by Tom Overy
I find the idea of a vacation home made from 12 ft concrete pipe and buried in the ground for insulation very interesting. I was inspired, so I started by creating a the bedroom area for kids. It is made of one pipe split in two layers with low ceilings which are very kid friendly.
The tree house-like upper and lower levels feel very fun for the younger ones.
The Vacation home is made of 4 pipes on end. All of the fixtures are from a Fifth Wheel RV.
For Tiny homes stripping an old RV is a low cost method for obtaining materials. I’m into RV’s. I’m designing 12V swamp coolers, portable compact wind generators etc that would be great for small vacation homes.
Take a look at my stuff on www.snowbirdhq.com
Thank you! Tom Overy 775-291-0347
Cool. Always interesting to see people with similar ideas. I had a similar idea of the center commons areas with rooms jutting off of it except I was thinking of shipping containers. I like the shape you chose for the center commons area and the use of windows on the corners for light. The circular shape looks like it would worked nicely, too. Awesome idea. I hope you find yourself able and willing to build it or something like it.
What a cool idea! My boys would’ve loved that when they were younger– still would!
I think that is way cool. They are drawings but it would be neat to see one made.
I think it would make for a great single person or couple with no children home.
It reminds me of a lunar station but on earth. 🙂 Perhaps it could inspire NASA when they start to put people on other planets. 🙂
Like your ideas here… I’m a ‘cruved’ nut: love dome homes, round houses, and these, with the ‘tunnel’ walls/roof, mix right on in there!
Where would you find ‘pipe’ (if I’m understanding this correctly) this wide, because, for an 8′ ceiling, they’d almost have to be at LEAST 12′ diameter (before cutting them where the 4′ depth would allow for a 10′ wide ‘floor’)! And PVC is good, but could the concrete/terracotta-stuff pipes be used (like the huge sewer pipes that are made for under roads, bridges, etc.)?
On your snowbirdhq site, you called this a ‘Cuanza Hut’: is this an ode to the old, post-war Quonset huts that were made available to citizens in the 40’s and 50’s, as surplus, after the war?
Just curious. It wasn’t till I said the word outloud that I realized the connection, because your word looks so different ‘on paper’! lol
Catchy, tho’.
I admire your MIND, and will be browsing your site for more clever ideas/products. 😉
I LOVE this idea of yours because it’s cheap, can be easy to ‘construct’ (once one’s had their pipes ‘cut’ to size by someone who knows how to do this), would be virtually weather-resistant (high winds would just glide right around and over, snow and ice would slide off instead of building up – no ‘roof weakness’ here!) and highly customizeable. You could give it a new and colorful coat of sealant/paint every summer, cut in decorative (maybe round?) windows, etc.
And if you could ‘submerge one to ‘almost’ underground (say, with a walkout-and-up stairway at one end, the ‘covered’ end having about 2′ showing so you could have a strong, non-opening (but good for peek-thru’s) window, this would be a nice way to build in a storm shelter of sorts for folks, too.
I do enjoy reading about and seeing others’ ideas here, especially when theirs kick-start MINE into flowing! 😉
The word I misspelled was supposed to be CURVED, not cruved… my clumsy fingers (numb fingertips, from my RSD, some nights worse than others)…
If there are other boo-boo’s, same thing. It just means I’m having a tough night (pain, stiffness, etc)….
I am very interested in your vertical axis wind turbine. It appears to have the generator built into the turbine am I right?
This is remarkably charming – doing this as a permanent residence is tempting.