small backyard built houseboat

Strange - since you were previously considering having to build two watertight hulls before. Anything fairly flat will be stable, as a pontoon boat would be.

The width thing, you don't need to be as wide as your cat idea, as the amount of storage increases dramatically in a single hull.

Another design idea

http://www.bateau.com/proddetail.php?prod=GT27#.UoKbEydxJoE

 

shop a little

In my part of the US (Georgia), any area that has had a lake since the 70s has a lot of old small steel houseboats and pontoon boats for sale- cheap! Almost give away prices. The only value is usually the trailer. You can buy and repair one for less than the cost of materials of a new boat, and they were nice boats when new. Replacing old pontoons is something of a cottage industry here. There is also a local shop that has perfected a system of covering an old leaky steel hull with thin stainless. It seems to work well, and has brought new life (and some value) to quite a few old houseboats that had been given up for "dead". Check around, you might save a lot of work and cash
I just trailered a 33' x 12' boat, with permits, thru FL and Georgia, so I am up to date on the permit laws. Most states are pretty easy under 12', but 11' would be a lot easier and 10' or under MUCH better. Narrow roads, filling stations and construction zones can be quite a challenge. If I were doing it regularly, 10' would be about the max.
B

 

Could you give a description of what they do?

 

Wraping a boat

SS, I have not watched to whole process, but as they described it, they replace any badly rusted frame parts from the outside, re-plate any big holes, and then use a very thin stainless sheet to wrap the the flat bottom and slab sided hulls. The corners and some seams are folded and welded. The finished boat has some waves and rough edges, but overall is pretty smooth and looks nice from 10 feet . These hulls are usually 30'-50' with beams around 12'. I don't know how long they last, the shop has been covering them for about 10 years so far with good results. They are used in fresh water only as far as I know.
B

 

It would seem like wrapping a steel hull in anything would just make the rust worse, like when they re-plate right over top.

 

Wrap on

I don't want to get into an argument here, I just reported what I have seen. If I have time, I will try to go by the "wrapping" shop and get some more details- if they are willing to share. My boats are wood/and or fiberglass so I am not a potential customer.
B

 

Thanks for the reply.

On a steel houseboat, usually the problem is rusting from the inside out so covering the outside wouldn't make the rust worse. It's just a cheaper "temporary" fix as compared to re-plating the hull.

Around here they take old wooden shrimp boats, cover them in a generic brand of 5200 and press woven roven into it. When the 5200 sets, they then roll on polyester resin, when the fiberglass gets to the green stage they put in thousands of galvinised staples about 6" apart and then 2-3 more layers of woven roven.

I wonder if the same couldn't be done on steel? ( without the staples) Do they imbed the stainless in anything?

 

SamSam,

sounds like it could work, these are usually stillwater boats & some extra years a good thing. Very often we get carried away with absolute best practice, where I work we have to scab on doubler plates to an aging ship(static display), usually welded..... but if the adjoining compartment contains asbestos I wont put a worker in for fire watch.... we glue on a doubler with sika, this is for deck/superstucture/funnels.
Jeff.