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Modular Homes for Under $50k

boxabl.com

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Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#291

Post by fulafel »

bick_nyers wrote: post #288
jws wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiny houses have a large cost per square foot. One of the early forces in tiny houses remarked that his house was simultaneously the smallest in his city and the most expensive per square foot. Part of it is the cube square law's little brother, the "square linear law?" You have proportionately more wall for the enclosed area. On top of that you still have the expensive bits… bathrooms and kitchens.

At that point, if you have the land for it, why not just go for an "efficiently sized" home. Like 500-700 sqft.

It's a big waste of energy to cool and heat a house bigger than you really need, an ethical problem in this day and age (global warming).

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#292

Post by iso1631 »

Are brick homes common in the US? I see lots of mention about wooden frames when discussing tradition vs pre-fab, but nothing about brick.

Typical new house in the UK is two layers of brick (with filled cavity) with a wooden roof with tiles on the top.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#293

Post by uxcolumbo »

johnnyfived wrote: post #66
rmason wrote: post #39

Surprised no one here has mentioned that Elon Musk is living in a Boxabl house in Austin, TX. This has totally perplexed the people who follow his every move. https://www.chron.com/news/space/article/elon-musk-texas-hou... I think that he might possibly be doing his homework. Can you imagine a Boxabl house outfitted with a solar roof, a Tesla battery and a Starlink dish? I could see people having a remote cottage not…

"I think that he might possibly be doing his homework." I believe you're dead on, this guy's an absolute baller of a CEO (running 3 totally game-changing startups) and completely immerses himself in his work and research.

You might find this interesting

Debunking Elon Musk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-FGwDDc-s8

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#294

Post by jonfw »

synaesthesisx wrote: post #76

We need to be building units like this for the homeless, in lots with services/resources. The faster we can meet offer everyone a “bed”, the faster we can legally ban urban camping. Encampments are growing out of control in SF, LA, etc and we need a housing-first approach.

If you're building these in large quantities doing it on site would be way cheaper. You can achieve similar economies of scale, and you don't have to design the houses to be mobile and you don't have to actually move them

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#295

Post by maximus-decimus »

desireco42 wrote: post #174
maximus-decimus wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You judge websites based on how expensive they are?

Not how expensive they are but how much budget you spend on making them. You have to spend money to make good website.

But what do you think isn't good about their website?

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#296

Post by bluGill »

nine_k wrote: post #256
debacle wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is an economy of scale and efficiency in building large prefab pieces of a house on a factory, as opposed to the ad-hoc local conditions. This is only true if you are building 1 home. If you are building 25 or 100 homes, on-site construction is the way to go.

My idea is that you cannot have a huge machine that produces a whole wall in one go on a construction site of a single-family home, but you can have it on a factory. And the machine can work like 10x as fast as human builders. Of course, to be economic, that machine should produce these walls day in day out without much interruption, hence the economy of scale .

Only if you are building the same wall all the time. As soon as some decides they want their house to not look like the one next door and thus makes some "trivial" changes your machine can't make the house anymore.

That is why you can't scale: people want their house to be unique.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#297

Post by bluGill »

iso1631 wrote: post #292

Are brick homes common in the US? I see lots of mention about wooden frames when discussing tradition vs pre-fab, but nothing about brick. Typical new house in the UK is two layers of brick (with filled cavity) with a wooden roof with tiles on the top.

Not common. Wood is a lot cheaper, strong enough (brick is hard, but it isn't actually very strong). Wood is also easy to modify in a few years when you want to make changes.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#298

Post by rdtwo »

baybal2 wrote: post #73
decebalus1 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who's the target customer for this? People who fall for stuff like Hyperloop. The biggest problem with housing is not the building itself, its the land and the scarcity of it. This is yet another tech 'solution' in search of a problem. And that problem is political, not technical. INB4: but we're gonna deploy these on Mars!!

> This is yet another tech 'solution' in search of a problem. And that problem is political, not technical. And the problem they search for has been solved half a century ago — the modern highrise apartment building.

I mean tech has been great at disrupting political problems by simply overwhelming then with money. See Uber and Airb&b

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#299

Post by gangstead »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #215
gangstead wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering that myself. I fantasize about plopping a house down out in the desert, but their video shows a crane used to unfold it. By the time you get all the heavy machinery out there to prep the land and assemble the structure you're most of the way to just building something unique.

>but their video shows a crane used to unfold it. By the time you get all the heavy machinery out there to prep the land and assemble the structure you're most of the way to just building something unique. This[0] Is[1] A[2] Solved[3] Problem[4] But many municipalities prohibit it because if you make housing too cheap the "wrong kind of people" might move in. In the desert you shouldn't have problems though. [0] http…

The Boxabl house folds up much more compact and in their render at least it is being delivered behind a pickup truck. So it seems they are solving a different problem and might be able to get these things into places a large tractor with an extra-wide load might not be able to access. Though that is negated somewhat if you need a crane to deploy it as the video shows.

Re: Modular Homes for Under $50k

#300

Post by dsr_ »

dmos62 wrote: post #211
hellbannedguy wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can get this contraption on your property (foundation, plumbing hookup, electric, all permit fees.) for under 100k in a desirable area, like the Bay Area, it's a great deal. If I had a flat lot that was accesssble, I would look into this further. In my town, even with the protections Gov. Neusome provided, getting an ADU is still a hassle. In my town, rich people are using ADU's to add square footage to their…

Those sound like good things. I live in a place where non of those demands are considered acceptable (or noone bothers to coordinate) and family-home suburbs look absurd. Every house is from another world, like the neighbors didn't exist. Color, style, fence, roof: everything is as random as you can imagine. It's a continuous spatial conflict.

It turns that I think it's really nice to be able to distinguish your house from your neighbors in a few words: "white colonial with a red roof, past the brick ranch and the blue Cape Cod".

Having to say "Number 12702" really isn't the same.

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