RSS FeedMar 19 2009
Green Materials for Building a Tiny House
Dee Williams, perhaps one of the best known faces of the small home movement behind Jay Shafer, recently wrote an article for Yes! Magazine about the materials she used to build her own 84 square foot tiny home.
Dee designed her house to be a simple and natural as possible and minimized her construction footprint by using several green building techniques. Using recycled and salvaged materials, she spent only $10,000 to build her home, and that includes the cost of a 240-watt photovoltaic (solar) system.
A full copy of the article is available here. You can also view of video tour of Dee’s lovely little home below.
Dee Williams, perhaps one of the best known faces of the small home movement behind Jay Shafer, recently wrote an article for Yes! Magazine about the materials she used to build her own 84 square foot tiny home.
Dee designed her house to be a simple and natural as possible and minimized her construction footprint by using several green building techniques. Using recycled and salvaged materials, she spent only $10,000 to build her home, and that includes the cost of a 240-watt photovoltaic (solar) system.
A full copy of the article is available here. You can also view of video tour of Dee’s lovely little home below.
Very cool. enjoyed every min of the feed. Liked the idea of the house costing under $10,000. Only problem I see isto park it if you don’t have a friend who will let you live in thier back yard.
Leslie, that is one of the challenges. A couple of the small house lists and forums are currently discussing different ways to tackle that issue including such things as buying private land, renting space in mobile home parks, etc.
Additionally, based on a conversation I had with Jay Shafer, the “cute factor” of these homes really helps recruit people who’d be open to the idea of letting someone have back yard space.
Great post Steph. Dee is one of my tiny house hero’s. I love her little home. If we had a backyard, I think we would probably build our own little place. Maybe we just need to take a month off work and build a home. If we recruited a crew of peeps, I think it would be feasible.
You’ve written some awesome posts in the last week. I’m finally catching up on all my blog reading.
Please – by all means – if you find an overflow of folks with land, let me know! Believe you me, if I were to win the lottery (chuckle) the 3rd thing I would do is get the largest and/or smartest parcel reasonable (with advice from folks like Jay Tumbleweed) and build areas for folks to bring their little homes and create “the little town that could” and other areas a bit more secluded for those who need the quieter life. (If you were wondering, the first thing I would do is wrap up all dental work, the second would be to enjoy Paris and parts of the Globe …perhaps while my totally off-grid small home was being constructed!)
I could probably buy the Tortoise/Galapagos DIY kit right now, but I have a blue thing that hangs from my rear view mirror, no training or experience and very few tools to my name, it doesn’t seem like a wise investment currently. One hopes that an Obama administration may even squeeze in eradicating that odious legislation on home/square foot minimums, and fingers crossed: we’ll also see the cost of solar collectors come down as well.
Hopes and dreams is all I have while I save every penny and sell what I do own! I wish the best of luck and happiness to you all – and am very grateful that I have found yet another delightful blog to follow! (First comment here, they won’t ALL be essays!)
Thanks again, LB in CA
Really enjoyed this … very interesting. I wonder if we could trade our camper in for this and take it around Europe with us!!!!
Alice, I’m also really enjoying your blog. I love the interactions you have with your readers
All of the designs I’ve seen for tiny homes on wheels give quick a bit of thought in terms of the construction working well with travel (i.e. things like using screws which will hold up better than vibrations). Depending on what you two settle on as your short-term strategy, a tiny home might be just the thing for you. Considering that you are in Europe and also because it sounds like the economy is impacting your writing gigs, my suggestion would be to consider building your own rather than having someone do it for you. You can save roughly half the costs if you’re willing to do the labor yourself. It might also be a going compromise between your choices of traveling or settling down. Food for thought.
Lynne, please don’t worry about the “essay”. I absolutely love hearing what people are thinking who’ve taken the time to stop by.
If you haven’t already discovered it, I’d recommend checking out the Tiny House Village (http://tinyhousevillage.com/). There’s a bunch of like-minded folk to you there who are currently trying to figure out land. The Small House Society yahoogroup also has a raging discussion right now on the same issue. (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smallhousesocietyonline/)
In terms of the Obama administration, I would love it if there was some way for the new homebuyer incentive to be able to be applied to homes like the Tumbleweed and Tortoise Shells. (Maybe if the trailer was added later?)
Please keep me posted on what route you end up taking (lottery or not).
Steph
Thanks. If you’ve got the funds, I’d definitely encourage you to at least consider building your own. Either that or have someone build you just the shell and finish it yourself.
Meant to mention, I just came across an article on a really neat green home community in Portland. I’d bet you could find someone amenable to giving you space for your place, there. Need to scan the article for you.
Steph
Just to bump in as two above speak of doing the work themself & I make 3rd, I spoke of this in general terms with a friend of mine, she’s in construction (But she’s a LEED point just being on any job, and is doing a major Int’l airport right now so I can’t get her to swing hammers on free time, darn it)
So, Rowdy Kitten and LTRDream …
Her advice was “… do most of your framing with steel – it is lighter, cheaper, and stronger than wood – and they now have recycled steel studs. I think it would be a good weight trade off for thicker plywood. I could put my fist through 3/8”. AND “Also, you might want to take a carpentry class or two. **** College offers a few and I think there is another group in **** that offers woodworking classes for women only. You can learn a lot from books, but nothing can compare with actually working with the materials in your hands.”
The Tortoiseshell folks sell their ‘Galapagos’ steel w/plumbing done naked (their cheapest) in N. America, I check houseboat rentals daily because I adore them, if only I could live in a wee houseboat someplace warm, OMG – but over in EU I’d sell my soul to live in the Micro House @ 76sf – they have a ‘dorm set’ of 9 or so on a campus in Munich and were highlighted at the MoMa show for prefab last year. They cost a pretty penny …
Thanks for the ears …! And let’s us Americans hope that Pres Obama hears a Who and catches wind of our little dreams of Whovilles, etc ….some loan restructuring, some land laws changed, just enough!
Lynne, thanks for another really thoughtful comment. I’ve been following Tortoise Shell’s use of steel framing with some interest. The one thing I’m curious about for the do-it-yourselfers is if steel framing would require a different skill-set.
As you pointed out, there’s lots of opportunities to learn basic carpentry skills. I’m not sure where you learn what you need to for steel framing.
LB – thanks for your tips! My partner and I are seriously considering building our own tiny home.
More than likely we will purchase the the naked Tortoiseshell Galapagos and go from there. This weekend I’m planning on pricing the materials we need. Now we just need to find a spot to build the tiny home and a crew to help us because we have zero building experience. LOL.