The Eejut's Guide to Float Homes Part 2
There are several ways of living on the water. It helps if you can use the right language to describe your circumstances ... it shows you've done your homework and have more than just a superficial interest.
A house built on the hull of a boat or barge is a houseboat. A house built on a floating platform is a float home. A house built inside a sailboat or motorboat is a live aboard. Float homes tend to be the largest structures with the most space, and look the most like houses on the water. Houseboats could be just as large, but generally aren't, likely for some very good aquatic reason. Live aboards look more like boats than homes, and tend to be very cramped inside, sort of a camper on the water. But live aboards can usually also move about independently from one place to another using their own sails and/or engines.
Float homes usually have "positive flotation", which means that the float is made of a material, such as foam (for example, Envirofloats), that does not absorb water and will always float and never sink. Cement is also used as a positive flotation float material (it has foam embedded within it). With foam, the float home is light, and tends to bob on the surface of the water. With cement, the float home can weigh in excess of 100 tons, and tends to bounce around less. Foam tends to draw less water (i.e., the part of the float home that is under the surface of the water is a few inches to a foot and a half) than cement, so if the wharf is shallow (be sure to check at low tide) a cement float could end up sitting on the bottom. This is Not Good.
Houseboats and live aboards have flotation, but it's not positive ... if water gets into the hull somehow, and the bilge pump can't get rid of it, then the hull will sink. Water can get in if rust eats a hole into the steel hull, but it can also get in if the internal water pipes burst.
What you decide to buy may really depend on what's available, and whether you think you'd like to move from one wharf or marina to another. Or you could have your own houseboat or float home built for you, in which case you could have a cement float with a built-in basement(!)
The next installment will discuss the internal features of float homes.
A house built on the hull of a boat or barge is a houseboat. A house built on a floating platform is a float home. A house built inside a sailboat or motorboat is a live aboard. Float homes tend to be the largest structures with the most space, and look the most like houses on the water. Houseboats could be just as large, but generally aren't, likely for some very good aquatic reason. Live aboards look more like boats than homes, and tend to be very cramped inside, sort of a camper on the water. But live aboards can usually also move about independently from one place to another using their own sails and/or engines.
Float homes usually have "positive flotation", which means that the float is made of a material, such as foam (for example, Envirofloats), that does not absorb water and will always float and never sink. Cement is also used as a positive flotation float material (it has foam embedded within it). With foam, the float home is light, and tends to bob on the surface of the water. With cement, the float home can weigh in excess of 100 tons, and tends to bounce around less. Foam tends to draw less water (i.e., the part of the float home that is under the surface of the water is a few inches to a foot and a half) than cement, so if the wharf is shallow (be sure to check at low tide) a cement float could end up sitting on the bottom. This is Not Good.
Houseboats and live aboards have flotation, but it's not positive ... if water gets into the hull somehow, and the bilge pump can't get rid of it, then the hull will sink. Water can get in if rust eats a hole into the steel hull, but it can also get in if the internal water pipes burst.
What you decide to buy may really depend on what's available, and whether you think you'd like to move from one wharf or marina to another. Or you could have your own houseboat or float home built for you, in which case you could have a cement float with a built-in basement(!)
The next installment will discuss the internal features of float homes.