We’ve been getting comments about mass producing affordable housing with the Earth Home Builder. This reminded me of one of our readers a few years ago who was planning to build affordable housing for average people like Wal-Mart employees, clerks, fast food workers, etc. He was going to buy an old (unused) trailer park at a steep discount with all the roads and utilities already installed and build trailer sized earthbag houses. The Earth Home Builder machine could crank out a lot of simple houses for a project like this very efficiently. This could avoid a lot of trailer park fires. Fire is a major hazard in trailer parks since the units are so close together.
Imagine source: Springfield VT blog
There is actually a higher incidence of tornado deaths in the south due to mobiles compared to anywhere else in the United States, in the Area dubbed Dixie Alley. Even with the newer hud rules in 1992 you have to question the over all safety of mobile homes in Florida. As Tornado alley grows in population you have to question the code exemption for mobile homes there.
The only way this would actually be affordable is if you built it somewhere without local codes. Trailers are exempt from local codes. Each house would add an additional expense while each trailer would not. But then trailers are built a certain way because they are built on a metal trailer. You by necessity have to put them together on a lot in a certain way. You don’t actually have that stringency with Earthbags. I wonder if there could be any sayings in multi Family housings with the average local code. You could for instance do Row houses shotgun style. Perhaps Dogtrot houses could be considered as a single house. The question is if the goal would be to compete with or against mobile homes? Not being exempt to local codes there is a necessity for creativity.
My wife and I were thinking of something similar. There is a way to make a fireproof MDF/plywood with a geopolymeric binder, but I don’t know the details. If all else fails, buy the textbook and start experimenting.
1. trailers were built with aluminum electrial wiring which exspaned and contracter causing arcing
2. saying this not P C but a lot trailer people
A. smoke
B. drink in my neibor hood
3. pot growing and meth labs have caused a lot of the lates fires in my area [ the last house was a rent used to cook meth ]
This would work well, but only if the roof and supporting beams were made of a fire-resistant or fire-proof material. Beams made of cast geopolymer concrete and roofing tiles made of clay or geopolymer would solve this problem.
Yes, especially if the trailer park is in a high risk area such as California where entire trailer parks burn to the ground in infernos. Plus add a firewall, fire break and good sprinkler system.