Handmade Houseboats: Independent Living Afloat

Handmade Houseboats: Independent Living Afloat

Review``Clearly written, easy to understand, and very nicely illustrated. . .For anyone attempting to build a floating home, this book would be of immense help.'' (Heartland Boating)``If you want to give the idea [of a houseboat] a serious think for a relatively modest cost, Handmade Houseboats is the best way I know to get there.'' (Sail)``Every[one's] Huckleberry Finnian dream: a house on a scow or raft; the hows and wheres, with plans and technical details.'' (WoodenBoat)Water-loving people of modest means have lived aboard houseboats for centuries, and why not? Unlike expensive, cramped, and hard-to-build liveaboard cruising boats, spacious, homey houseboats are easily and economically constructed from commmon lumberyard materials. And unlike those high-priced waterfront cottages, there's no lawn to mow and often no property taxes. And if you don't like the new neighbors, just up anchor and be off.This book tells those who would live afloat how to design and build their own place on the water. There are detailed plans and building instructions for sample houseboats; help with designing a personalized houseboat from scratch; resource-stingy contrivances for easing life aboard, including a solar oven, a windmill-powered washing machine, and innovative power-, water-, and waste-management systems; and more.From the Back CoverPeople seem inexorably drawn to live near water, but rising prices for waterfront land have made that an impossible dream for most. There is an alternative.Water-loving people of modest means have lived aboard houseboats for centuries, and why not? Unlike expensive, cramped, and hard-to-build liveaboard cruising boats, spacious, homey houseboats are easily and economically constructed from commmon lumberyard materials. And unlike those high-priced waterfront cottages, there's no lawn to mow and often no property taxes. And if you don't like the new neighbors, just up anchor and be off.This book tells those who would live afloat how to design and build their own place on the water. There are detailed plans and building instructions for sample houseboats; help with designing a personalized houseboat from scratch; resource-stingy contrivances for easing life aboard, including a solar oven, a windmill-powered washing machine, and innovative power-, water-, and waste-management systems; and more.Handmade Houseboats will help you build a self-sufficient and economical floating home that generates its own power, deals with its own waste, and leaves no scar upon the Earth.About the AuthorRussell Conder wandered around Australia, Southeast Asia, Europe, and North America working at various means of survival--electrician, clerk, painter, sculptor, salesman, ballet administrator . . . among others--before returning to the pastoral society of New Zealand's sixty million sheep, and a few people. He currently lives near Waiheke Island aboard his handmade houseboat Tsunami.