Latest Update

This year, I have come a long way with the house. It is now close to being finished that we can go and live in it over the weekends to enjoy LBL. I have not been back since the second week of September due to so many things going on in my life. I am now running for city council of the town I live in. Speaking engagements in Chicago, Orlando, and Tampa have taken up weekends. Spending time with relatives has also taken up a few weekends. Also, we lost both of our dogs. My goal is to return the first weekend of 2018 to start back on the project.

One of the things I have been trying to figure out how to get is the 3,500 gallon water tank. Shipping on one of those is almost as much as the tank itself. Luckily, my neighbor has a 8'x12' trailer that he is going to let me have to take to Oklahoma to pick up the tank.

Here is the list of things I need to complete so the place can be classified as finished:

• Cedar walls
• Sliding glass door
• Kitchen tile
• Bathroom tile
• 3,500 gallon water tank
• electric utility hookup
• ceiling
• deck

I know that list is not very big now and believe me, I am glad after working on the place for two years. Our intent is to finish it over the winter so it is done by spring!

Before my last time there, some of the last things I finished was getting the outside cleared. First, here is a video of the back. Second, here are some pictures of it as we went along. Also, here is a pick of the gabion baskets.

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Kitchenette, Bathroom, Water, and Windows

I finally purchased the Renogy 2000 watt inverter. It has worked out great. With the five 100 watt panels, I have been able to run my electrical tools completely off the solar power without any need of the generator for the past four weeks. I installed four AC outlets throughout the house, one being an outside outlet. The really nice thing about the Renogy device is that it has a remote control to be able to turn the inverter on and off. I really like that. Here is a pic of it installed.

What I did was to run 10/2 line from the AC outlet to the inverter and used a heavy three prong receptacle to plug into the inverter.

Here is a pic of two outlets I ran. The one on the bottom is the AC plug and the one on the top is the 12V plug.

When you are working on a project by yourself, sometimes you must get creative. I had to hold that board in place while I screwed the outside outlet into the wall.

The next thing was installing the sink on the countertop. I had never done this before and was paranoid that I would screw up the cut. It ended up working out great. The only thing left is cutting down the end portion of the counter and putting the edging on it. This may be temporary because I am considering having granite installed.

The next thing I did was to finish up with the gas installation. I cut the hole in the roof and installed the gas ventilation piping for the hot water heater.

Once I got that done, I installed the composting commode. I ended up buying the Airhead composting commode. It seemed like the best commode for the money with the best features. I did have to also install ventilation for it. That was not the easiest. It came with 6 feet of flex piping so I had to improvise. I went to Lowe's and purchased 2 1/2" PVC piping with connectors. This allowed me to run the majority of the pipe to the ceiling and cut the included flex pipe down. Here is what it looks like now. I am going to come back and cover up the piping running up the wall when I install the wood slats on the wall.

This is the outside of the toilet vent. It took a while finding something that would work.

This is what the bathroom is now looking like. I still need to install the upper board behind the shower stall. and connect the piping to the shower. Once that is done, we are ready to test the water!

The last thing I did was to build out the window and door framing. I have cut all of the boards to go in place. I have brought them back home to polyurethane. We decided to leave them their natural color. We really like the natural look.

This is the latest news on the project. I know I don't post like I used to. After two years, I just want to get it over with and enjoy it!

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Container Home: Long Overdue Update - 16 January 2017

It has been a few months since I have published an update. My wife and I have been very busy at completing the home. Each time we have been there, we have been so tired afterwards that we just wanted to come on home, so we haven't taken pics in quite a while. Here is a video of what the inside now looks like.

Here is a picture of the back side:

Here is a pic of the inside:

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Container Home: Spray Foam Application - 18 September 2016

This was the first application of the spray foam. Since then, I applied one more tank full to the house. I am going to be applying a third application to coat all of the steel beams.

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Container Home: Installing the Main Door and Electricity - 31 July 2016

It has been quite a while since I last updated the blog. There has been a lot done on the house.

The first thing we did was to finish installing the sliding glass door.

After I got the vertical beams installed, I needed to get the horizontal ones. In order to do this, I had to make sure the height was going to be precise with the sub floor, backer board, and tile.

This was after I used the plasma cutter to cut the bottom line across.

Here is after I got the top cut out.

The next thing was welding the two horizontal beams in place to finish out the door frame.

At that point, the door was ready to be installed.

After that, I finished up the last of the roof, at least almost the last. I still need to do the very last tiles. I am waiting because they will need to be ground down as well as the back side before applying the coal tar epoxy. One more gallon should finish it up.

The next thing we did was to apply Por 15 to all of the vertical support i-beams. Por 15 is one of the best sealants to use. We did just the vertical beams right now so that we could go ahead and install the subflooring.

We got all of the subflooring installed.

The next thing we did was to begin framing out the interior walls. So far, we have gotten the bathroom, part of the bedroom, and part of the kitchen framed. 


This picture was taken of the bedroom framing.

This was framing of the bathroom.

I went back last weekend to begin installing the solar panels and there was a serious problem. Mold had formed on the framing because I had used regular wood. Thankfully there is a special coating you can apply to prevent mold in the future. I first sprayed down the mold with bleach and killed all of it off. Next weekend, I will be applying the coating which can be applied directly to the mold if anymore has formed.

The next thing I did was to begin installing the electrical system. Currently, there will be 400 watts of solar panels. I am going to upgrade that to 800 watts in the near future. I needed to make the 4 gauge wires to connect the batteries together. That is not an easy task. You have to use a crimping device that requires a sledge hammer since the connectors are so thick.

I have installed four 105 amp hour batteries. Yeah, I did not get all of them hooked up because I did not have the nuts for two of the batteries. I chose this plastic shelf because it is not vulnerable to acid if a leak occurred.

After I got the batteries setup and the cables made, I installed the fuse panel and regulator. I am using the 40 amp Renogy Commander regulator. I used 8 awg wiring to connect it all up. I also used a regular fuse box on the right for wiring my fuses. There are twelve negative terminals and 12 positive terminals. 

I also got some of the wiring run throughout the house last weekend. I found these 12v outlets that will work great for us.

Finally, the last thing I got done was to get our street number and put up a street number post. The post office told me that since this is a secondary home, a mailbox is not required. I wanted to get the post up ASAP because if something happened and we needed an ambulance for example, there needed to be a street number there for them to find us. I installed this with solar lighting on top of it.

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Container Home: Installing Second Window and Door - 12 June 2016

This weekend, we finished installing the last of the Styrofoam panels on the roof. It made an enormous difference in temperature inside since the sun is now blocked from shining down directly on the steel roof.

We also got the second window installed. It was hot and no fun using a plasma cutter and welder in 90+ degree weather. Here is a pic of part of the wall as it was being cut out. As you can see, I went around and outlined it first.

My wife took a pic of me using the plasma cutter as I was cutting out the wall.

Here is a pic after I finished cutting it out.

The next step was to install the window frame I had built back home. That is not the easiest because I not only had to cut a little more out on each side to properly fit it, but getting it lined up perfectly before welding it is not easy.

Once we got the frame installed, the next step was installing the window, which became a nightmare to us. The steel frame shrunk slightly after welding it into the wall. The window had to be shoved into place. We thought because it took a lot of pressure to push it in that it was nice and secure. WRONG! It fell out and shattered. I had to go back to Lowe's to get a new window. That was no fun at all and took away the rest of the afternoon. We did get it installed though before dark.

Once we got the new window installed, we then came back and caulked all of the openings. In the end, the frame will be covered, so I was not concerned with the white caulk over the black frame.

Once we finished the window, we started on installing the sliding glass door. Because of the window mishap, we did not finish the door. We did get the two vertical beams welded in place though.
I first started out by using the plasma cutter to cut out a wide enough sliver of wall so the 2"x3"x0.25" beam would fit from floor to ceiling on both sides. I had originally thought about building a frame around the door, like I did with the windows. I thought about the fact that the door will take a considerable amount of wall out and that it might structurally compromise the container. That is why I decided to weld two beams, one of each side of the door. It also makes it a lot easier to build out instead of trying to wrestle with a heavy rectangular frame. Here is a picture of the first sliver I cut out.

Once I got it cut out, I then welded the vertical beam in place. I did the same thing for the other beam. We placed the door up against the beams at the end and it fits perfectly.

When we return in two weeks, we will finish up installing the door. We are really excited to get that done, as it is a major part of the project.

A couple of other things were that we got the first of the insulation for the walls. We have an issue inside in that due to the cold of the ground up against the warm interior, condensation is occurring. To stop this, we are going to install the R-13 insulation down those walls. The second thing we got was the propane refrigerator, which is in the box on the left.

One more change we decided on making was to not seal the end doors like we had originally considered. Instead, we are going to install a sliding glass door behind each door thereby allowing us to open up the home even more when we are there. We will definitely keep the end doors as security when gone.

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Container Home: Ceiling Reinforcements and Subflooring - 04 June 2016

This weekend, my wife and I came over and actually got everything we could get done on Saturday. There were heavy thunderstorms to which I could not use the plasma cutter or welder. The first thing we did was to install the 2x6 pieces down the length of the container ceiling and the remaining part at the floor. These provide a place to attach the vertical 2x4s. Next, we installed the last two 4x4s at the ceiling. We did realize that we need one additional 4x4 to be installed near the front of the container so the 2x6 has one additional 4x4 to nail to. The next thing we did was to begin installing the remaining subfloor 2x4s to finish building out the subflooring. Once we got those completed, which took quite a while, we started installing the subflooring. We ended up only having about 60% of the subflooring for that side. I am going by Lowes today to pickup the remaining subflooring and other materials for next weekend. Luckily, the weather looks like it is going to be clear next weekend, so we will definitely get the window and sliding door installed, install the remaining Styrofoam sheathing on the roof, and install the remaining subflooring. If we have time, we will being installing the subfloor 2x4s on the right side also.

By the time we finished Saturday night, it was near dark and we came on home. We didn't get any pictures because we were exhausted. We'll definitely have pictures next weekend.

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