Monica

free to good home: Pennsic house or parts thereof

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 04:02:36 GMT

Please share a link to this post with any SCA (etc) or tiny-homes people you think might be interested.

I have a house on a flatbed trailer. It lives at Cooper's Lake in western PA, where Pennsic is held. When I set out to build it, I first got Dave Cooper's approval of the plans so there would be no issues with using and storing it there. All was good. But times have changed, there are new people with new business interests running Cooper's Lake now, and many of the "old" trailers, including mine, have been evicted. In my case, my trailer has to be gone after Pennsic 50, this August.

The trailer is not road-legal; it's only been driven on Cooper roads for the last 20 years. Legality aside, I doubt the trailer would be safe at real road speeds. (The campground has bumpy dirt roads and traffic moves at 5-10MPH.) It's not practical for me to disassemble the house and rebuild a smaller version of it to take to and from Pennsic every year: I don't have the storage, the towing vehicle, or the fortitude. I don't think I'll go to enough more Pennsics to justify all those costs.

Perhaps you have those things, and interest? Or perhaps there are parts you can use?

Parts of the house are in good to very good condition and could perhaps be reused for a different building project. The roof was new in 2019, put on a month before I got the eviction notice (sob). It's made of ABS pipe, cut to look like tiles, and it does a good job of both protecting and cooling the house. I can talk more about its construction. The loft floor is made of 2x4 tongue-and-groove whitewood and, being interior, has not been exposed to the elements. The doors are in good shape (you probably want to refinish them). Some other lumber can probably be reused for the right project.

I would be sad to trash all this if there's someone who can make use of it and who can come collect it in August. I'm not looking for money; I want to reduce waste.

If you're interested, please get in touch -- Dreamwidth direct message if you're here, or email to this user name at pobox dot com, or the contact form on my personal web site, or Mastodon if you know me there. Or feel free to comment on this post if you don't mind it being public.

Edit: Exterior dimensions: 10 x 20 feet, 16 feet high at the ridge on level ground (the trailer is two feet of the height).

A few pictures:

Front:

Interior:

A better view of that roof:

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Pennsic trailer check-in

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 23:51:50 GMT

This weekend is the Cooper-designated weekend for people who want access to trailers stored there to go in and do any needed work. (There was a second, but it was Shavuot so that didn't help me.) It's been three years since Pennsic was held and thus three years since my house-on-a-trailer has been moved or used. I dreaded what I might find. I wouldn't have been surprised by "sunk into the ground up to its axles and, after digging it out, it needs new tires". I wouldn't have been surprised by exterior damage from other trailers or vehicles hitting it (which has happened before). I was expecting an exterior covered waist-high in mold or algae or whatever lives in those fields, which has happened before.

The two of us and two trailer-savvy people from our camp went up this afternoon, to do what we could and scout what would be needed for a return trip on Sunday. Miracle of miracles: it was fine. The Coopers have mowed the grass in the storage area, the tires are fine (a little low but can be driven; we can top off at Pennsic), the bucket we left inverted over the hitch was still there (so the hitch is fine, no rust), and it was more sound than it has been some years after only one year of sitting.

Whew. I was afraid I was going to have to invest more when we're under an eviction notice already (so I am not interested in long-term fixes at this point, only stopgaps). The one repair I knew I'd need will be fine (and not hard), and everything else looks fine. Pennsic accommodations this year should be sound.

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Pennsic short takes

Wed, 14 Aug 2019 01:53:27 GMT

Brief Pennsic notes in the form of pluses and minuses:

+ Debatable Choir concert went very well! I hope I get to hear a recording (or, better, watch a video.) One person who doesn't usually comment on our performances described our last song (Ecce Quomodo) as "exquisite".

- Despite a sudden attack of Pennsic crud causing a coughing fit.

+ Saw two fun commedia shows. (Would have been more if not for dinner conflicts, ouch.)

- Cooking dinner on the night of both the Pensnic Choir concert and the commedia all-stars show was not, in retrospect, a good idea.

+ But it was a very nice dinner, if I do say so myself. (Teriyaki salmon; teriyaki tofu with snow peas, carrots, and ginger; stir-fried vegetables in a red chili sauce; white rice; fruit for dessert. No meat, no gluten, and everything except the salmon was vegan.)

+ Many improvements to our kitchen! (I need to organize pictures for a separate post.)

+ Not too much rain, though what did fall led to instant large mud puddles in the roads because the ground is saturated.

+ Our block really came together to work through land problems -- swampy patches and two drainage ditches made parts of the block uncampable.

? Being on the corner was good for middle-of-the-night privy access and bad for noise.

+ We doubled our solar power this year. We can now charge not only phones but the electric scooters of the two camp members who require them and one other camp member's CPAP machine. (Not all at once and only during the day.)

+/- I got to see some friends but missed others.

+ Nice arts & sciences exhibit, including someone who wrote (calligraphed and illuminated) a book of Tehillim (Psalms).

+ After the Coopers declined again to tow my house-trailer, the person who towed the kitchen for us agreed to do so, saving us a bunch of money.

--- Toward the end of Pennsic I got email from the Coopers (the first written communication I've received from them about any aspect of my trailer). It contained an eviction notice. I am very frustrated; all this time, the (verbal) discussions with them have been about them (not) towing it, and now they're saying they don't want to have any oversized trailers on their property at all. I wish I'd known that earlier!! I'll probably write more about this separately. Meanwhile, I can keep it through Pennsic 50 (two more years) and then it has to be gone. :-(

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oh, you

Fri, 28 Jul 2017 02:14:05 GMT

Our camp's Pennsic prep is a little unusual:

Me: dials phone
Her: Castle Towing¹
Me: Hi. I'm going to need some towing at Cooper's Lake this weekend. Can I book that in advance?
Her: Oh you don't need to. We offer 24x7 road service; you can just call.
Me: It's a 20' trailer. Probably 3-ton, but we don't really know.
Her: ... oh. Uh, I don't know if we can do that.
Me: For what it's worth, you did it two years ago. That's why I specifically called you. But I understand things can change.
Her: I need to check with a driver. I'll call you back.

Return call:
Her: He remembers you. When did you say you need him?

With luck, this will be the last year we have to do our own towing for the house. The Coopers declared it too heavy for them to tow a couple years ago. A lot of what makes it too heavy is the kitchen structure and furniture we store in it. We are well under way with building a new kitchen trailer, which will replace most of that and store the rest between Pennsics. And that will make the house light enough that the Coopers should be willing to tow it to and from our campsite like they had done for years before the new rules. And hey, kitchen trailer instead of having to build and take down our current structure every year.

¹ Yes, that really is their name, and yes they're familiar with the Pennsic site.

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Monica

free to good home: Pennsic house or parts thereof

Pennsic trailer check-in

Pennsic short takes

oh, *you*

oh, you