Colleen Turner

I will add -- I don't want my home to be "breathable" because it is leaky. I want to control the air in and out. My design includes several operable, screened windows and doors, on both sides of the shipping container, for optimum passive ventilation. But air migrating through walls willy-nilly -- that sounds like a recipe for illness. I have sensitive lungs too (hence no chemicals in my construction plan).

Colleen Turner wrote:
I don't want to build with wood. I like the fire-resistance of steel + cobb. I thought about a layer of light-straw-slip between the steel wall and the cobb, for insulation, but I fear it would create an inviting home for mice. So likely just cobb right up against the steel wall. How to make it stick, tho? Maybe my waterproofing layers can help -- maybe a thick layer of asphalt paint all over the ShipCont exterior; then a second layer of same but with lots of sand mixed in ... this was suggested to me as providing a grippable surface for the cobb. Challenge is insulating, the roof but I now think to put a second rooftop add-on (I like the idea of a dome shape -- kinda suggestive of a quonset hut, but just up at the top and overlapping wide on the edges to shield the wall on the cobb side and create an overhang on the sun (no cobb because floor-to-ceiling windows) side; the southwest.

Rico Loma wrote:With respect, I wonder if you could look at an idea or three from another thread on this site. Please look at the posts from William and Jack on " Most cost effective small buildings", if you don't have time for the entire debate focus on the tail end.

Using pallets and cob....all parts breathable....could be so much healthier than a metal box with little to no breathability.   Light clay straw is a fast way also to create a small structure.  And Jack provides a video (others also are using this engineering) that is a real head turning build, with higher ceilings, smaller footprint, and more natural materials.  

I am no expert, but living in a container home for six months almost wrecked my health (Perhaps the containers had tiny cracks and leaks.... like many of the containers that come off ships and never go back to sea.  They are the dented rejects, often .).   The builder of that rental  had fans and vents and other mitigating factors, which all equalled zero benefit. The air was always humid inside.   I had respiratory problems after 2 months, which vanished when I slept in my tent for a week next to the tiny house.  Yes, this is just one anecdote, but I implore you to ruminate on these other 3 styles of cheap, sustainable fast building.  Thank you for your consideration ....please see reference below
Rico

I don't want to build with wood. I like the fire-resistance of steel + cobb. I thought about a layer of light-straw-slip between the steel wall and the cobb, for insulation, but I fear it would create an inviting home for mice. So likely just cobb right up against the steel wall. How to make it stick, tho? Maybe my waterproofing layers can help -- maybe a thick layer of asphalt paint all over the ShipCont exterior; then a second layer of same but with lots of sand mixed in ... this was suggested to me as providing a grippable surface for the cobb. Challenge is insulating, the roof but I now think to put a second rooftop add-on (I like the idea of a dome shape -- kinda suggestive of a quonset hut, but just up at the top and overlapping wide on the edges to shield the wall on the cobb side and create an overhang on the sun (no cobb because floor-to-ceiling windows) side; the southwest.

Rico Loma wrote:With respect, I wonder if you could look at an idea or three from another thread on this site. Please look at the posts from William and Jack on " Most cost effective small buildings", if you don't have time for the entire debate focus on the tail end.

Using pallets and cob....all parts breathable....could be so much healthier than a metal box with little to no breathability.   Light clay straw is a fast way also to create a small structure.  And Jack provides a video (others also are using this engineering) that is a real head turning build, with higher ceilings, smaller footprint, and more natural materials.  

I am no expert, but living in a container home for six months almost wrecked my health (Perhaps the containers had tiny cracks and leaks.... like many of the containers that come off ships and never go back to sea.  They are the dented rejects, often .).   The builder of that rental  had fans and vents and other mitigating factors, which all equalled zero benefit. The air was always humid inside.   I had respiratory problems after 2 months, which vanished when I slept in my tent for a week next to the tiny house.  Yes, this is just one anecdote, but I implore you to ruminate on these other 3 styles of cheap, sustainable fast building.  Thank you for your consideration ....please see reference below
Rico

Thanks Steven… I think the wheat paste with loose weave burlap is really cool! I really like those all natural applications.

My interest in using a shipping container is that the structure is all there. I should have clarified I don’t want to put a vapor barrier necessarily but I clearly need to waterproof the whole thing before I put cob up against it. Also I’m not planning to bury it and not putting sod on top just the cob walls on three sides. Thinking about a domed roof with overhangs to protect the wall walls.

Stephen B. Thomas wrote:Earlier this year, I had the good fortune to work on someone else's natural building project in the southwest USA. We needed a substrate to help adhere wood and adobe, and I think Amy - my patron and the project lead - found an excellent option. We have details of the manure-wheat-paste glue here, and I added several photos.

This "adobe glue" may help prep the surface of your steel storage container for a coat or two of adobe. Chicken wire or any assortment of other metal bits is not required when using this material. It, or something like it, is recommended:

https://permies.com/t/6/271021/volunteering/experiences/Stephen-Snowbirding-Sustainability-Sojourn-February#2862454

Beyond that... If you are covering your shipping container with anything heavy, I strongly recommend you reinforce the walls and roof that will be covered so as to prevent buckling and failing of the steel. It likely won't break, but it will very likely bend and buckle without supports.

Hi friends!

Cole Turner here, with San Francisco Urban Permaculture Guild.

I am deigning an ultra low-cost tiny home for the Santa Cruz mountains. I was thinking to use one standard shipping container (20-foot, extra tall). We will likely put in redwood interior cladding (free wood and a sawmill exist on site). Must add some kind of insulation (on the outside?). Maybe aerogel insulation on the ceiling/roof. There will be several skylights and several large windows along one wall, facing to the southwest.

Then to add on, artistically, to the exterior walls with cobb (clay soil on site). Or maybe a hempcrete later covered with mounded fill-dirt. *Maybe* a thin layer of soil along the rooftop for growing grass. Soil in our area is very heavy adobe clay.

A deck -- much larger footprint than the home -- will extend over the downslope, also made of redwood sourced on site, could be multiple levels, with a sunning/view "tower" on the south side, and maybe some areas with clear corrugated fiberglass "roofing" and some areas of of slatted trelliswork. (It gets hot up there and I want a lot of ways to keep cool!)

The deck-side of the shipping-container home, facing south-west, with glass windows/doors. Will have awnings, perhaps, on both sides. Maybe another small deck area on the rooftop. Also perhaps a shelter above the entire shipping container home, with more of the corrugated fiberglass roofing, which would serve to add a little bit of shade, and perhaps protect the cobb from too much weathering/water load, and would also serve for rainwater collection.

Interior heating: radiant subfloor, tied in to large water tanks buried in down-slope below house/deck. And a mini-woodstove (some kind of rocket-stove design).

So my main concern is a water/vapor barrier exterior to the metal walls of the shipping container. Exactly what kind of material to use, how to seal/secure it to the metal exterior walls, then best way to attach for hempcrete and/or cobb. And where the insulation layer fits in with all of this.

Seems like we could do much of the labor for all of this ourselves, with help from our family.  

Any ideas? Plans? Wall specs? Resources? Or people who have done this before?

BTW feel free to get directly in touch: cmfturner@sonic.net; 415/432-0660 ...