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Where to start learning about low impact, mobile building?

 
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Firstly, I'm a gardener, and don't have a heap of building skills. I also don't have any short term realistic hopes of "owning" land. So a more permanent abode so this whole world is very foreign to me.

But I do want to start thinking about building myself a home. I am lucky that a few family members are talented builders, and would be helpful.

Because I am realistically not going to be settled on any permanent land for 10+ years, I want to build something moveable. I always imagined building a cob house one day - maybe if I ever actually "own" land.
I also want to build something modular - if I do ever cohabitate, I don't think I could live with a partner (or children!) in a bonafide tiny home, I would need to extend it.

The tiny home movement seems very... gentrified, influencer-fied. As does the off-grid movement. A lot of companies making this stuff seem to be doing it with toxic and wasteful materials.

Are there any good books, websites, other sources that cut through the bullshit? My income is meagre, so I imagine this being a long-term project with the help of my more skilled builder family members (Dad is retiring soon and would love to help).

My wants are likely a trifecta of competing interests - low impact, mobile, modular/expandable in future, and relatively affordable.

How do I start learning? This project will be minimum one year away, but I want to start getting my head around it.
 
steward
Posts: 15722
Location: USDA Zone 8a
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Jon said, " I am lucky that a few family members are talented builders, and would be helpful.



My suggestion would be to ask them to get you a job or ask if you can help them with projects.

Hands-on experience is the best way to build a house.

Dear hubby and I have only worked with the interior building.

The exterior building is not much different from interior as both include framing.

You have come to one of the best resources for learning about natural building. Asking lots of questions will help you learn and the forum might be a good place to ask.

Have you check out the Book Review Grid:

https://permies.com/w/book-reviews

Here are a few book reviews by forum members that offer some different techniques that might interest you or others:

https://permies.com/wiki/156593/Woodland-House-Ben-Law
https://permies.com/wiki/8313/Hand-Sculpted-House-Ianto-Evans
https://permies.com/wiki/51262/Building-Impact-Roundhouse-ed-Tony
https://permies.com/wiki/87449/Mudgirls-Manifesto-Handbuilt-Homes-Handcrafted
https://permies.com/t/63561/Year-Solar-Greenhouse-Lindsey-Schiller

Also, another great place to learn about natural building is within the PEP Badge programs as you get to see lots of pictures of people doing natural building and get some great ideas:

https://permies.com/f/389/pep-natural-building
https://permies.com/f/391/pep-woodworking
https://permies.com/f/402/pep-dimensional-woodworking
 
pollinator
Posts: 1455
Location: BC Interior, Zone 6-7
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I recommend the Dwelling Portably books. I bought all three almost twenty years ago and was super inspired by them.  I still pull them out occasionally to daydream about what kind of life I would have ended up in if I hadn't met my husband (not that I regret anything!).

https://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/books/2822

"For the past 30 years, Bert and Holly have been cranking this out on a manual typewriter in their yurt. You'll find diagrams and notes on how to make tools, portable showers, find seasonal jobs, stay warm at night while Winter camping; hitchhiking and freight train hopping guides; suggestions from people who live in their car, in tents, yurts, tipis, or nowhere at all. And perhaps my favorite thing about "Dwelling Portably" are the personal stories that surround the helpful information." -Print Fetish

 
Posts: 1670
Location: Fennville MI
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There’s a Facebook group Gypsy Wagon - Vardo - Caravan. Great for inspiration, connections with people with skills and knowledge.
Remember when it seems like something is being taken over by influencers and gentrified, it’s a sign your looking at mainstream sources that aren’t used by people on the outside.
 
gardener
Posts: 693
Location: 5,000' 35.24N zone 7b Albuquerque, NM
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Years ago when I first met the teacher who gave me hands on experience with the local natural building methods of New Mexico, I asked him how he learned to build. His answer: he took apart houses, relocated them, and put them back together. A highway was going through his town and the houses had to be moved. His father and brothers did the work. Each nail was removed, straightened and reused. Every window frame was deconstructed to be reassembled. The doors removed with their hardware then the door frames. Every adobe brick was scraped free of mortar, stacked and trailered to the new site for rebuilding with fresh mortar. The pieces and layers revealed themselves as individual components that all fit together. Of course, reverse engineering wasn’t the complete education but it showed him that making a house is achievable.
Remembering his story, changed me. Now whenever I encounter a built object in disrepair (shed, cupboard, table, chair, roof, unfinished garage, abandoned building, chicken house, chimney) I mentally take it apart and look carefully at how it was made. Acquiring broken things that can be taken apart, rebuilt or repurposed is a free or super cheap way to gain a hands-on "kit" that teaches a person how to construct things.
P.S. Noting that you are “first a gardener,” I imagine that driving to work sites may be part of the cost of doing business. Racking out a van or truck for the job may be a tax deductible business expense. The vehicle that you use to make your living as a gardener could be an immediate opportunity to develop hands-on carpentry experience for tiny “mobile building.”
 
Posts: 87
Location: Linton Bay Marina, Panama
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Mobile Green Home.
A greenhouse on wheels.
Grow as you Go!

Microgreens

Bamboo structure
Canvas cover.
And or double greenhouse covering.

A love to build a Bike Travel Camper.
Just see a pullout one.

Draw or design what you want and dream it out want you need, want, or desire. And start building.

A 3ton box truck are good. Already mobile, weather tight, can get insulated.

Used Rental trucks

Best 🙏

 
Posts: 12
Location: FL Native - bought land in NC and on Lookout Mountain in AL
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I can tell you the mobile part of your desires are the hardest to make fly without an existing trailer or vehicle that has a DOT approved base. And I am guessing as a gardener, you probably don’t have welding and mechanical skills either?
What part of the country do you live in? Or want to live in? Earth ships are more of a desert or high desert building process; and in a rainy climate they fall apart. You may be able to find an acre of land, that you can work with someone older and less able bodied to trade you for work on weekends or off days? And they may even have building projects you can participate and learn in.
I would suggest a state, that in more rural areas won’t have permitting or zoning laws in place, so you would be free to try some of your ideas. I lived in FL and they have rules, inspections, and permits for everything! I had built several houses there, but had lots of builders in my family too! Moved to AL, and the only permit in our county that is required is septic. So, you can build as you please, and even live in it when unfinished, depending on where you are. I love the freedom here; taxes are low; insurance too.
 
gardener
Posts: 1868
Location: Japan, zone 9a/b, annual rainfall 2550mm, avg temp 1.5-32 C
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A friend of mine did a "skoolie" school-bus to mobile home conversion. I hear the fuel economy is pretty terrible, but if you're not moving around much they do provide a reasonable amount of space for a fair cost and take advantage of the waste stream. The other advantage is a lot of people are doing them so there's a niche community around them with a decent amount of resources on-line.

Van life is a thing here in Japan, much smaller than a mobile home, camper, or skoolie, but it's a way to live on the move.
 
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Have you thought about using shipping containers?  I have turned containers into many things and I’m currently building my home out of six 40’ containers.  20’ containers don’t have wheels but they can be moved.  They are relatively inexpensive, secure and can be built into your home one at a time.  I am currently living in a motor home on the property that I purchased to build my dream home (the six containers with my greenhouse on top).  Over the past couple of years I have turned 20’ containers into a kitchen box, pantry box, toolbox, laundry box, gun box, etc.  I built these with the idea of eventually connecting them together to create my complete home.  My plans changed and I decided to use the 40’ containers and build a modified EarthShip design.  If I was to do it again I would use 20’ers and build my house one box at a time as I could afford, I would not bury it (mine is dug into a hillside with a 6” concrete slab on the roof = $$$$ and a pain in the butt).  Keep it simple, use spray foam for insulation and design the layout of each box so they can eventually be connected.  
 
Posts: 281
Location: rural West Virginia
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A couple of things. First, if the reason you see this as a distant project is that you can't afford to buy land, I point out that West Virginia still has cheap land and no building codes in rural areas; also, have you considered joining a community? Some, like mine, already own the land and charge a small fee or nothing for a leasehold. Sometimes, as with my community, a member leaves and there is a house already there, available for whatever the member leaving, or their heirs, want to charge for it.
Next, I lived in a school bus with two or three other people for a few months forty-some years ago. This could be workable  but not with several people long term, and it really isn't too expandable. One leaseholder here did build from a shipping container, it seems to have worked reasonably well. Obviously adobe and cob and strawbale are not movable; a yurt is. I lived i n one for the few months I was a tree planter one Oregon winter, pretty comfortable in that mild climate; then I worked in one one northern Minnesota winter, and it was okay with a gas heater going most of the time (there was a strawbale building on the same site that stayed warm much better).
And my final comment is that what building style makes sense depends on various things including your location, but whatever you do, be sensible about energy; use plenty of insulation, face the longest side toward the south (if you're in the northern hemisphere), and choose a site with tall trees to the west so your house will be in the shade in summer all afternoon. Consider wind direction too, facing into a prevailing summer wind, protected from a winter wind.
 
Posts: 16
Location: Seattle, Washington
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All of your criteria are excellent guidelines and aspirations. Remember, they are also relative and you may not always be able to honor your convictions with every piece and part of your home build, so be kind with yourself along the journey.

I'd recommend a local woodworking and metal working class, if you can find one. Learning basic skills (tools, safety, materials, cuts, etc.) in a hands on shop setting can provide a solid foundation for learning many other building skills.

I built a Skoolie my wife and I have lived in for 2 years. We learned a lot from YouTube and the Skoolie community on forums and social media. People are eager to share what they've learned. A bus isn't very modular, but many are affordable (ours was $4k), it's mobile, and there's strong argument for it being sustainable (it's reused, already has floor, walls, and roof). We used as many used materials as possible for the build and then bought new stuff for important things (plumbing, electrical).

Doing is learning. When we'd start a new part of the build we'd:
1. go to the internet and see what other people did
2. Develop a plan that fits our design criteria
3. Talk to a builder friend or local professional about specifics (code, parts, function, etc)
4. Start building
5. As challenges reveal themselves go back to the internet, friend, local pro, and figure out the details

Build your first house for your enemy. Build your second house for friend. Build your third house for yourself.
 
gardener
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I think a Yurt is a great option!   We got one from Mongolia.   You can live in a hand made piece of art and you are helping to preserve their culture.  

No plastic!  No weird stuff.

Here is the link to the thread:
https://permies.com/wiki/177249/PTJ-Event-Solar-Yurt-Design#1400095



It is so beautiful!   I can't wait to put it up!



I think a Rocket Mass Heater will be a great way to keep it warm and snug!  
Maybe the cottage rocket from the Free Heat Movie!

https://permies.com/w/free-heat#1422358


Here is their web site. They were fantastic to work with and so helpful!
https://fireprojects.org/gers-yurts
 
Amy Gardener
gardener
Posts: 693
Location: 5,000' 35.24N zone 7b Albuquerque, NM
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Coincidentally Samantha, Jon, the OP of this thread, may have some first hand experience or impressions about yurt living. This permies thread shows an inspiring video that Jon helped make during a 7 months-long volunteer stint in Ireland. Any thoughts about living in a yurt Jon?
 
pioneer
Posts: 742
Location: Inter Michigan-Superior Woodland Forest
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I'll third the yurt idea. I think it hits all the bullet points of natural, mobile, inexpensive... I envision it as modular as I'm building a number of them, one for my quarters, one for guests, and a larger one for cooking/common space. The biggest question mark is heating since the spaces will not benefit from heating the others directly. In my case I'm looking forward to a number of RMH iterations in each one to work toward something effective in dealing with the other hitch- lack of insulation.

I went for the maximum DIY from the start and got burned following a website by someone who sounded confident but didn't really know what he was talking about. Afterward I found campingyurts.com. Richard there has a great BS free approach. He will deal with you at whatever level of involvement you'd like from just selling you plans and supplying advice to selling individual parts as you build what you can to selling a whole yurt- all at a very competitive price. He does push the 'glamping' angle, but as an operation still functions very personably.

You can DIY all of it yourself with pretty simple tools and basic dimensional lumber and a roll of canvas. A table saw and/or industrial sewing machine will save a great deal of time. Heating solutions call for innovative solutions, but there are a few threads out there with people living happily in these year round in far northern climes...
 
pollinator
Posts: 5286
Location: Bendigo , Australia
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The tiny home movement seems very... gentrified, influencer-fied. As does the off-grid movement. A lot of companies making this stuff seem to be doing it with toxic and wasteful materials.


In my opinion there are almost no area of human activity that has not been gentrified or influenced, but that does not diminish the value of the concept.
" seeming" to be toxic may not represent reality.

One of the issues Tiny Homes have is the weight of them.
The lighter units can be towed by almost any vehicle.
The heavier units based on truck trailers need a prime mover, but they may be worth looking at.
Since weight is not as restrictive, recycled materials that suit your requirements could be sourced, and since you seem to not need to move it regularly,
a prime mover could be used as needed.
 
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent - Eleanor Roosevelt. tiny ad:
turnkey permaculture paradise for zero monies
https://permies.com/t/267198/turnkey-permaculture-paradise-monies
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