Houseboat & Pontoon Boats - plans for building a combination together design

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Houseboat & Pontoon Boats - plans for building a combination together design

by Aaron Costic
(Cleveland, OH)

Houseboat / Pontoon Boat building plans

My wife & I are thinking of building a houseboat / pontoon boat combo, together design. The basic idea is that there is a main houseboat that is 16' x 40 & a second boat pinned to the back of the houseboat.

The second boat is a pontoon boat 16' x 20'. The basic idea is that you can drive the rig as 1 large boat, or unpin the pontoon portion & drive it separately. Are their any obvious flaws that I am overlooking with a design like this?

Also we are very interested in having the boats systems powered by batteries that are charged by windmills & solar. We are willing to have more (or larger) batteries than average, multiple windmills (or larger ones), & many solar panels.

My main concern is the HVAC. Is anyone currently using a green system that has the power to heat & cool their boat? Is having a seperate thermostat for each room a common practice?

Lastly, we are interested in using a flooring like "Nature Stone" does anyone have any experience with this, or something like it?

Thank you in advance for any help, Aaron.

Reply - Answer
Well Aaron, welcome to the houseboat forums, and congratulations on an interesting combination pontoon houseboat design concept.

You will find plenty of information on the site about green wind or solar powered pontoon houseboats, yet you may find that powering high consumption items like heating and air conditioning units do require very large power generating systems.

As to building plans for pontoon houseboats, there are many articles of different designs in either wood, steel, fiberglass, or aluminum on the site. I haven't seen any that discuss building a combo unit, so you could be very well the first to have such a concept.

Lastly, hopefully some of our readers will share and post comments about their pontoon houseboat, or wind solar power experiences. Feel free to use the "Click here to post comments." link found near the bottom of this page.

Thanks again for sharing, IAN - from www.all-about-houseboats.com

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Houseboat & Pontoon Boats - plans for building a combination together design

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Thought of this, and said no myself.
by: Richard

Hey Aaron, I too thought of having a similar set up, but abandoned the thought after asking myself a simple question - why?

This is similar to a boat/tender set up if I get your plans correctly. There is no real need to split your boat should you want a smaller craft to go ashore for supplies and the like.

I agree with Bill about mixing hull types. The stern turbulence created by a monohull will put undue stresses on a towed pontoon as the wake pushes on either hull unevenly. If you tow a monohull behind a pontoon, you could get away with it.

I did such a set up when renting a pontoon 65' houseboat and I towed a 16' jet boat. However, it was jostled around a bit by the converging wakes.

Your best bet is to build the houseboat you want, and keep a small tender for the shore trips.

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HVAC on houseboats
by: Old Houseboater

Current solar technology doesn't produce enough energy to support air conditioning with a feasable, boat sized, solar panel array.

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Combo houseboat
by: Bill Florida

First thing that I comes to mind? Is the first section a mono hull?? If it is, you should also have the second half a mono hull, v'd to the first.. Or use two pontoon styles together.

For obvious reasons, dont mix the two hull styles, as one will work against the other.. Planeing, turning, and wake, will use one style hull against the other, and will tear them apart. Bill

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Houseboat & Pontoon Boats - plans for building a combination together design

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Houseboat & Pontoon Boats - plans for building a combination together design