Ross Russell doesn’t throw any stones. After deciding that he’d made plenty of money, Russell built his own sliding glass house that can be customized with the press of a button.

The entire 20-ton shell –- 52ft long, 20ft wide, and 23ft high –- slides on rails, allowing Russell to control exactly how much sunshine and shade his home receives.

It was tricky to design. Obviously, nothing can stick up through the roof of the house below – so no chimneys, television aerials or even gutters. (The rain instead runs down behind the timber slats to soakaways at ground level.) To keep out the wind, the moving part hovers close to the fixed part and is sealed with red nylon brushes – rather like the draught-excluders on letter boxes.

The whole thing moves very slowly and beeps like a truck backing up to ensure that no one is squished in the mechanism. But there have been minor mishaps that taught Russell and his family to be very careful when the house’s motors are active. I, for one, have to wonder how long the mechanism will last before needing to be repaired or replaced. Normal home maintenance is troublesome enough without having a 20 ton structure on rails to contend with.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 10th, 2009 at 6:23 am by Christa Terry and is filed under Unusual homes, Unusual structures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.