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Small World: The Tiny House Trend

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Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#291

Post by stcredzero »

rootusrootus wrote: post #272
fouc wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think he meant an assembly-line manufactured small house with strong personality & branding that people can fall in love with. Just like they fell in love with the Volkswagen Beetle.

That seems like the kind of thing that happens more by accident than deliberate attempt. In any case the equivalent would be an Airstream trailer. Edit: I see someone below also mentioned Airstream.

However, it happened on purpose with the GMC motorhome. (The personality part, not the trailer part.)

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#292

Post by [deleted] »

CydeWeys wrote: post #14

There's definitely an appeal to engineers in building your own house from scratch. As an example, I built an 8x12' shed (details here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DIY/comments/2kof5x/i_built_an_8x12... ) several years back. All it took was a few months' worth of weekends and a few trips with a borrowed full-size pickup and I had it together. Obviously you'd put more effort than that into making a house (you need insulat…

[deleted]

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#293

Post by [deleted] »

fefehern wrote: post #103
dwater wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably know that you can find longer dimensional lumber at a lumber yard instead of a big box store. I am building my own 2-story 2-car garage, and was surprised at how many independent lumber yards there are tucked away around town. I needed long 2x8s for my rafters, no problem finding them up to 20'. And engineered lumber comes even longer. I'm making the upstairs into a finished living space with kitchen and…

What links have you looked into for these projects? They seem really interesting.

[deleted]

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#295

Post by protomyth »

H1Supreme wrote: post #235
ChuckMcM wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On one end of the spectrum is Blu Homes ( https://www.bluhomes.com/ ) which builds pre-fabricated homes that aren't quite so boxy as mobile homes. We looked at investing in them when they started up and perhaps getting one of their smaller units for a piece of land up in the Sierra foothills[1]. Shipping container homes are also a sort of niche thing at the moment. Realistically though it isn't the walls that cost th…

> Shipping container homes are also a sort of niche thing at the moment. I spent a lot of time researching these homes. Outside of situations where they're being used as glorified sheds, it's not really cheaper to construct a home with them. Which is a bit disappointing, because there is a certain "green" aspect to them that I find appealing.

You want to be real careful with the paint they use, it’s very far from green or healthy.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#296

Post by ChuckMcM »

radiorental wrote: post #287
ChuckMcM wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely. It is "cheap" when the median price of a home is $1.5M it is "expensive" when the median price of a home is $150K. The point though is that it addresses the 'variation in pre-manufactured homes' question. There are people out there building pre-manufactured homes, that mix up the formula with high end amenities. As I see it, there are two vectors on these things, their shapes, and what you can get inside…

The market value and construction cost are two very different things.

That is true, but looking at the whole picture which is you start with a lot, then you add a house, and now you have an improved lot with a house on it. That thing you end up with at the end, has a market value which can be compared with other houses in the area for their market value.

My home insurance covers the cost to rebuild my house in the event it is destroyed, but it protects the market value of my house because even if it is destroyed I can rebuild it to the same size and specification and have a house with possibly added market value because its made of newer material (and I would add more outlets than it currently has :-)

I agree that those two costs are very different things, but their linkage is, for me, inescapable.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#297

Post by georgeecollins »

boxcardavin wrote: post #122

I've lived in a ~250sqft 1940's era wood train car for the past 9 years, with my wife and now a newborn. It is doable if you enjoy the constraints and how it affects your decision making. I live about 5 miles from Seattle in a very rich neighborhood (a few blocks from the Paul Allen estate) on a large piece of land that is set aside as a reserve, while most of my neighbors have 5000sqft houses. As long as you have am…

You sound like a very cool person. Tip of the hat!

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#298

Post by MisterOctober »

Bjorkbat wrote: post #142

I really wish there was more diversity in offerings when it came to manufactured/trailer homes. To clarify, I'm not talking about RVs. I like tiny houses, but really only in the sense that I'm fascinated by unusually small things. Otherwise I think they're actually kind of ridiculous if your motives are to downsize and not pay $300,000+ on a house Trailer homes are pretty incredible when you think about it. They're t…

Trailer homes are pretty amazing, especially these days. One of my relations lived for a time in one, and it was nicer than any apartment I occupied in college, that's for sure!

I'm a big fan of prefab construction [shout out to Buckminster Fuller] -- the topic always brings to mind one of my favorite quotes from the movie "True Stories" [obviously tongue-in-cheek] :

"Metal buildings are the dream that architects had at the beginning of the 20th century. But they, themselves, don't realize it. That's because it doesn't take an architect to build a metal building. You just order it out of a catalog; it comes with a bunch of guys who put it together in a few days, maybe a week."

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#299

Post by atxsmallhouse »

driverdan wrote: post #89

I've been living in a shuttle bus I converted for about 20 months. I built it to be like a high end RV, with everything you'd expect in an RV but with lithium batteries and a solar array. I did it for two reasons, so I could own a home with minimal expenses and so I could take my home and dog when I travel. My cost of living is significantly lower than living in conventional housing. I estimate I've spent around $50k…

I'm also in the Austin area and I'm very curious about this. I understand your initial investment on your "RV" is $50k but what is an estimate of your monthly spend on spots for water/power/etc+? And then what % of the time are you boondocking?

+And whatever else would make it equivalent to an apartment/house. Do you have to hold any special insurance or have any other special recurring expenses?

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#300

Post by metildaa »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #229
systemtest wrote: post #80

The problem in the Netherlands is that land is expensive. A 40 square meter tiny house in Almere was for sale at €200.000, while a nearby 3 bedroom family house was for sale at €220.000. They both had a garden but the family house was a row home. They both used about the same amount of land. Houses are cheap enough that the price difference between a tiny house and a regular house is negligible when you add the price…

American apartments often don’t share heat very well, each unit is heavily insulated from each other and it’s not using piped hot water from a central heating plant like in Europe and Asia. Still probably a bit more efficient overall.

Despite heavy insulation, quite a bit of heat still migrates upward in new apartments and condos. Your neighbors are also nearly perfect insulation compared to your exterior walls too :P
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