What is This?

As hurricane season picked up speed memories of Katrina got me thinking. I wanted to do something to help. It occurred to me that someone might find what I know about building with shipping pallets useful. So I setup this simple micro-blog to make it easy to show others how to build a tiny temporary house with pallets.

Begin the How-To Guide…

Tiny Pallet Shed

Justin over at materialicious passed thin onto me recently. It’s a web page by a guy named John who is pallet prolific and has a nice long web page filled with photos of pallet projects. Read more

The Humanure Handbook - A Simple Sawdust Toilet

In an emergency situation one simple thing can turn into a real mess… yes I’m talking about poo. What to do with the poo? Someone recently commented on one of my tiny house blogs that using a sawdust toilet might be the ideal solution for many people in many situations. It seems like the perfect solution for an emergency situation. Read more

Website Traffic Report - Who’s Looking At This?

This is a bit off topic. It’s just a quick note about the traffic I got on the first day I launched this website. It looks like with just a tiny bit of word of mouth marketing this little micro-blog got more traffic in one day than any other website I’ve launched on day one. About 200 unique visitors came to see the tiny pallet house design concept. Here’s a peek behind the webmaster’s curtain and a couple of screen shots from Google Analytics in case you’re curious. Read more

Roofline and Cross Section (12:12 Pitch)

Here is an example of a 12:12 pitch. It raises the height of the roof and interior ceiling significantly. It’s more difficult to build but is more aesthetically pleasing and provides more space for a sleeping loft. Read more

How To Spot a Good Pallet

Pallets come in a number of standard sizes and an infinite number of irregular custom sizes. In America the most common pallet measures 40″ by 48″. The thickness varies but is about 5.5 inches. If you can’t find perfect standard pallets you can still build with them it just takes longer and you end up cobbling them together. This is what I’ve begun doing with my tiny free house and it take a lot of extra work. Read more

Tools and Supplies Needed

Here is a short list of essential tools you’ll need to build a quick little pallet house. Other tools and supplies will help but this short list will get the job done. Read more

Build the Shipping Pallet Floor

First choose a flat stable surface to build on like a concrete slab or flatbed trailer. Count on the house weighing between 4000 and 5000 pounds when complete and choose your trailer carefully.

I’m suggesting this arrangement for the shipping pallets because it would most likely fit on many common double axle trailers you’ll find. It also is less than 8′ wide which is the legal limit for trailers in many states. In the drawings you’ll see the steps for bringing the pallets together. Read more

Lay the Floor

Now attach 4×8 sheets of plywood or another sturdy sheet material to the pallet subfloor. You might also want to take the extra step to sheet both sides of the pallet floor structure and insulate it. This will give you a very strong and sealed base for your house. The thicker the plywood in the floor the better, especially the surface you walk on. Read more

Raise the Walls

Once the floor is down and solid start lifting prepared pallets into place. By prepared I simply mean pallets with 2×4s screwed or nailed onto the open ends. Doing this quickly gives you four sides of the pallet to screw or nail into. It also makes the pallet stronger. Read more