building a small houseboat barge from a skip.

[china]

hello, i am thinking about building a small houseboat barge from a skip, that is an old open topped garbage container for anyone not from the u.k.

does anyone have any plans available that i can follow. my friend told me it can be done, i am just having trouble finding anything online.

i know it sounds ridiculas, but would like to entertain this idea for a while.

cheers.

[marshmat]

It's not as ridiculous as it sounds. A "skip" as you call it, or a "dumpster" as North Americans call it, of 8' by 24' or so is solidly built and should float as well as any other square-bottomed barge, as long as the centre of gravity is kept low (you may want to ballast it).

I doubt you'll find stock plans for such a thing, but if you're OK with welding and aren't planning to take it outside of calm, sheltered waters, hacking something together shouldn't be too complicated....

[china]

thanks pal, i will look into this.

[flyinwall]

there is no reason you couldnt adapt most houseboat plans to suit what you want as you already have the hull all you have to do is build the house part of the boat