March 14th, 2009 at 4:58 pm (
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Well, a few weeks ago it finally happened. My treehouse fell down! Well, not entirely; about 3/4 of the floor fell out.
I took a few pictures with my iPhone; I’ll probably be going back in a week or so to do more cleanup and scavenging.
Here’s a view from the ground, looking up at the treehouse. The sink is literally hanging by a thread (the pipes!):
A view from inside the treehouse:
Another view from underneath:
The floor fell down and rotated on top of the things in the treehouse:
So, what happened?
Well, a few weeks ago we got a lot of rain and wind; that was probably the pushing factor that made it fall out. But, the main reason it failed is due to a bad design. I knew the treehouse wouldn’t last forever, and I knew that I did some things wrong when I built it. In the end, it lasted for 9-10 years; I started building it when I was 20, and moved in when I was 21. In a few short months (April 13th) I’ll be 31. The design was flawed in several ways:
1. HUGE 24′ spans with doubled up 2×6′s (not quite as strong as a 4″x6″), with ZERO 45 degree supports underneath the house. I initially had put a few 45 degree supports, but my lackluster attachment made them not do much, and they eventually just fell down. Now, douglas fir isn’t made to span that huge of a distance, and was prone to have a huge amount of support weight on the edges.
2. Non-floating foundation. Ideally, I should have made metal brackets that would allow one end of the attachment to the tree to “float”. Since I didn’t do that, the movement of the trees was slowly pulling the house apart. It was particularly worse when it was really windy out, and it made the whole house creak really bad. NOTE to self now that I can weld: make brackets!
3. Built-in foundation. Instead of having some joists that the real floor would be built upon, I just built it directly into the joists. That works for smaller houses, but for larger treehouses it wasn’t a good idea. The floor acted like a torsion box, and probably flexed the worse at the ends.
4. Related to #2 — “tree on wood contact”. The edges of the 2x6s had two 6-8″ lag bolts bolted into the tree. The wood-on-bark contact never would really dry out, allowing it to rot slightly.
In addition to all those problems, the other kicker was that we recently stored a bunch of stuff in the treehouse, since we rent out the “big house” on the property and needed a place to store things. Unfortunately, most of that stuff got damaged when it took a 40′ fall and had the floor fall on top of the stuff to boot.
Oh well…lessons learned!
February 8th, 2009 at 9:59 pm (
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I decided to build a mini-treehouse for Louise and I to get married on. We worked on clearing some of the brush off our land where we want the ceremony to be, and Louise mentioned that I should build a platform for us to stand on so we were level. I figured if I was going to go to the trouble of building a temporary platform, that I might as well build it up in some redwood trees as a mini-treehouse. It will start out as a tree platform, but eventually I may add walls and a ceiling to make a treehouse. Or, it might become a unicycle obstacle.
Here’s my current design in SketchUp:
It wraps around the trees, and I may or may not include the left triangle piece that looks separate from the rest of the drawing. I added that in later, thinking it might be nice to sort of make it larger. It might start out smaller, and get larger as time goes on. It will be about 10′ up in the trees, using two main redwoods as supports, and possibly connect to a third larger redwood behind the two.
I’ll happily email people the sketchup file. Just email me, or post in the comments.
Note that I didn’t draw in all the supports for the left side.
January 6th, 2009 at 1:43 pm (
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June 12th, 2008 at 8:27 am (
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An amazing new Treehouse by Peter Nelson.
[From The Canopy Cathedral « The Treehouse Guy]
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April 13th, 2008 at 10:00 am (
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I just ran across a great blog, Peter Nelson’s The Treehouse Guy. He wrote several great treehouse books, some of which were the inspiration to make my own treehouse.
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February 7th, 2008 at 1:34 pm (
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Some guys who made a cool treehouse in france emailed me a link to their site:
http://www.cabanepassion.fr/index_eng.htm
The treehouse is great! They have a spiral staircase and a lift custom made out of steel: http://www.cabanepassion.fr/acces-cabane-perchee_eng.htm
Makes me wish I had more time to work on my treehouse!
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January 31st, 2008 at 4:27 pm (
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Most of my family lives in Hawaii, but they still have a house over here in Corralitos, Santa Cruz County, California. My dad decided we should rent it out, so it will be available (starting in April or May).
What is special about this house? Well, my treehouse is on the property, although it is going to not be included in the rental so we have a place to visit and stay at.
My dad posted the following on craigslist:
http://monterey.craigslist.org/apa/557952922.html
“Built in 1981 redwood home with dining room and den. two car garage with room for one car, carport, large deck with hot tub. Partial furnish if need. Gated community over bridge on all year creek. Orange trees, lemon trees, macadamia nut tree, plum tree. Great place for Garden. Great views Monterey Bay!! I will keep treehouse – Stan 808 667-2277 stan @ mauiprop.com. ask about pets – ask for more pics”
So, if you are looking for a place to rent out, it is a beautiful house. Contact me or my dad for more information.
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January 26th, 2008 at 11:07 am (
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I’ve always loved treehouses, and eventually I hope to build a few more on my property. Until then, I’ll have to live vicariously through other treehouse builders. Steve Chmielnicki, of Rosemont, PA, is an excellent treehouse builder who is open for business. Take a look at some of his work:
Feel free to contact Steve via his website: http://www.artisantrees.com and go get a custom treehouse of your own built!
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