reasons for a long delay

Well, it has been a while since I have posted here. The original reason for this blog was the house boat, but it has been put on hold for several reasons. I plan on returning to this project when I finish the barn and house. The house should be an interesting project as plans right now are for a log house built the old country way. Cut'em down, bark em and stack em. Then chink em.

I had some health problems as I worked on the houseboat structure. I had knee problems that required surgery and had a ruptured disc that required some couch time for it to heal.

While all this happened, we had to take possession of our herd of fainting goats. When we sold our mini farm, we loaned them out to a friend to keep his junk yard grass down, but he was having fence problems.

We had purchased some land next to our new house, but had no fences. So, the next project was to erect fences.

Next project was a saw mill. Purchased plans from Allan at Procut Portable Sawmills.

Then there was a small chicken house so the wife could buy some laying hens.

Spent part of the spring and summer of 09 salvaging downed trees. We had several tornadoes that took down large pine tree and I would remove them from people's property for the lumber.

Then we decided to put our house on the market with the idea that when it sold, we would build a log house on our 10 acres next door. Well, it was listed for 7 months and sold just before Christmas.

Well, that was well and good because we had planned to live in our rv while we built our house. Only problem was, the spot where we wanted to build our house, turned out to be nothing more than a mud hole in December. Tried to clean it off so we could bring in fill, but the dozed almost got stuck. It is now June and the plot is just now dry enough to excavate the sand/clay ( mud when wet) so we can put in some red clay that we can compact.

But in the mean time, started sawing lumber for our barn. At this point, the barn is ready for siding. The roof is on and will be pouring a concrete slab in the stalls next week. All the lumber for the barn was sawn from salvaged timber except for treated poles to go in the ground.

Also, my dirt guy will start excavating for the fill next week. So, we will have a lot going on for the rest of the year, finishing the barn and starting the house.

I have left out a lot of things that just got done. Like water lines from the road to our building site, cutting a right of way for power lines to our building site.

Ready for "superstructure"

I am making this post as my wife and I are preparing to go to Guatemala on a mission trip Wednesday. I am involved with a mission where we have over 100 kids in our sponsorship program. Our web site is www.hope-mission.org. We will be gone for a week and then go to the river for a week or so from Christmas to New Years to get in a little fishing and relaxing. Will have some more posts next year or sooner.

Well, after much welding, all three pontoons are as ready as they are going to get. I have added an angle on the bottom of two of the pontoons (in a v shape) for what I perceive to be directional stability. Then they were pressure checked one last time.

I built a jig in my shop and suspended the floor framing (see photo) above the pontoons so as to be able to build the superstructure between the pontoons and the floor.

I am building in this manner so as to be able to use the area under the floor for mounting tanks (gas, propane, sewer, etc.) and to be as safe as possible. Also, I will be able to adjust where the tanks go so as to balance the load so the boat will sit right in the water and I will be able to insulate the floor so we can use our houseboat year around. I am planning to trailer this boat if I want to.

I will post again when I make some more progress.

A few specs on our boat so far

Just wanted to put out some specs and details about building my aluminum pontoon houseboat. I am using .090 5052 aluminum with a few bends for strength.

One thing I found out when pressurizing a more or less rectangular object, the first time it will scare you to death. You will need a guage that reads very low. I am pressure checking at 2 psi. At that pressure, each section looks like a pregnant guppy and sounds like it is going to come apart.

The picture shows the detail of the pontoon shape. The bottom is 18" and at an estimated 7500 pounds, should draft 8 or 9 inches. Above the sealed bottom will be areas of storage for water, fuel, sewer, etc. The floor will be above the water high enough so as to avoid being washed over with waves.

General overview

I have started this post to show my building of a pontoon houseboat. I hope it will be helpful to someone wanting to do the same or for getting ideas to apply to whatever kind of boat you may be working on. I hope to not embarrass myself.

My wife and I enjoy the river and want to be able to travel leisurely on the river. We started out to build a small houseboat that we could trailer and if we like it well enough, we will get a larger one and possibly sell out house. Or we may want to just keep the small houseboat or maybe sell it. Who knows.

The plans that I have drawn are for a 12' wide x 34' long houseboat on 3 aluminum pontoons. The cabin will be 12'x 24'. I have not finalized all the appliances and such, but I would like to have enough of a solar and battery system to be able to only need a small generator to run occasionally to charge the batteries. I haven't figured all that out yet.

Would like to use 2 outboard motors, but may use one. Will use a msd device.

Larry & Donna