Sunday, November 29, 2009

Shelter Systems, another affordable housing option

When we're all done camping, we'll go glamping!


We're working on the specs for a lightweight 14' PVC Gertee model, so tonight I went poking around the internet to see what other companies may be doing the same thing. The Shelter Systems are a different style, more "domish" than yurt, but they're under 2000 bucks and may suit people in warmer climates needing temporary shelter just fine. I've been to their site before, years ago when I was still doing lots of yurt research. I liked how much light they allow in. Kind of interesting to see them again after a few years of experience building my own and living in them full time. I had to hang dark materials all around my bed in order to sleep in the summer here with just a 4' skylight. But what a greenhouse they would make! Their 30' is only $1990. and it's 11' tall, 706 square ft, which is comparable to a small house. http://www.shelter-systems.com/large.html

Go Yurt promises they don't use any PVC... won't have to worry about competition from this company! They have a model that looks a lot like my bridal gertee did this past summer with the 360 degree windows. This is a very cute yurt: http://www.goyurt.com/models.php

We'll be setting the first pvc model up on Tim's trapline and I'll go along and take a bunch of pictures because the bears are pretty much gone by now. He says I have to get over my fear of the bears and I say, or not. I'm not afraid of them when I'm here in the campground, but the trapline and all these woods around here are a very scary place to someone like me. I really don't live in such wilderness that bears walk through my yard every day, but just a few miles away they're there. I'm going to be writing a training schedule for his new trapper's training camp, and in exchange he's indulging me with another gertee idea. He can't believe the makeshift back one is staying up with only 8 roof poles but his faith in my "gurkies" is getting stronger every year. Plus, he does want something out there for when he gets stuck in the snow and it's 50 below. If this model works for him and fits nicely on a dogsled, we may be able to start producing them, and at the very least I'll also have one to take outside on the road with me.

Here's a long list of Modernist Prefab Dwellings, some of them look very livable to me.
http://www.fabprefab.com/fabfiles/otherfabhome.htm

Several of the ideas are very creative, here's little boxes that could easily become the home of the future for the poorest members of society. I know in Japan they're renting little bedrooms with internet for people job hunting there. If I ever have to live in a box stacked on top of a bunch of other boxes, I'd like to try living in one these:

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