THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 27, 1995 TAG: 9511230190
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: TECH TRACK
GADGETS & GIZMOS FOR THE NEXT CENTURY
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 57 lines
AFTER A near-record hurricane season, water watchers everywhere will want to keep an eye out as a 56-year-old Colorado inventor prepares to launch a prototype ``Land-Locked Floating House.''
Paul Winston's brainstorm came two years ago as he watched on TV the misery caused by Midwestern floods. So he thought: Why not build a house that could rise above, even float on, surging waters while staying put in one spot?
Winston will soon put a furnished 1,500-square-foot modular home with attached two-car garage (cars included) in the middle of an artificial lake near his Englewood, Colo., home. As the lake is made to rise, even by inches, water will push against a series of buoyant rectangular plastic tubs filled with urethane foam that are placed beneath the building.
The upward pressure will cause telescoping steel-pipe supports - modeled after the kind used in deep-sea oil-drilling rigs - to extend from anchored wooden pilings, lifting the house by as much as 20 feet.
A thermostat-like device will regulate ballast, with sensors and pumps automatically letting water in or forcing it out to keep the house on an even keel.
Don't fret about electricity, gas and waste disposal, Winston advises. The rising water will undo flexible connections attached to electrical and heating systems and will automatically engage in-house backups, including a self-contained septic tank.
Winston says that, so far, computer modeling has shown his specially reinforced design will withstand strong water currents as well as winds of up to 120 mph.
Flood-proofing an existing 1,500-square-foot, concrete-slab home (the design rules out basements) would cost between $15,000 to $20,000. A new flood-ready modular house of the same size would cost $75,000 to $100,000, depending on location and options, Winston says.
Sometime in June, the Colorado prototype will be put in the wild, so to speak: tested in Tulsa, Okla., by the Army Corps of Engineers. If the house rises to the occasion then, Winston says he could be building commercially (where has yet to be worked out) by the end of August 1996. MEMO: "Tech Track'' will appear every Monday in the Daily Break. Readers with
ideas for future columns are invited to contact staff science and
technology writer James Schultz at (804) 446-2599 or via e-mail at
schultz(AT)infi.net
ILLUSTRATION: KEN WRIGHT
The Virginian-Pilot
House Boat
by CNB