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Maui Fire Disaster Relief

Maui Eco Built has been dedicated to building roll-on roll-off tiny houses as well as pre-fabricated buildings for the people affected by the Maui fires.If you need housing or/and have land to host our buildings please contact us!​August 8 almost the entirety of Lahaina town is raised in an unprecedented fire Storm. Some 12,000 people are displaced. Our initial thoughts were that people could start rebuilding right away. We designed a fire relief building that could be built for a material cost of $10,000 and placed on the 20‘ x 20‘ garage slabs typical of Hawaii.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This proved to be naïve as the full extent of the paranoia around toxins in the ash became apparent, time spans of up to 2 to 3 years were being talked about in terms of when people would be allowed to even start to rebuild.   The immediate response was to house the people in hotel rooms and condominiums. Some 3000 tourism workers  who were living in Lahaina chose to return to the mainland. The remaining 9000 permanent residents  were either housed in hotels and condominiums or with friends and family.   In September it became apparent that people would need medium to long-term housing, away from the fire sites whilst awaiting to rebuild. Our initial design solution, DR1 (disaster relief number one)  was a 10 x 12 unit that was to double as an accessory building, permit exempt. The county had not issued any fast-track way of permitting disaster relief housing . This was a nice design requiring  three days work to be assembled on site  from the panel system made in our workshop. it was more time than we would like because of the 2 x 10 pop out which took a full day to assemble. So it was nice design but just expensive in time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We visited another group working on a 8x12 module 96 ft.²  this big island group was insisting that the buildings, stay on very skinny wheel jacks and an elaborate chassis to be able to mount on small trailers to sircumvent the building permit requirement. The solution seems to be very expensive in time and material.  In October, we started assembling DR2 This was our first roll-on  / roll-off design specifically for transporting on a flatbed truck used for moving cars and trucks. The building would be mounted on castors and cost between $250-$650 to move it around central and West Maui. The 8 x 12 unit was assembled in mid October and placed on  an  inexpensive set of castor wheels that proved to not be up to the task of supporting the weight of the building and immediately folded. After some research, it was found that  Hamilton industrial  casters were the best option. Their engineers specified a dual wheel locking caster for us rated at 3000 pounds per caster. These proved  to be perfect for our application.   DR2 also featured fold out awning roofs that could be deployed once the  building was delivered to its host property. Kimokeo foundation have a property in Maliko Gulch and they were eager to host Omar and April Sanchez, survivors of the Kula fire. Hoisted onto 808 Towing, flatbed and delivered October 26 to the great excitement of all, the move went well, and the building was installed and its fold out awning roofs deployed. Omar and April have been living there happily since.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  What we learned from this building was that the awning roofs were expensive in time, taking as much time to make as the building itself. Perhaps the solution is to make the awning roofs for the sides of the buildings separately, so that they can be bolted on afterwards.  Another feature of this building was  to ventilate the rake end walls and high side of the roof. This was to allow the building to be self-cooling and not need any insulation or air-conditioning, an important feature in a tropical environment.  Our next projects were again with Kimokeo  Foundation, this time in Honokohau Valley on the northernmost tip of Maui above Lahaina. These two buildings were to house the Aquino family, Lolo and Malaia and their three teenagers. The family of five are survivors of the  Lahaina fire. It was decided to build them two modules DR4 & DR5 , a 10 x 16 for the parents and a 10 x 24 for the three kids.    The buildings were arranged in a traditional courtyard with 4 foot wide entry lanai on each building protected by the roof overhang. The  buildings featured enlarged 10’ x 2’  triangular rake wall vents and again ventilation openings at the top of the tall walls, under the roof eaves, enclosed with mosquito netting to keep the bugs out,  these buildings proved to be very effective at self-cooling and are cool at all times of the day, Lolo has family and friends who know how to drywall so they finished the interiors themselves. They have been living happily in the buildings for the past month and a half.   

 

 

 

 

 

Beginning of November, we started working on  DR5.  This was our first  8‘ x 16‘ roll-on / roll-off  building. The extra 4 feet in length necessitated increasing the dimensions of the double rim from 2x6 to 2x8 to support the extra span of the floor of this design. It featured the ventilated tall wall. The vent proved  to be  a bit of an issue on the building, needing a Bolt on awning roof to protect  it and the windows and doors from rainwater. The rain would simply come inside the vent until this extra roof was  added on this building. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 It  was donated to, Pu’uhonua homeless shelter. They are housing some 60 people  previously homeless from the Lahaina fire. They are using FEMA tents to house six people in each, two of which were being used for  admin and meetings. By donating the buildings we would free up the two tents and be able to house an extra 12 people. This environment next to Kahului airport is harsh. Temperatures reaching 90 to 100° in the afternoons proved  to be a real challenge for the self cooling design but the buildings remain cool even at the hottest times of the day. One of the lessons over the past months was the amount of time we were losing to travel. For example, on the Honokehau project, we estimated 60 hours was spent in travel time for the team. The time  it takes to build a complete building in the workshop. We decided to focus on roll-on / roll-off buildings for the most part. DR5 was delivered November 18,the loading and trucking was uneventful, even with the building being an extra 4 feet long the extra bolt on roof sections took another additional five hours to assemble. With DR6 we solved the problem of water coming into the tall wall vent by moving it horizontally under the facia. This would effectively seal the building without needing to add an extra roof section.

 

 

 

 

 

 

DR7 was another attempt at a field assembled building with roof ventilation, this one had 2 feet of roof overhang on its upper side to protect it from water egress. This building is proving to be very cool. It is  located at Kimokea Foundation Maliko Gulch. They are currently looking for a family to occupy it.  DR8 was the third and final building delivered to the homeless shelter for the admin room. They are now housing some 120 homeless people. The building proving invaluable for meetings, one-on-one treatment of their residents, and for their administrators and project manager.    Disaster relief buildings DR9  and DR10 were assembled in mid  December 2023  They were delivered to Honokohau for  a couple with a baby who lost their house in the Lahaina Fire. They have built a deck to connect the buildings together.             a Pukalani site where we hope to build a model village under the emergency proclamation, interim housing program.

2023 Fire relief slideshow of the 12 buildings that were donated to the Lahaina Fire survivors. In association with Kimokeo Foundation and funding from Novo Foundation.

Maui Eco Built
+1 (808) 359-4089

Kula, Maui, Hawaii

2023  © Maui Eco Built

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