Comments on: Pallet House Construction Illustrations

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:35:33 +0000

There are several tiny house builder in northern California… mostly in Sonoma County. Tumbleweed and Little House on the Trailer do regular open houses. I’m not aware of any other pallet houses besides mine which I hope to complete this year. This is how my house looks at the moment: http://www.tinyfreehouse.com/2009/08/23/roof-update/

Also see http://www.tumbleweedhouses.com/ and http://littlehouseonthetrailer.com/ for non-pallet small houses.

Another one of my favorite builders is also in Sonoma County but doesn’t often do open houses. It’s called Tortoiseshell Home http://tortoiseshellhome.com/

By: ziggiezoe

ziggiezoe — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:23:42 +0000

is there any more pictures i can see of the pallet cabins..

of any small homes here in northern california

thanks

By: Michael

Michael — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 22:02:49 +0000

I agree Gray… ironically I scored some used plywood for my tiny pallet house. Hopefully in a week or two I’ll get back up to the farm to install. Plywood will add a lot of strength to the building.

By: Gray Fox

Gray Fox — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 21:59:44 +0000

If you sheathed the outside with stran board and used something as simple as cheap 1/4 in plywood or cardboard on the inside, you could get some of the tanks of spray insulation to fill the interior of the pallets and create a very reasonable facsimile of a SIP.

By: Michael

Michael — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:30:30 +0000

Good point Sean. THanks

By: sean

sean — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 04:13:10 +0000

As a carpenter I think this is a really neat idea.
Although, your exterior sheeting should be installed horizontally and staggered for a stronger structure.

Cheers.

By: Michael

Michael — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 19:05:30 +0000

Sounds like an exciting project. I bet this little act of civil disobedience will garner some good press for the plight of the homeless. Nice.

For pallets watch craigslist for sure; they turn up regularly down here in Sacramento. You should also check with roofing companies, heating and air companies, motorcycle dealers, and auto body shops since they often have many spare pallets.

As far as putting them together you’ll find it harder to assemble a pallet building with odd sided pallets. I’d use the odd sizes ones for floors and even exterior walkways/sidewalks. On these kind of surfaces use pallet boards that have been extracted from pallets (via reciprocating saw) or plywood so feet don’t fall through the gaps between pallet boards.

Sort out the standard pallets since they will make better building blocks. I found that by capping the open ends with an extracted 2×4 made screwing them together easier. Nails work too, as I’m sure you found, but screws (square head and hex head exterior screws) hold better. The only trouble is that you’d need a bunch of drills and ideally some AC power… so I can see that nails would probably work best for your project (hammers and nails are cheaper than nails and you will have many hands).

The odd pallets may be useful dismantled into their parts with a reciprocating saw. Just be very careful cutting up pallets since those saws are as dangerous as they are useful. Lost fingers would definitely work against you. Another health related issue to avoid is the smoke from pallets. There is no way to tell if a pallet (or any reclaimed building material) has been fumigated, spilled on, or painted (coated) with anything nasty so choose not to burn any of this wood. When cutting wear a respirator.

Roofs are best built with something other than pallets but you could use the lumber from dismantled long pallets.

I’d love to see some photos of your last pink house. Sounds like a great story to post on Tiny House Design too.

By: OutsidetheBox

OutsidetheBox — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 01:01:43 +0000

I am working on setting up Redemption Village in/near King COunty,WA and was one of the organizors of a homeless encampment called Nickelsville that started in Seattle in Sept of 2008. I built a pallet house and painted it pink to match the 150 bright pink tents we set up at 4am… my design was not as sturdy or as astetic, but I weigh 195lbs and am a Marine Corps Veteran and I was doing pull ups, swinging from and walking on the top of the pallet house we built. I am planning on doing this on a massive scale on Thanksgiving Day…wanna help or give any advice on where to get about 2100 pallets for fairly cheap, maybe even for free?

By: house design

house design — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:43:18 +0000

this is very great information about how to make dream house design ideas

By: John

John — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 02:38:08 +0000

Ok. I built a small cabin, and my roof seemed like it was going to be week. I started putting the purlins on, and the tin. It was like a tank when I got finished. Have faith. Once you either put purlins, or tin, or both, or normal roofing, it will be ok.