Tiny house movement thrives amid real estate bust

They were lucky. My SIL had her knee replaced, and was shut out of much of her beautiful custom home until she healed. Our house will have 2 levels, but all of our needs will be met on one floor, and all of the doors will be 36", along with other universal design features. With hip and knee replacements so common in older people these days, it makes sense to build for it if you are designing a new house. My wife and I are about 10 years away from retirement age, so we pay closer attention to this kind of stuff.

__________________
"What one generation tolerates, the next generation embraces." -John Wesley

Personally, I've designed with modifications in mind. But not in place.
Ie, our stairway is centrally located and can have an elevator or chair lift put in fairly easily. Our bathrooms will have plenty of space for maneuvering a wheelchair. The master bedroom is on the main floor. etc. etc.

I just wouldn't want to live the next 30-40 years of my life in a house built for the day when I might have to be in a wheel chair, KWIM?

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

our house just kinda turned out to be handicap accessable. we simply got a good deal on those bigger doors, level handles, and DH wanted a bigger than needed bathroom. nothing we need is on the second floor, those areas are for the kids alone.

our house was also built with the idea that even tho. our living room has an open feel with tall ceilings, we could put a floor over it, and make an entire apartment and even have stairs on the outside going up to that area. i certainly hope my daughters can 'fly on their own', but honestly, in this economy, its not unheard of for kids to need to remain at home alot longer. so our house 'could' be made into a 2 family home. but our part, downstairs, can accomidate a walker, chair, or simply a cane. i love it!

and altho some are lucky in never needing that sort of home, i've seen faaarrr too many who must leave their home, simply cuz they cannot do stairs anymore. its sad, they are otherwise fine, but those stairs send them out of their beloved home. and as others mention, its not always the older folks who this issue plagues. one bad knee or a slipped disk in your back, and those one level easy homes suddenly become pretty appealing.

getting off topic here, sorry!

but, i have one other thought--WHY is scoping out small place, plans, etc. so much fun!!? i have NO need to spend time doing that, but yet, i LOVE doing that! and altho my camper was too small for much longer, it wasn't horrible either. it was 8x16, so i know a small house would be ok for me. just not sure where the rest of the family would go, theheee!!!

Chewie, I suspect that tiny houses are so much fun for the same reason that even grownups love dollhouses, and for the same reason that children with perfectly adequate (or even luxurious) homes, still love to build forts! We all have that instinct to build a cozy little shelter, and if it's cute, so much the better!

Kathleen

123, I thought I was being extreme when I was thinking along these same lines of thought. I was thinking that when I do build my little house that I would design it for an old couple who have little money to dish out for others to work on it. I was thinking that I would make it only one story and at a safe pitch so that when I am an old man I can still get up on the roof and redue the shingles. I was thinking small because most old people wind up living in only one room. I was thinking one story because it would be easy for me and (if I were to ever marry) elderly wife to clean and reside the house.

Now you just gave me the idea of making it handy cap friendly and adding a ramp. I dont see why a low pitched ramp leading up to a door two feet off the ground would not also be a good way for younger or able bodied people to enter a home, so I am thinking why not just build a ramp instead of stairs. A ramp would be easier to shovel snow off of also, another plus.

Thanks you for sharing, it has helped me.

I spent the $7K on the house alone. I didn't have any of the above items.

• Wood stove -- I used a 20,000 btu/hour blue-flame thermostatically controlled propane heater. It cost me $125 at eBay, delivered.
• Septic -- I ran gray water on the ground, then used portable RV toilets for black water. I dumped the tanks at a gas station RV sanitary dump for free. We had a lot of clay in our soil, so the drain fields had to be huge and expensive ($4000 to $5000 for a septic system).
• Electric -- The power company wanted $9700 to bring power from next door. I ran an extension cord to next door to get enough to power lights, laptop, and occasional TV (I paid the neighbor $25/month to do that). I got a little power from solar, but I moved before I got the system finished.
• Well -- I fed the next door neighbor's livestock while he was at work in exchange for drawing a little water. I had a 300 gallon cistern that I filled with a garden hose from next door, then pressurized the house with a 12 volt RV water pump. It lasted maybe 3 weeks between refills.

Life is good in Las Vegas; I've got flush toilets, running water, natural gas, electricity, and sewer system, not to mention a 1200 sq ft house. But I'll tell you one thing for sure -- I'll never take those things for granted again.

__________________
Ask Me About Linux System Administration

I recently purchased a nice-sized camper for $1500. I could live in it no problem. Looks roomier than the tiny house.

Thanks for the info. Did you live alone during that time? I think if one makes the effort to think the sittuation out they can find more affordable sollutions.

Trailers look like a good deal. I heard that they are not insulated that well though. Are they dry walled inside? Can you rip down the walls insulate and rewall?

No, actually I lived there with a woman in her 80s. She was raised on a farm and was open-minded about those things.

__________________
Ask Me About Linux System Administration

We're currently living in a very similar set-up. We HAVE power because we're on a public system so they string it X feet for free. In our case, a half mile and that's about what we needed.

Fresh water is hauled in in a 1500 gallon tank on our flat bed trailer. DH gets it from work. We have plans to plumb it in to our trailer house, but at the moment we just haul it in to the house in recycled food-service buckets.
Grey water is currently just daylighting (not ideal!), but we're planning a better system for trees we're going to plant.
There is no black water as we have a sawdust toilet. (My parents were pleasantly surprised by it at Thanksgiving. lol)
Phone line is actually a plan via our cell provider with a $129 antenna on the roof to pick up a signal.

It's working quite well.
Sometimes things are inconvenient. Showers, for example, need to be planned ahead as water needs to be heated on the stove. But ya know, it works. It's not a big deal, just minor inconveniences.

__________________
~*~Erin~*~
SAHM, ranch wife, sub and quilt shop proprietress
the Back Gate Country Quilt Shop

Drywall would probably be too heavy and not travel well.

Our camper has paneling in the inside and it is insulated. The walls, however are not as thick as a home, so the insulation space is only about 2". it managed to stay pretty warm in 30 degrees, which is the coldest we have stayed in it. An insulating skirt would probably help quite a bit also.

You had better luck than we did. I found an old 25' travel trailer to live in just until the house was built. The plumbing was copper tubing, and was burst here and there. I fixed it by replacing the bursts with hose & hose clamps. That worked until fall, when it started bursting again at night.

I suppose I could have studied the situation and stuffed fiberglass insulation here and there, but I was busy building a house. I decided to concentrate my efforts on the house.

Yes, the walls are 2x2s with thin paneling on the inside. It was insulated with fiberglass, but not enough for a cold climate. I suppose someone clever could find ways to make it livable, but it would be a job.

__________________
Ask Me About Linux System Administration

An insulating skirt is something you wrap around the trailer?

There was an article about someone adding a wall of ivy or some other vine to the outside of his trailer to shield the sun of new mexico off his trailer, and the article said that that helped lower his cooling bills.

I've noticed more and more people switching to a metal roof. My understanding is... less maintenance. Just a suggestion.

123, yeah I am most likely going to use a metal roof, they last longer and are easier to install, and they are realy easy to hook solar panels up to, but even metal roofs eventually go. I doubt the metal roof would go in my lifetime, but if it did I would need to get up there and redue it rather then pay some shifty contractor way too much money to do a rushed sloppy job.

As we age, most of us will find it harder and harder to afford the cost of living, so it is best to prepare for those days because most of us will not have anyone to help us. As you may have noticed the world has little patience, mercy, or sympathy for the weak, the needy, and the aged, so what I can do now to make those later years of my life a little easier is a wise choice.

A skirt would go up from the ground, to the bottom of the trailer, to keep the wind from blowing under it. Foam insulation sheets protected with sheet metal, works and looks good.

We live in a county that had NO building codes except state and all state had was septic codes. We built our house ourselves. It's not big, but it's not small either. About 1,500 sq. ft and it cost us around 35-40,000. It's not fancy and we hunted for bargains and used that "price match guarantee" where we could. But the only code that the state has is septic. Most counties develop their own codes, but we did try to follow codes as much as possible when we built this.

I thought 40-50,000 for a 90 sq foot house is a tad ridiculous. Even 25,000 to build it yourself seemed awfully high, but then I haven't bought lumber in a coon dogs age.

__________________
"Be still sad heart, and cease repining. Behind the clouds, the sun is shining. Thy fate is the common fate of all. Into each life, a little rain must fall." -Longfellow

We have to haul water too, but because there is no underground water out here. We've done it now for 6 years. We haul water in tanks on a truck and pump them into another holding tank that's kept in a shed and from there is pumped into the house. It does create a hassle when you can't do laundry or whatever because there isn't enough water and have to wait for it to be hauled in, but you get used to it after 6 years. Now, finally, after all these years they are running rural water and we'll have water as of January 1st!!!!

__________________
"Be still sad heart, and cease repining. Behind the clouds, the sun is shining. Thy fate is the common fate of all. Into each life, a little rain must fall." -Longfellow

I like the trend to smaller homes. You save all the way around from utilities to taxes. I think I need more space than this though. My wife and I are about to start building our home and think about 1500 sf is what we need.