Our Houseboat Rebuild Random Thoughts???
So let’s build a pontoon houseboat.
1st Measure the diameter of the pontoons you are considering.
2nd Now let’s take a measurement of their total length.
3rd Now we’ve got to figure out what the pontoons we’re contemplating purchasing weight capacity will be. Once you know or have determined the weight of equipment, deck, cabin, people and all other necessary items that will be carried on your boat open this link. Now match up your measurements against the ones listed on the chart to get a good determination of the pontoons actual safe recommended load, and remember for safety they should be at least 25% more than you're actual anticipated weight.
4th Don’t despair if the weight of your project exceeds the maximum recommended load allowance of the pontoons. Hopefully you haven’t paid for them as of yet and you can still search out for a larger set of pontoons for your build. Plenty of regular pontoon boaters are also unhappy with theirs and are retro-fitting another pontoon under their boats, and they aren’t supporting a cabin and a week’s supply of groceries. Fitting a third pontoon is also realistic viable option, though most easily performed at the very beginning of the build.
Take a close look at the cute little pontoon houseboat pictured above. It actually has “four pontoons” stuck under her and the back is still sagging a bit lower than we’d actually like to see. And I’d almost be willing to bet the builder experienced the “whoops factor” before adding the additional set of pontoons for the needed and necessary additional floatation.
Now suppose this boat was “for sale” and you were to purchase it and move it to unlimited and unrestricted horsepower waters. Now considering most of us will be wanting a larger and thus heavier motor and we’d also need the ability to carry more fuel needed in which to feed it, than the 9.9 this one currently has on it now on its restricted horsepower lake. So we then proceed to lift the 100 pound 9.9 off and exchange it for a 400 pound 90 hp and a 30 gal. gas tank at 250 lbs when full of fuel.
This simple exchange in reality is going to add an additional 500lbs. of weight directly in the back of the boat. And if you’re like us we’ll be packing along a couple of large coolers packed with ice, food, and drinking resources for the weekend that will also go well over 100lbs. And where do we store ours out of our way? Generally always out on the back deck area.
So in total we’ve inadvertently added over 600lbs. in weight to the back of this boat and it’s already sitting a bit deeper than the ideal mid point in the pontoons. I’m willing to bet our latest “improvement” will find the pontoons submerged when we slide her back into the water with the intention of enjoying a wonderful weekend on the water.
I suppose yet another center pontoon could still be installed for some more floatation. But that’s still going to be yet another whole can of worms. First you’d have to go out and actually find and pay for one, and then needed modifications may be necessary to make it work. And it will still have to be securely bolted to the bottom of the boat. Unfortunately unless you have a lot of cash to throw at it, this setback could cost you all or nearly the entire boating season. Not exactly a happy perspective is it.
Note how low the pontoon houseboat pictured above is sitting in the water, sure wouldn’t take much of a wake off the stern to wash any dirt off the deck now would it.
What we’re getting around to saying is, you need to buy a pontoon boat with a mind of what you’re going to use it for. For sure a smaller boat would be somewhat more maneuverable in tight situations, but you’ll also find a longer boat a lot more pleasant to operate when just casually cruising around. The real secret to any boat is its ability to float as high in the water as possible; therefore a longer boat carrying the same load will float higher, perform, and handle far better than a similar loaded smaller one possibly could.
Some people have the mistaken idea that if they’d like to use, or restricted to use a smaller engine they’d also be better off with a smaller boat. That is not necessarily so. The longer the pontoons the less water they’ll draw for the same given load, therefore actually making it easier to push. A 50 hp motor on a 24ft. boat will outperform and outrun a similarly equipped 18 footer with both boats bearing the same similar loads.
Also of the utmost importance is the diameter of the pontoon logs. Many of the older pontoon boats used smaller 19in. logs which were in-capable of carrying much of a load, so they operated with most of the log submerged under water which caused the boats to be very sluggish and unresponsive in operation. All the newer manufactured pontoon boats are now using much larger diameter pontoons than they used to commonly use, which has increased their responsiveness and load handling ability tremendously.
Now the most recent advancement in pontoon boats has been the addition of the third pontoon or tri-toon and more of them are seen on the water every year. Tri-toons are inherently more stable and resist most of the rocking motion that’s so common with normal pontoon boats. And the addition of the third pontoon has still further increased the performance, floatation, and weight capacity of the newer boats. Also many of the center pontoon/ transom logs are manufactured with performance in mind and are now capable of supporting motors of significant horsepower output. A properly tricked out tri-toon could in reality provide some of the “go fasts” a real good run for their money. Not that speed is important if you’re building a pontoon houseboat, but in reality the floatation of a third pontoon is still worthwhile consideration for the additional "load capacity".
This is just one entry of a series we’ve put together of our own personal experiences in the now completed rebuild and restoration of our pontoon houseboat from the pontoons frame on up. Hopefully you’ll find our shared experience both helpful and informative if you’re considering building or remodeling one for your very own. You can view the whole series here and its entries progress from bottom of index on up.
Please also review our other blogs and our home site: Pontoon Houseboat Odyssey for other potentially useful and helpful information about boating.
1st Measure the diameter of the pontoons you are considering.
2nd Now let’s take a measurement of their total length.
3rd Now we’ve got to figure out what the pontoons we’re contemplating purchasing weight capacity will be. Once you know or have determined the weight of equipment, deck, cabin, people and all other necessary items that will be carried on your boat open this link. Now match up your measurements against the ones listed on the chart to get a good determination of the pontoons actual safe recommended load, and remember for safety they should be at least 25% more than you're actual anticipated weight.
4th Don’t despair if the weight of your project exceeds the maximum recommended load allowance of the pontoons. Hopefully you haven’t paid for them as of yet and you can still search out for a larger set of pontoons for your build. Plenty of regular pontoon boaters are also unhappy with theirs and are retro-fitting another pontoon under their boats, and they aren’t supporting a cabin and a week’s supply of groceries. Fitting a third pontoon is also realistic viable option, though most easily performed at the very beginning of the build.
Now suppose this boat was “for sale” and you were to purchase it and move it to unlimited and unrestricted horsepower waters. Now considering most of us will be wanting a larger and thus heavier motor and we’d also need the ability to carry more fuel needed in which to feed it, than the 9.9 this one currently has on it now on its restricted horsepower lake. So we then proceed to lift the 100 pound 9.9 off and exchange it for a 400 pound 90 hp and a 30 gal. gas tank at 250 lbs when full of fuel.
This simple exchange in reality is going to add an additional 500lbs. of weight directly in the back of the boat. And if you’re like us we’ll be packing along a couple of large coolers packed with ice, food, and drinking resources for the weekend that will also go well over 100lbs. And where do we store ours out of our way? Generally always out on the back deck area.
So in total we’ve inadvertently added over 600lbs. in weight to the back of this boat and it’s already sitting a bit deeper than the ideal mid point in the pontoons. I’m willing to bet our latest “improvement” will find the pontoons submerged when we slide her back into the water with the intention of enjoying a wonderful weekend on the water.
I suppose yet another center pontoon could still be installed for some more floatation. But that’s still going to be yet another whole can of worms. First you’d have to go out and actually find and pay for one, and then needed modifications may be necessary to make it work. And it will still have to be securely bolted to the bottom of the boat. Unfortunately unless you have a lot of cash to throw at it, this setback could cost you all or nearly the entire boating season. Not exactly a happy perspective is it.
What we’re getting around to saying is, you need to buy a pontoon boat with a mind of what you’re going to use it for. For sure a smaller boat would be somewhat more maneuverable in tight situations, but you’ll also find a longer boat a lot more pleasant to operate when just casually cruising around. The real secret to any boat is its ability to float as high in the water as possible; therefore a longer boat carrying the same load will float higher, perform, and handle far better than a similar loaded smaller one possibly could.
Some people have the mistaken idea that if they’d like to use, or restricted to use a smaller engine they’d also be better off with a smaller boat. That is not necessarily so. The longer the pontoons the less water they’ll draw for the same given load, therefore actually making it easier to push. A 50 hp motor on a 24ft. boat will outperform and outrun a similarly equipped 18 footer with both boats bearing the same similar loads.
Also of the utmost importance is the diameter of the pontoon logs. Many of the older pontoon boats used smaller 19in. logs which were in-capable of carrying much of a load, so they operated with most of the log submerged under water which caused the boats to be very sluggish and unresponsive in operation. All the newer manufactured pontoon boats are now using much larger diameter pontoons than they used to commonly use, which has increased their responsiveness and load handling ability tremendously.
Now the most recent advancement in pontoon boats has been the addition of the third pontoon or tri-toon and more of them are seen on the water every year. Tri-toons are inherently more stable and resist most of the rocking motion that’s so common with normal pontoon boats. And the addition of the third pontoon has still further increased the performance, floatation, and weight capacity of the newer boats. Also many of the center pontoon/ transom logs are manufactured with performance in mind and are now capable of supporting motors of significant horsepower output. A properly tricked out tri-toon could in reality provide some of the “go fasts” a real good run for their money. Not that speed is important if you’re building a pontoon houseboat, but in reality the floatation of a third pontoon is still worthwhile consideration for the additional "load capacity".
This is just one entry of a series we’ve put together of our own personal experiences in the now completed rebuild and restoration of our pontoon houseboat from the pontoons frame on up. Hopefully you’ll find our shared experience both helpful and informative if you’re considering building or remodeling one for your very own. You can view the whole series here and its entries progress from bottom of index on up.
Please also review our other blogs and our home site: Pontoon Houseboat Odyssey for other potentially useful and helpful information about boating.
Posted by blog.houseboatodyssey1.com at 3/6/2010 12:08 PM 
Categories: Pontoon Boat (s), Pontoon Houseboat (s), Our Houseboat Rebuild
Tags: capacity boat pictures build weight capacity houseboat pontoon
Categories: Pontoon Boat (s), Pontoon Houseboat (s), Our Houseboat Rebuild
Tags: capacity boat pictures build weight capacity houseboat pontoon
Great job restoration! I am flirting with buying a restore project or from the hull up. When it came time to running wires for lights, outlets, gauges, etc., how (where)did you run the wires?... up along studs?
Actually a lot of the pre-existing wiring was actually in pretty good shape and reutilized in the rebuild. The shore power circuit did enter in the front of the boat and I considered it both a trip and safety hazard and moved it to enter the closet in the back of the boat directly into a breaker box. For our usage we don’t need a lot of AC power capacity though there are two 20 amp circuits, we actually rely on both propane and DC for our lighting and energy needs.
Now to answer your questions, all the AC power wiring is routed in the roof and then down to their perspective outlets. Now here’s where it can get a bit confusing the DC power in a since runs everywhere throughout the boat including the ceiling. Rather than going much more extensively on the subject here for this is already getting a bit long. I’ll try to get up another blog page with more specific and detailed information up soon.
It was already in the works but I’m having a problem finding resource links on another detail I wanted to include on the page involving black-water waste storage, aluminum and how urine causes rapid deterioration of the aluminum. Urine is so corrosive that the average lifespan of any metal tank is only about 10 years...they typically start to leak at a weld--seam or fitting--within 2-5 years and turn into a colander within about 10 years. If yours is older than that, it's been living on borrowed time.
Anyway some manufactured pontoon houseboats used a portion of a pontoon hull for black-water storage and can be in extremely bad condition, and it’s difficult and expensive to fix this issue.
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