OT: Old double wide to living in basement

Have a 25 year old double wide, thinking about building a basement, furnish it & live in it for a few years (or more).
1. What do you do with an old mobile home that you are not trading it on a new one? Is it basically scrap?
2. I am 65 years old. May just live in the basement and eventually one of my kids may want to put a house on top of it when I am gone. Anyone ever done this - helpful hints?

Many years ago I worked in a "trailer factory." If yours was built the way those trailers were built, you're lucky to have gotten 25 years out of it. Have seen a number of those manufacured homes falling apart around here. Not much left to even salvage....

A fella a few miles east of here built a basement house forty years ago and he's still living in it. Never did build a house on top of it. He's made a lot of improvements to the rest of the farm so he must have figured the basement is enough room for him. Jim

Riverslim,

My wife grew up in a basement home. Her parents built it with the intention of building house on top of it, but before they could do so, her father contracted a debilitating disease that precluded their building.

My wife says that it was acceptable, but not at all pretty. They still had the concrete block walls and concrete floor. No real daylight and no windows.

When she was a senior in high school, her parents sold the place and bought a very small tract house. Although it wasn't much to look at, she was much happier with it.

Good luck with your decision. With proper planning and implementation, you can make it very nice - that is - unless you just build a basement and live in it.

Tom in TN

I would look at having a "walk out" basement if possible. And what ever you do, put a good drain system around the outside footing, coat the concrete with a good waterproofing, and if possible, cover it with a good quality, foam insulation board.

Anything you can do to keep it dry and warmer.

The house I built on the farm in 1984 never leaked or had dampness problems cause of the drains and waterproofing. I also really beefed up the amount of re-bar

Good luck, Gene

Underground houses are popular in some places,easy to heat,cool in the Summer and pretty much storm proof.

It depends on your local building codes or lack of them. My neighbor built a basement with a flat roof, it was a disaster with leaking all over, ended up pretty much tearing out all sheeting and joists and replacing them before finally putting the top on. My brother also did a basement but got industrial rubber roofing on it, I thought it was overkill but it did not leak, just built over top of it eventually. Now with new codes you can hardly build your own house over time as it needs to be all done with an occupancy permit to even move in, and a used mobile home is just as bad with the required footers, pilings, and decks it hardly justifies putting money into an old trailer. I built my own house taking over 4 years and moved in with bare stud walls, finishing as I had time. Couldn't do that now.

Around here they pull all the aluminum off and sell it for scrap. Same with the wiring. Then sell the frame - especially valuable if it has axels. As for the basement house, supposed to be best if it a walk-out. Walk-out basements are supposed to have less issues with radon.

Neighbor has an older double wide on top of a poured basement.

Your are right, older mobile homes and double wides are likely scrap. Insurance companies don't want to insure them. Banks won't lend money on them. Area planning won't let you move one. YEP, scrap.

As for a basement home. You may have issues with not only area planning, but the building inspector. In case of a fire, your windows have to be a certain size in bedrooms. Getting a loan may be a problem too.

Hope it works for you.

Wish you luck.

I agree with GeneMo and Traditional farmer. make the roof concrete and cover it over with dirt, and you have virtually no heat or cooling costs. I have a friend that built an earth sheltered home and has lived in it for the last thirty-five years. all you need is walk-out to the south on a little slope, and you will get plenty of light.

went to an auction last fall they tired selling the trailer house, was just a single. Had the axles still under it and the tires and rims still inside the house. Couldn't sell it for a dollar.

Local realtor said someone charges $7000 to remove an old mobile home so they can sell the lot.

Old trailers are hard to get rid of. If its in good shape, you may be able to sell/give it away. I had an older single wide, and a salvage company wanted $1200 to come get it. i thought that was crazy, so got some dumpsters and tore it down myself. Cost $1000 in dumpsters, and took me three days. There is not as much scrap metal as you would think. The frames are very light, and my aluminum siding was paper thin. Old trailers are a pain.
Josh

Hook a tractor to it and pull it to the field. Let the local VFD play with it. Bury the rest.

My family and I lived in a single wide mobile home for a long time, until we were financially able to build a conventional home with a basement. The old mobile home was not in bad shape, just more than 20 years old. I figured it had served us well, giving fairly cheap living space while our kids were young and before my Wife went to work when all the kids were in school. I didn"t think the mobile home owed me anything.

On the other hand, we have zoning in my area, and I had to sign a paper saying that no one was living in the mobile home. I could not rent it out or have anyone in it. However I continued to be taxed as if we were living in it and decided it had to go. It was also in the way.

I looked at similar mobile homes for sale at dealers and decided that it was probably worth about $8K or $9K. I advertised it in the local paper for that money and got absolutely no callers.

Finally I advertised it for best offer. A young couple with 3 little kids came out and were really interested, knowing that it had to be moved, and they would need to pay to have it moved. They got a grandmother who had some money involved and offered me $2000 cash for the mobile home and made arrangements with a mobile home hauler to move it to some family property about 50 miles away. I agreed to unskirt the mobile home, unblock it and put it back on the wheels, which turned out to be a fair amount of work. I also removed the wood stove, as I was concerned about potential future liability if I sold the home with the stove. But finally I watched the mobile home that we had lived in for so long go out the driveway and be gone. We also went to the courthouse and formally changed ownership, so I would no longer be taxed as the owner.

The young couple was DELIGHTED to be getting a livable mobile home for roughly $3k. I figure it was a WIN/WIN situation for everyone concerned. I got rid of it and felt good about the deal.

I bet there would be someone who would want your double-wide too, and maybe they could find a way to maybe pay you a little for it and get it moved to somewhere else. I would have even felt good about giving away the mobile home for no cash.

Such a deal would be much harder if the double wide is in poor shape, or if the axles and tires are gone, so it would be a huge problem to move the halves.

Not the easiest problem, but maybe you have a chance to do something good for someone else and solve a problem for yourself at the same time. I wish you good luck!

Build a 25x40 pole shed, slab, insulation , windows, a couple of Motel heat/AC units.

I've been thinking along those lines, too. Thanks

At the end of WWII with so many returning vets and employment down many basements were dug, roofed, interior finished off and lived in until money was avaliable to finish the build.