# Pallet House for refugees



## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

http://www.ask.com/videos/watch-vid...ZolTg?o=100000042&l=dis&ver=11&domain=ask.com

Actually, in a SHTF scenario, you may have refugees at your place. Something to consider. This place is by I Beam Design.

For those on dialup, here is the website http://www.i-beamdesign.com/projects/refugee/refugee.html


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## JIL (Aug 25, 2007)

that is cool but what keeps the rain, snow, cold out? I wonder if using a stucco type outside would be sufficient?


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

It looks like they slid some polycarbonate greenhouse corrugated material between the front and back of the pallets. I would personally want to add materials that would add structural strength and insulation qualities, and of course, doors for security.


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## emdeengee (Apr 20, 2010)

Very clever but I have never seen pallets made out of such nice wood. I guess they were purpose made. And pallets are heavy so not easy to transport.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Hubby has been bringing home pallets made with nice plywood.


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## JIL (Aug 25, 2007)

somtimes we find nice ones that are made of oak we disassemble and reuse we have made a chicken coop , we have taken them apart and made the nicest picket fence for the garden. we made a tool that kinda looks like a cross to take them apart with. I really like the thought of making shelters we were trying to figure out something for the goats but now I'm thinking for when guest come over this could get me in trouble real quick when I show dear hubby lol


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## D Lynn (May 26, 2008)

I think it's awesome! To heck with the refugees, I'd put some chickens or a couple of goats in there!


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## elliemaeg (May 1, 2005)

A few years ago someone gave my DH some pallets that were from overseas shipments. They were made out of Mahagony sp?. These were from a moving co. and the usual pallets used in the country sending them. Would make some beautiful temp. houses.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Visit the link for the website and click on all of the highlighted terms for more information.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

I use a reciprocating saw and cut the nails in between the boards, then pull the cut off ones. Keeps the boards nice. I run the boards through a planer, makes great hardwood floors. I have built a lot of my buildings from whole pallets. If put together in units they are strong, put a 2"x6" header on top to hold all nice and straight and strong, when covered with siding they make great neat square buildings....James


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

jwal10 said:


> I use a reciprocating saw and cut the nails in between the boards, then pull the cut off ones. Keeps the boards nice. I run the boards through a planer, makes great hardwood floors. I have built a lot of my buildings from whole pallets. If put together in units they are strong, put a 2"x6" header on top to hold all nice and straight and strong, when covered with siding they make great neat square buildings....James


I would love to see them James!


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## Wags (Jun 2, 2002)

Yeah lets see some pictures James!


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## whodunit (Mar 29, 2004)

Our goat shelter was made with pallets in about 30 minutes. We drove two t-posts into the ground at the outer edges of a pallet and slid the pallet down it to keep it upright. This made the walls. We then used leftover carport tubing for the roof and covered everything with a tarp to keep out the wind. Quick, easy and cheap!


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## NoClue (Jan 22, 2007)

The quality of lumber that pallets are made of varies greatly (as do the nails/staples/whatever). I've done several projects around my house using pallets and pallet wood as the primary material. Usually what happens is that we have a big project at work that yields a big stack of pallets and wooden crates. My supervisor will let me take all that I can handle rather than just throwing them away.

I don't believe in wasting lumber, and I keep a couple of moving crates full of scraps. If nothing else, I use them as test pieces to check the setup of my saws or routers before committing to a piece of good lumber.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

JIL said:


> that is cool but what keeps the rain, snow, cold out? *I wonder if using a stucco type outside would be sufficient?*


I've been thinking about this, and I don't see why that wouldn't work and make it stronger too. My house in the burbs is stucco on the outside. I have seen how stucco is done. They wrap the house with tar paper, and a special mesh that looks like chicken wire. Then add a scratch coat, and then the stucco. That would add strength and weather resistance.

I just found these instructional videos from Imasco for properly doing stucco, and they also include how to properly stucco around windows.

Video 1 [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpo4cAcdsTg&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL[/ame]

Video 2 [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H05_1MYj6xY&feature=autoplay&list=ULQpo4cAcdsTg&lf=mfu_in_order&playnext=1[/ame]

Video 3 [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=moMrkfXtHDE&feature=related[/ame]

Video 4 [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oS4mBwAF110&feature=related[/ame]

Video 5 [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mrnv5GLxl8&feature=related[/ame]


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## NoClue (Jan 22, 2007)

Common Tator said:


> I've been thinking about this, and I don't see why that wouldn't work and make it stronger too. My house in the burbs is stucco on the outside. I have seen how stucco is done. They wrap the house with tar paper, and a special mesh that looks like chicken wire. Then add a scratch coat, and then the stucco. That would add strength and weather resistance.
> 
> I just found these instructional videos from Imasco for properly doing stucco, and they also include how to properly stucco around windows.
> 
> ...


Sounds like an interesting experiment. I might give it a try myself. Seems like it could be a cheap solution for the new garden shed I need.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

No Clue, if you do this, I would love to see pictures!


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## PhilJohnson (Dec 24, 2006)

I built a pallet shack years ago and lived in it for a couple of months. Suffice to say it was neither as pretty nor as weather tight as the one pictured above. If you have access to a lot of woods I'd suggest a log cabin made out of small diameter logs might go up just as fast as a pallet shack. I made a small 8x8 cabin within an hour and a half myself (no floor chinking or roofing on it though). Better insulation qualities too. Plus nailing through pallets is a big pain. Screwing them together is the only way to go.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

PhilJohnson said:


> I built a pallet shack years ago and lived in it for a couple of months. Suffice to say it was neither as pretty nor as weather tight as the one pictured above. If you have access to a lot of woods I'd suggest a log cabin made out of small diameter logs might go up just as fast as a pallet shack. I made a small 8x8 cabin within an hour and a half myself (no floor chinking or roofing on it though). Better insulation qualities too. Plus nailing through pallets is a big pain. Screwing them together is the only way to go.


Actually, A log cabin would be much sturdier than a pallet house. If your place is as heavily forested as mine, there are far more small diameter logs than pallets too. 

Something to consider.


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## pancho (Oct 23, 2006)

If I ever get a camera and figure out how to post pics I will show a small diameter log house I built and am living in now.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Hi Pancho, I would love to see those pics! You don't mention where you live. Maybe one of our members lives nearby, and could take those pictures!


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## PhilJohnson (Dec 24, 2006)

Common Tator said:


> Actually, A log cabin would be much sturdier than a pallet house. If your place is as heavily forested as mine, there are far more small diameter logs than pallets too.
> 
> Something to consider.


Yeah if I were to do it over again I wouldn't have messed with pallets. Believe it or not finding decent pallets was easier said than done. Finding ones that are a uniform size was even tougher. In the end I scavenged enough for a small shack but it was pretty horrible. Some of it was no doubt because my lack of building skills at the time (I was only 21). Previously I had only built forts in the woods as a kid. Also the metal roof leaked since it was full of nail holes. If I find myself in a situation where I need to build a nearly free dwelling I'm definitely going with logs provided I have access to trees.



pancho said:


> If I ever get a camera and figure out how to post pics I will show a small diameter log house I built and am living in now.


That sounds awesome  I'd love to see it. I've taken quite a few pictures with my cell phone and put them on the web. If you have a camera phone it's really quite easy to upload a few pictures. If you have a newer phone (like one within the last 4 years) chances are it uses a standard USB outlet for charging. 

I know I've posted it here before but this is the pallet shack:










I paid nearly nothing for the shack, the nails were used too. I did use great stuff to seal the cracks. It was pretty bare bones, no power, no water. A cot to sleep in. Mice loved it, so did snakes. I would have to check for snakes before going to bed. I sat on one once on accident, that was the last time went to bed before checking the sheets. 










I built this shed for nearly nothing. I have 10 dollars into it for gasketed roofing nails. Sadly it is much better than the old shack ever was. It is much more weather tight, roof only has a couple of leaks, plus it's a lot higher off the ground. Given the choice I'd live in this thing over the shack. A little bit of roofing tar and some tar paper and it make an okay temporary house.


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## machinist (Aug 3, 2010)

Our local junkyard (rural area) gets a fair amount of used metal roofing sheets. I have been buying these for an average of aobut $2 for a 2 ft. x 10 ft. sheet. That is 10 bucks for a "square" (100 square feet) of roofing! I've built a 10' x 10' tank shed, a 12' x 28' yard barn, and an 8' x 12' henhouse with this stuff. Most of the lumber I scrounged in various places. I painted the roofs with the fibered aluminum trailer roof coating which plugged any nail holes, and gave the outside a coat of either aluminum or exterior white paint. They look like they were built with new materials, and cost squat.


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Phil, Thank you for the pictures! It was pretty independent for a young man to build himself a shed as temporary housing. Good job!


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## Common Tator (Feb 19, 2008)

Machinist, you have made wonderful use of materials that are durable and available inexpensively.


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## PhilJohnson (Dec 24, 2006)

machinist said:


> Our local junkyard (rural area) gets a fair amount of used metal roofing sheets. I have been buying these for an average of aobut $2 for a 2 ft. x 10 ft. sheet. That is 10 bucks for a "square" (100 square feet) of roofing! I've built a 10' x 10' tank shed, a 12' x 28' yard barn, and an 8' x 12' henhouse with this stuff. Most of the lumber I scrounged in various places. I painted the roofs with the fibered aluminum trailer roof coating which plugged any nail holes, and gave the outside a coat of either aluminum or exterior white paint. They look like they were built with new materials, and cost squat.


Awesome, got any pictures of your scavenged building projects? I've been wanting to build a small garage for a while but my issue has been scrounging enough tin up for the roof. At $2 bucks that is a price even I could afford 




Common Tator said:


> Phil, Thank you for the pictures! It was pretty independent for a young man to build himself a shed as temporary housing. Good job!


Thank you. I don't like renting, and I really don't like living in the city. I realized that if I were to live as I like I would have to buy land. So I scrimped and saved for 8 months for a down payment for my first 5 acre parcel. It has been since sold and helped pay for the old farm house I live in now.


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

[[[[.....never seen pallets made out of such nice wood.....]]]]

Perhaps you would be surprised at how nice the wood is if you take the time to run a sander over it and paint on a bit of stain. Unless the wood has been split with a careless fork lift. Which is usually when they get given away.

Free pallets aren't so easy to find any more.


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## machinist (Aug 3, 2010)

Phil Johnson,

Scroll down this page halfway for posts by "patience" which show photos of some of our place, both the buildings I talked about and the sunporch/summer kitchen/plant starting room I piddled around with and added to the house over a period of several years. There is explanatory text on this site. 

http://malthusia.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6&start=220

The next page also has a few pictures of other projects.


The metal roofing had some damage, nail holes, and some was rusted. I cut off the worst of it and spent some time straightening out dents and bends in the sheets that were worth the trouble. The cutting was done with a carbide blade in a portable circular saw, but better dress up like you are going to attend a forest fire for doing that! WEAR EYE PROTECTION! I did take a fair amount of work to salvage the best of it, but it saved me a lot of money. 

The henhouse has a1/4" plywood ceiling that came from the interior of a junked RV trailer found at the junkyard. I just cut out the worst damaged spots and gave it a coat of white paint. The same plywood covered both the inside and outside of the barn doors (4' x 8'). Those doors are framed with half-lapped 2" x 4", screwed together, then covered outside with the recycled metal. Those doors are exceptionally strong. Never had one made this way to sag, a pet peeve of mine. Painted them all over with latex exterior semi gloss white, and put a "cap" of aluminum coil stock over the top edges to prevent rain getting behind the metal siding to rot the wood. 

The henhouse floor is concrete, which alone cost more than the entire rest of the barn! (Over $200.) But I hate rats and mice. I also put metal on the INSIDE of the henhouse, so NO rats and mice can get in. No problem there. 

The yard barn is framed underneath with old oak 2 x 6 and floored with old oak siding from a demolished barn. I put a layer of 1/2" exterior plywood over the oak floor to seal it up. Only took 6 sheets of that for the 12 x 16 part of the barn. Another 12 x 12 with a gravel floor was added to the length of the barn later, making it 12' x 28', not counting the 6 ft. henhouse shed on the end. The gravel floored part is for the heavy garden tractor and stores barrels of grain for feed. All the barn has a loft, giving a lot more storage space, 4 ft. high in the center of the gambrel roof. I made open trusses for the roof, allowing an open loft.

That page also shows some of the machine shop, an air powered grain cleaner, and other stuff.


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## machinist (Aug 3, 2010)

oregon woodsmoke,

I have a desk with pigeonholes that I made many years ago mostly from pallet lumber top boards. Had to glue up two layers for the desk top, and do some filling of the nail holes, but I had made up my mind I could do this....

Came out nice, but was WAY too much work to salvage that wood for the top. Worked out nicely for the pigeonholes, though. 

Shows what you can accomplish if you get a bad case of the "bound-to's". :grin:


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