Earlier quoted context omitted.
Looking at this primarily on a cost per square foot basis seems like the famous slashdot mistake of 2 decades ago of dismissing the iPod because it had less memory than a shitty competitor. I mean, it's an ADU, designed to be small, but would basically have the same fixed costs (appliances, plumbing, electrical) of a house twice the size, and I'm sure the manufacturers could make a house twice the size with only a ma…
The headline touts cost, I think it's fair to look at the actual cost benefits. If Apple designed the iPod and promoted it based on cost Slashdot would have had a point. Apple never says 'hey look how affordable our product is'. This headline caught my eye as I'm interested in how the fuck people are going to afford homes in the near future. I am disappointed. The "home" is not somewhere young people can raise a fami…
I hope they don't stop there because I think there is a huge need for simple two bedroom one bath or two bedroom one full and one half bath layouts for single people or couples where you can use the second bedroom as an office or guest room. Not everyone has herds of kids running around. Nor do I need separate formal living or dining rooms. And I absolutely do NOT need two stories. Stairs suck for everyone but the builders who get to pile more square footage onto smaller lots.
This looks to be their first foray into this kind of modular housing. I will be keeping an eye on them - if they do come out with something slightly bigger like I talk about above then I could be very interested. Indeed I'm thinking of moving and there is a decent lot in the community I'm looking at where a micro house like this would be perfect. Just prepare a slab with the utilities and call them in. It's very appealing.
Quality control is the biggest thing that this kind of housing solves and why I'm very keen on them being successful. I've got friends with modular homes where the modules (walls as units, entire smaller rooms, entire sections of the roof) are built in a factory and the results are a LOT more consistent and the houses go up a lot faster too. Speed of construction is significant. My current house was stick framed on site. The main subfloor in my current house was open to the elements for almost a month while it was under construction. I'm surprised my stairs look as good as they do as they were exposed for weeks too. The amount of time it takes before at least the roof sheathing goes up is pretty vexing. I was here every day as the house was being built and I got a pretty good framing crew (I also brought them snacks, water and a few cases of beer at the end of the day - building rapport with people goes a long way) - some of my neighbors who were more hands off had all kinds of structural issues later where stuff was framed wrong and wasn't caught by the building inspectors or their home inspectors. If people even bothered with a home inspector; I found one that used to be a building code inspector and he caught a load bearing wall that was under framed under my dining room - so even though I was scrutinizing the crap out of stuff and was here every day even I missed it. When you have the same components being made in factories - indoors out of the weather, on jigs with specialized tooling, etc. you get dramatically more consistent results.
Factory building modular components removes A TON of variables.
I could see them being able to design customizable and modular homes where you pick the various parts of your home and link them up - want three bedrooms instead of two or one? Pick a different mix of modules. Roofing would be the biggest challenge but there are probably some solutions there with a little creativity.
Next to a house, a car is the 2nd biggest purchase most people make - could you imagine if four different trades showed up over a few weeks with various parts and assembled a car in your driveway? It's kind of nuts when you think about it...