Monday 27 February 2012

An oily home


The idea of living in a converted oil tank is intriguing.  At the least, it would look very cool.  However, I can't decide which is the worst about this particular proposal:

  • All the silly "green" touches.
  • The ludicrous, upside down, inside-out layout that has the master bathroom opening on the living room rather than the bedroom.
  • The fact that the architect intends to have the tank completely dismantled, taken off site, almost entirely rebuilt and then reassembled at another site.
I think the third.  If you're going to go through all that trouble for a bottle of rusty steel, you might as well save the expense and build a new one.

3 comments:

eon said...

I notice that Pink Cloud (could their name be any more "Hello Kitty"?) are adherents to the "peak oil" hypothesis. That is, the one that keeps claiming we will run out of oil in the near future- and has been making that claim since the 1930s. This doesn't give me much confidence in their other pronouncements.

As for recycling vs. new-building "tanks" like this, most old oil or LNG pressure tanks I've dealt with were so saturated with residue on their inner surfaces (yes, steel is porous to that extent) that most local housing authorities would never allow them as dwellings for health reasons. Cleaning them up to meet safety regs would cost more that the whole project is worth.

Myself, with a hull like this, I'd want it at least 1000 feet in diameter, with a Dillingham drive, an Abbott drive, a quartet of pinnaces, assorted autocannon, a decent supply of nuclear-tipped space-to-ground missiles, a 200-man crew plus about 400 ground troops, and Otto Harkaman in command. (See "Space Viking" by H. Beam Piper.)

cheers

eon

jayessell said...

Or....

Articulated support legs.

Neil A Russell said...

Do they move the thing or do I have to live in that stinky old oilfield?
I'd prefer to have it all to myself, lest I put up with an annoying neighbor that thinks the height of comedy is to run up to the catwalk on top every night and yell; "I'm on top of the world Ma! Top of the world!"