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container/straw bale hybrid
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nonconformist
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Jan 14, 2007 10:32 PST
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Just a thought,
Has anyone yet considered container/straw bale hybrid construction?
I've seen a lot of straw bale construction sites on the internet and a
lot of container construction design sites, but I haven't seen the two
combined. It seems the two communities have never communicated. Straw
bale people are interested only in straw bale, getting back to nature,
living in the country, all that, and container people are focused
totally on just containers, which seem too urban for the straw bale
crowd.
Anyway, it seems to me that straw bale would eliminate the problem of
insulating your containers while the containers would eliminate the
problem of structural support for the straw bale walls and roof.
Also, if you're not too set on the idea of going mobile (since two
containers welded together would be more difficult to separate and move
than if the containers were completely separate... where was I?
Oh, forgot the close parentheses.
Anyway, US Submarines has plans for a floating residence they call the
SeaRoom (click on the text that says "Plan view of SeaRoom Residence -
Lower Main Level." it's not underlined so it doesn't look like a link
but it pops up with a window of the floor plan)
<http://www.ussubs.com/habitats/floating_residential_units.php3>
It just happens to be 16x40 ft. Looks like they took two shipping
containers, removed the interior walls, welded them together, sealed
them so they'd float and then decorated the interior. It seems the same
thing could be done on land with two storage containers. (at some cost
in labor, of course, but no need to make it water tight.)
Another thought occurred to me, the end doors could be removed (since
you're going to cover the ends with a straw bale walls anyway) and used
to span a gap between two containers.
In other words, you set your two containers down side by side with
either a 3 or 6 ft gap between them, then you remove the doors and use
them to span that gap. The doors are about 4x8 so they could be used
length-wise to cover a six foot gap, or... width-wise (if that's even a
word) to cover a three foot gap.
A three foot gap could be used as a hall way or much of the interior
walls could be removed to provide for a 19x40 ft floor plan.
And one other thought while I'm at it,...
With a number of containers (9 or 10) you could make a two floor, 4,500
sq ft. house with two 16x40 living spaces and one 8x40 forming the
second level stacked on four first level containers that form a box
with an open 32x40 or 36x40 space in the center. kind of difficult to
visualize without seeing it on paper or constructing a model out of
graph paper.
An additional container could be joined to one of the first level
containers (another 16x40 space) to function as a garage.
This would give you a total of about 4,500 sq ft. of living space, and
although I haven't actually itemized all the expenses I'd guess that it
could be constructed at 1/2 to 1/3 the cost of a traditional 4,500 sq
ft home.
Plus, with no real need of a foundation in the interior space, it could
be landscaped more like a patio with indoor plants actually growing in
the ground. Plus, the larger area means a larger rain catchment area,
something the straw bale housers are sometimes interested in.
Anyway, just a few thought there.
John
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