Hi

So i’m trying to acquire some camping land and I need to design and build a small house on it that can be used for weeks to months at a time.  It does not have to be code compliant – but I want it to be safe, and if I could learn building skills or style relevant to code compliance that would be a plus because I may try to build a larger design of the same to code legal in the future if that’s possible.  Call this the training/learning build to learn more about how to build a house in general right now.

I have a few significant barriers in terms of cost and things like heavy equipment access so i’m just going to braindump what i’ve been penciling up for awhile for feedback. 

Basically a series of requirements has led me to conclusions and i’m getting a head check.  Some of these limitations are hard limits (no alternative), some are just soft financial limits/trying to avoid some major expense due to limited dollars.  Maybe I can break or change one or two of those soft limits but not all of them.

– Nearly every individual piece has to fit in a 1/2 ton fullsize pickup bed or folding 4×8 trailer because that’s what I have right now.
– So I would like to build the entire house out of 4×8 panels – walls floor roof.  Some longer timber pieces like 12-16 feet could fit on a roof rack but i’d rather that be more sparingly used.
– Another reason for panels is the house has to BE ABLE TO DISASSEMBLE in the future because it is very likely to be moved to a different location, or might be repurposed (turned into garage or shed on land elsewhere) from the same panelized building blocks.
– Another aspect of disassembly is the possibility to extend or make it larger a year or three in the future.
– The manpower will be 2-3 people max to put up or take down the house once panels made.
– There will not be months to put together the house on site, so I have to pre-build as much as I can offsite, and then move it a pickupload+a trailerload at a time up to the camping land.  I wanted to assemble 4×8 panels for floor, walls, and yes roof.
– There will be no real heavy equipment access, no cranes to get rafters up.  I was thinking of creating some falsework and scaffolding, putting together the pre-built roof panels I make myself, and then lowering or attaching the roof after it’s in one piece.
– I was considering some kind of ladder truss out of 2×4’s instead of big expensive long 2×10’s or 2×12’s or so if possible for both floor and roof support.  I’m trying to think of a way to make an extendable truss that breaks down into an 8 foot length, so I can put two or even three lengths in the pickup and connect them on site.  This might need a CAD program unless others have done this.

Seem challenging?  It is, i’ve been thinking around these design problems for awhile.

This is meant to be a replacement for something like an RV or converted schoolbus that people often use in these scenarios, except i’d like it to be better for four season use (minnesota winters) and to be able to be taken back down again/moved/repurposed into another type of building elsewhere without wasting the wood/etc.

Small means anywhere from tiny to just generically small, maybe I just make an 8×16 foot sleep shack at first and maybe that expands to a 12×24 foot later reusing half of the panels.  One floor only, slant roof – on which i’d mount a few solar panels and in the ‘attic’ have some mild storage or if larger a tiny loft on one side.  Future reuse being when I actually buy land to build a code-legal house on I hope to disassemble this and pull it off the camping land, and then use it as temporary housing.  That could be years later though.

Foundation was going to tie into some kind of post-piers into the ground, or trying to build the house on top of a vehicle frame – either something like a schoolbus or stripped shortened mobile home frame.  (the idea being to just have it on wheels/have the ability to move it around on the camp land itself)  Doing so also makes it count as a ‘vehicle’ like an RV does to avoid the taxation of a permanent structure on land if possible.

Some things were still undecided – like whether the walls are load bearing vs using some kind of posts to the roof.  I’m open to either.

Seeking any and all commentary or advice.  🙂