Last week I talked about how to live simply and decrease your carbon footprint living in a tiny house. Even better than buying a tiny house is making your own, and Michael Janzen is blazing a trail with his free tiny pallet house. Not only is his house made out of recycled shipping pallets, it isn’t costing him anything to build. And lucky for us, he’s sharing his plans so you too can build your own tiny free house.
You can save money, sharpen your DIY skills, and further decrease your environmental impact by following Janzen’s example of building a free pallet house.
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Keep pallets out of landfills
Here are some disturbing statistics about shipping pallets:
- Approximately 40% of all hardwood harvested in the U.S. is for making shipping pallets
- About two-thirds of pallets are used only once before being thrown out
- 1/4 of all wood in landfills is from used pallets
You can help prevent deforestation and keep pallets out of landfills by finding creative alternative uses for them, like building a house. Pallets can be found everywhere. Once you start looking for them, you’ll see them scattered all over your town or city.
Contact a local warehouse, supermarket, or any business that receives large shipments, and get permission to pick up their used pallets. Most companies are happy to give their pallets away.
Plans for a free pallet house
Janzen has made plans for building a free pallet house available on his website. These plans are a guide for building what he calls a disaster preparedness and emergency shelter. Janzen says:
As hurricane Gustav plowed across Cuba headed for the gulf coast of the United States memories of Katrina and the potential displacement of thousands got me thinking. I wanted to do something to help. It occurred to me that someone else might find what I now about building with shipping pallets useful in the coming weeks and months.
With some creativity, you may find that shipping pallets can be reappropriated in other ways to build your own free tiny house. For example, I have a friend that has disassembled shipping pallets and used the wood to build roof trusses for his straw bale building.
Ultimately, you can help prevent deforestation and keep pallets out of landfills by using them to build creative housing.
Think tiny and free!
(Image credit: flickr via KGBKitchen)
it looks good i think n hes dune a good job to say hes built hiself
Well, this isn’t what I thought it would be. Essentially an un-economical tent. I didn’t see any ‘trash’ being used at all. Looked like all brand new wire and plastic to me.
Also, how many man hours did it take to erect this thing?
Doesn’t seem very economical. May as well just buy every bumb a tent.
Stupid… We recognize a 12 year old kid for making a home out of trash…. Talk to the homeless… They have been doing it for years
but is it breathable? and would actual homeless folks go for it?
So…It looks to me like he had some help, no?
Ashleigh, what do you mean by “observical”?
It’s a cool idea, but I don’t think the police would allow people to put them up anywhere because the picky public would say they are eye sores.
Wow how awesome, to think there is still someone in this world that has that kind of compassion for his fellow man. Hat’s off to you Max. Alot of us could learn alot from you especially with our enonmic.
I wish you the best, keep up the good work you deserve it.
Better than setting in front of a TV playing Playstation you used your intelligences.. Excellent..
What a great kid
wow, we need alot more kids like him in this world. Thanks to the parents for raising a great kid!!!
brilliant.
HE GIVES HOPE FOR THE MILLIONS OF LAID OFF WORKERS OF AMERICA. AT LEAST THEY’LL HAVE A PLACE TO LIVE.
NOW HIS NEXT PROJECT:
HOW TO MAKE A WHOPPER FROM TRASH
And everyone wants to wonder why eco initiatives never take off? I figure that if you spend all that time engineering, planning, budgeting, building anything green then those individuals or businesses are doing more than the most of us. Kicking them and putting them down is not going make the eco industry look attractive to anyone accept to fanatics or radicals. I am not brave enough to condemn anyone trying anything. So like it was over 30 years ago all this “green” thing collapse due to the same bad attitudes. Offer ideas/solutions or offer nothing at all.
Great idea! Submit the idea to Prez Obama to get some of our money before it’s all gone. Let me know how I can get one of those handy dandy houses, will ya? Thanks!
What a kind, clever and well-spoken young man. It’s nice to know that there are still young people who care about people other than themselves.
This is nothing but another impractical invention. It’s not as if we’re gonna be seeing the homeless using that to shelter themselves from the cold during nights of sleeping out in the open. Also, are these guys trying to encourage homeless people to sleep in the open? It seems that way to me.
Finally, it had to be a kid to remind us that we all can do some good in this world with less.
Good for this kid! This made my day a lot brighter to know there are kids out there who expand their minds and intentions to help other people.
Cute idea, but it’s not ‘made from trash’. Everything they used was new. Had they really made it from found/recycled items, then I’d be impressed.
Great job and idea.But i would think it would be reather difficult for them to carry around
Is that some kind of passive aggressive way of saying that the homeless deserve to live in garbage?
Nice one, kid. Nice.
I think this is great I was wondering if this is even leak proof, like a tent?
This kid is awsome. FEMA should contract him to make a hundred thousand of these so they could be rapidly deployed in case of natural disaster.
I am much older then this child and I made my granddaughter furniture out of materials that would have just been trash. I think going green is a great thing.
I’m glad that the youth are taking an interest in protecting the environment and taking steps to invent ways to re-use and recycle trash. I hope that Max will be an inspiration not only to the young but the older generations as well.
I really didn’t see real trash it looked like more of a produced thing packing peanuts and plastic and the metal didn’t look trashy.?Not to belittle this but what about a cardboard box?just seems like alot 10,000 dollars..
i think its kool how he did that… how is he so creative like dat man
I have no doubt Max arrived at his design independently but Pillow Domes were invented by J. Baldwin over 20 years ago – sans peanuts.
http://vsb.cape.com/~nature/greencenter/pdf/dome1985.pdf
Homeless/Emergency shelter solutions as good and better than this already exist. Why aren’t they being implemented?
Because that’s not the problem.
This is what great young minds are for!
Cheers!!
Thats cool. But those peanuts arnt good for the enviroment, but at least it’s trash, and not brand new.
More children should spend their free time, energy and creativity following Max’s example. Congratulation MAX!
What a great idea! I am very impressed and it is refreshing to show my children who are 8 & 10 something about a child near their age who is using his time and brainpower for such a wonderful project. Congratulations, Max and your parents, you deserve it!
I’m sure that homeless people aren’t the least bit insulted that they’re being offered homes made of trash! Are you serious?!
Kudos young man for the courage and sophistication it took to complete this immaculate design. Saving the environment as well as each other is something we should have done from the beginning, and you most certainly have done just that, from the beginning of your life. Let no one shut you down.
Alex Sherman
Isn’t that what the homeless do everyday?
WOW! Hats off to you, Max! You are an amazing person. Keep up the good work! : )
as soon as one homeless guys falls asleep, the other one will snatch away his little “mongolian yurt”….
Structural engineer here…figure out how to teach volunteers and homeless people how to build these with coat hangers (more bendable and can be fastened without the pins) and packing tape (no fancy heat sealer or danger needed) and you seem to have a practical winner. Suggest tests outdoors with small sand-bag-tube ground skirt to check for interior / exterior thermal gradient (effective R) to optimze thickness, members necessary. Way to go MAX!!!!!
you are the most awesome person in the world MAX!!!!!
i am proud of you.
Ashleigh, I think you may have mispronounciated a word.
-W
I bet many students have thought about this and possibly has made this. The school just might be in a poor district that cant afford supplies, doesnt get attention, or the students aint rich enough to get the supplies.
Pretty neat i guess.
Better keep it far away from the trashcan fires!!
i think it is stupid…not offense to the kid. but 10000 dollars for that
come on
Great idea & can be used in all climates! Bravo!
You should retitle the article. His components were not refuse–they were all brand new raw materials!
The world needs more of kids and adults like this. If this is the sort of attitude our future takes, I’m all for it.
Chicago being the windy city.. won’t these things blow away even at the slightest breeze?
WAY 2 GO MAX! THAT IS 1 VERY COOL IDEA, & with this screwed-up Government (economy, 2-faced LYING Politicians, etc.) MAYBE SOMEDAY, WE ALL will b living in 1 of your domes too! I KNOW I’D give it a try, so as 2 AVOID paying “THE VULTURES” in my home-town, MORE of MY rent money, taxes, etc.! aaah, but there IS 1 BIG future draw-back, Max’s invention WILL BRING about EVEN MORE “VULTURES”–as ANY NEW invention ALWAYS DOES! WHY?? ‘Cause SOME of them WILL start trying 2 MAKE a huge profit, by charging US (THE POOR, LIKE ME), 2 have OUR OWN dome sent 2 us (plus S & H) AND then, by charging US, RENT for residing in our own dome, UNDER a “Gov’t underpass”! U KNOW I’M RIGHT, huh?? LOL!
It’s the kind of home the Socialists (using “Environmentalisim” as a front) want us ALL to live in.
I think this is really interesting and innovative!
The only problem is that it looks really light and could probably be blown away by a strong gust of wind.. But I guess that problem could easily be solved by tying down weights.
This kid is really amazing!
Put this kid in charge of CitiBank!