007

Not to take away from his accomplishment, but it's not rocket science. Of my ten closest friends, I'd say six could build a house truck (me included), given the motivation. Of those, I'd guess a couple would do a technically proficient job, lacking soul, but the other four would probably make a halfway decent artistic statement. One or two of them would probably be awesome.

Actually, a house truck contest would be fun. You have a year to build a truck, the budget would be limited to a reasonable sum of money, and everyone drives to some central point for a huge bash and tire kick on the due date.

I still think it's a great project, and I admire the dude for doing what made him happy. Still doesn't change the fact that hanging a propane tank by chains on a moving vehicle may be expeditious, but isn't really first-rate engineering.
posted by maxwelton at 1:55 AM on August 30, 2007