Posted By Carjr on 06 Feb 2018 06:13 AM
Hello names Carl I have been building a mobile home with my father for about 3 years in the mountains of Vermont we have done our best to engineer it as efficient as possible but now the times comes to move out of the trailer park and to my own land I don't know much about green liveing but I'm starting with raw Earth its on the side of a mountain and has a 24/7stream flowing through it thinking wind sun hydro ? What's your favorite way to make power and store it also foundation Earth heater?are that hard to make?I need to make a foundation as well raidint heat? I just want some options any thoughts on how to make this green and efficient from the start! Also thank you so much for taking the time to read this I've never posted on a forum before hope this works didn't know where put it😀
Hi Carl.. I'm new here also and cant answer your questions but I also have a mobile home on a acre and have considered insulating and adding overhang to the roof before its reroofed. But is adding a $10k roof to a mobile home that's worth half that and still has the old leaky mobile home windows really worth it?? One thing about a mobile home, is it doesn't add allot of value to a property and the taxes are allot less, so you can afford the utility bills, lol.
I'm not saying it isn't worth adding insulation. I'm asking..Â
What have you done to yours? I think the most difficult place to re-insulate would be the floor, since mobile homes rely on the underbelly "wrap" to hold and seal the factory insulation which has probably been carried away by mice in my situation. Once you've cut that wrap open, its game over.. It would be practically impossible to reseal the wrap after you added insulation.  And a royal pain in the rear because my "trailer" sits so low, the axles are level with the ground.Â
It's hard to wrap my head around the cost of retro fitting a insulated roof and new windows for a trailer worth $5-10K Â
BTW.. How do I figure out what climate "zone" I'm in, in Iowa City Iowa?