houseboat living

[Oldshooter]

In Hawaii they make homemade solar heaters with wooden frame and pvc with plex glass covers and insides painted black. it aint the arctic there, but with a circulating pump and a holding tank even the winters in Louisiana aint arctic either, the sun shines even on cold days.

[SHOOTALL]

If you heat with wood coil the poly pipe in the cieling where the heat collects    might want a relief valve just in case

[Bugflipper]

Just a few tips:
I'm going under the assumption that you mean a real house that is on floats since that's what I see a lot of in LA?Your black coil could go in a box on the sunny side. Build a reflector behind it to increase heat. That will give hot water in the winter down South. It could be big salvaged mirrors. Polished stainless steel panels. Or even just a plywood frame in a V lined with a space blanket that's replaced every few years.


The forklift size of tanks are pretty portable for refilling. Propane lanterns put out a lot more light than a propane light. You can buy an adapter to refill the green bottles from a small tank. I think they also make a hose kit to run one off of a gas grill tank. It would be cheaper to run one 45 watt panel, a battery and 12v led lights than gas lights though. The first year of burning gas lights would be more than that. If you could make due with a small fridge the rv propane/110 volt/12v may be a good idea. You could initially run propane then add panels and batteries over time to switch it to 12v. Gas stoves use a lot of gas. You may want a wood stove for the cooler months to heat with and cook to cut down on the gas bill. A good filter system would turn the rain water into drinkable water. You would probably want a black barrel on the sunny side for hot sink water and a white one the shady side for cooler water. Could make a radiator out of egg cartons or something similar and hook a small 12v pond pump to it to drop the shaded temp another 20-30 degrees. Maybe getting your cold water down to 60 or 70 in the summer. Could make the same type contraptions on the windows from the breeze side to cool the inside a little in the summer. Look at greenhouse coolers for ideas. If you keep the power 12v you can get by with a lot less panels so less money. AC requires about 10 times more wattage.

[Dee]

Almost sounds as if he should buy / build a suitable pontoon base with a flat deck, then find a clean, used 25 foot camper.  Remove the wheels / axles, and bolt it down to the deck.  Add a generator, deep cycle batteries, power inverter, and propane tanks as needed...
 
Larry
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And more reliable. That's a doable idea.

[BBF]

If you do the RV route I suggest putting a roof over the whole contraption to keep things a bit cooler in Summer