Sustainable Micro Home that Costs Less Than $30,000

http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/ian-lorne-kent-nomad-micro-home

by hansy • 13 years ago

55 59 13 years ago

robmil• 13 years ago

Isn't the problem that, while the house may cost $30,000, the land on which it would have to reside will inevitably cost far more than that?

wcchandler• 13 years ago

Not necessarily. I'm on a 10,000 sqft plot of land which is valued at $20,000. I easily have enough room for this house.

ctdonath3• 13 years ago

No. A couple minutes with zillow.com or trulia.com will show you lots available for well under $10,000. Sure, they won't exactly be in premium locations, but with some work you can find some that are desirable & decent. I've seen some under $2000 just outside Atlanta, rural half-acre lots close to rivers & lakes.

VLM3• 13 years ago

The tech inside the house visually appears to be mobile home tech not self contained RV tech. So you'll need the $10K septic field, the $10K electric power line, maybe natgas/propane for heating/cooking, a $5K and up water well or $10K to connect to city water if available, it adds up.

(edited to add I forgot to add the cost of a foundation, in the south the freeze line is like 2 inches, but where I live I believe its 4-5 feet, so you're already spending 90% of the cost of a full basement, may as well finish it off and have a basement, but thats another $10K perhaps for something this small?)

ctdonath3• 13 years ago

An interesting, short & relevant read: http://homestead.org/NeilShelton/HowToBuyLand/VeryCheaply.ht...

TL;DR - buy/access a "plat book" for each county you're interested in, correlate each lot with a topographic map to identify interesting properties, visit the Assessor's Office to find the owners, write a polite but terse offer letter to the owners who live farthest away - good chance they don't want the property and will part with it fast for a reasonable offer. Yes, takes some work & money, but a whole lot less than list price.

robotic• 13 years ago

Isn't this just a fancy mobile home?

ISL• 13 years ago

Yes. Sometimes mobile homes are a good idea.

mhurron• 13 years ago

$30,000 for 100sqft doesn't seem like a good idea though.

ctdonath3• 13 years ago

There is quite a market for them, don't knock it. Buy a cheap lot somewhere, pour a slab, wheel the tiny house into place, nice starter home for a young'un in one weekend flat.

seanmcdirmid• 13 years ago

Why do you even need the slab? Just get some concrete blocks, bring the home in, put in a septic tank...and you are in business.

Bonus if you live in the boonies and have to burn your trash.

VLM3• 13 years ago

That brings up the interesting topic that the "natural" design progression seems to be making a fancy mobile home, but I'd think you can start from a fancy RV just as well.

The RV part would help when you're out in the wilderness instead of in a utility provided mobile home park. Some RV features like batteries for DC power, extensive ventilation instead of relying on AC powered air conditioning, etc.

Of course on the other hand RVs aren't as energy efficient as mobile homes because of a desire to minimize the tow vehicle gas/diesel consumption rather than propane heating consumption.

As a specific criticism I am fairly unimpressed with the size and features of this $30K "rv". Its not that much better than an elaborate $5K or so teardrop trailer. On the other hand its a little bigger than a $90K conversion van. (And when exactly in my lifetime did conversion vans change from middle class machines in my youth, to the current mid level sports car prices?)

nowarninglabel• 13 years ago

If you are into this kind of thing, http://www.reddit.com/r/tinyhouses has a modestly active community.

I've recently built a geodome structure and am working on a tiny house, which will probably end up like this wonderful abode http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toFBj9qBLQo

Small is beautiful.

gremlinsinc2• 13 years ago

Make it modular and expandable, have like a 'base house' with the kitchen, 1st bath, 1st bed, and living room then then add the ability to add Bedrooms, and Bathrooms as 'modules' -- basically a house building block system, --that would be cool.

malandrew2• 13 years ago

This is a really cool idea. It would be awesome if the walls were also modular enough that you can take the glass doored walls off the original structure and put them on the new pieces you purchase.

gremlinsinc2• 13 years ago

yeah definitely -- you could even potentially pick which wall to slide the 'window panels' into, so you could move your windows to a different wall entirely.

decad• 13 years ago

Hivehaus[1] is a new housing concept based around a honeycomb structure with modular hexagon rooms. Relatively cheap as well.

[1] http://www.hivehaus.co.uk/

segmondy• 13 years ago

Or you can move to michigan and buy a house for $30k.

ExpiredLink• 13 years ago

... plus the parcel.

cschmidt• 13 years ago

Well, the median house price in Detroit looks to be about $40k at the moment... including the parcel.

http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Detroit-Michigan/market-tr...

mcgain• 13 years ago

What is sustainable about a home that you can't cook in?

aiiane2• 13 years ago

The floorplans appear to indicate a stovetop, among other things.

malandrew2• 13 years ago

You really only need two burners and an oven to cook most things.

mediocregopher• 13 years ago

Living in a hurricane state I've learned that it's possible to cook nearly anything on a grill.

aiiane2• 13 years ago

The thing that stood out most as missing to me is a shower. Sure, I suppose you could do that at a gym, but still - having at least a shower is a pretty big quality-of-living improvement (or lack thereof).

Avshalom• 13 years ago

I assume the bathroom doubles as the shower stall just like on a boat or in the Tumbleweed houses.

shazow• 13 years ago

The bathroom is indeed a shower, per this photo: http://www.nomadmicrohomes.com/uploads/3/2/7/6/3276237/51529...

via http://www.nomadmicrohomes.com/gallery.html

wehadfun• 13 years ago

I'm being blocked buy what is this. Another glorified card board box, with no bathroom, crap kitchen, BS heat, imaginary AC

lucaspiller• 13 years ago

I saw this the other day, it seems slightly more practical:

http://www.hivehaus.co.uk/

It can also be upgraded as you need / can afford more space.

raphinou• 13 years ago

The open stairs going over the kitchen (!!), and the bed with nearly no protection barrier are two bad points that strike me in the prototype

volune• 13 years ago

Protective barrier? For falling out of bed?

pyre2• 13 years ago

... and immediately down the stairs.

It's not like people don't fall out of bed from time to time. I'd rather not have to include "down the stairs" in the story.

mkramlich• 13 years ago

This is great but adding a shower would be a huge improvement towards making it a more feasible choice.

Because as a general rule: every day I need to sleep, eat/drink, urinate/defecate and shower/bathe. Enable all those functions and you have a compelling product/price.

SwellJoe3• 13 years ago

As someone else mentioned in another comment, it may be a "wet bath" as found in smaller RVs and on boats. The whole bathroom converts to a shower, basically, by having all surfaces water-tight. It's a very efficient use of space, but very few larger RVs have them, because they aren't considered comfortable by some; keeping them dry and clean is reportedly an issue.

I've been thinking about tiny houses for years (and I've live in a motorhome for about five years), and I think I would prefer to build slightly larger and have a nice bath and shower. But, in other regards, small is beautiful.

ffrryuu• 13 years ago

And they will still sell it for 1 million in Silicon Valley.

usaphp• 13 years ago

Quite dangerous to sleep like that, right over the stairs...You can easily fall down. Also it looks like its going to be hard to get in/out of the bed.

stcredzero3• 13 years ago

Quite dangerous to sleep like that, right over the stairs

Just add a safety rail. EDIT: Ah, there is a safety rail, but it should be extended so you have to get out of bed on the end.

lazyjones• 13 years ago

This probably competes with the IKEA houses announced in the past few years. But the best concept for modular, mobile micro homes in my opinion is still the Nagakin Tower (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakagin_Capsule_Tower).

Imagine taking your home cube with you to another big city and having it attached to a fixed base (your choice of floor and orientation as available), or even just relocating to be in walking distance from your new office.

snorkel• 13 years ago

... For certain definitions of the word "house" this is a 30k house.

pyre2• 13 years ago

- No temperature control. This could only work in areas with moderate temperatures year-round. You probably wouldn't want one of these in Arizona or Montana.

- Seems like it would have the same tenuous relationship with tornadoes that trailer homes/parks do.

- Lack of a divider between the stairs and the kitchen makes it seem like it would be too easy to accidentally knock things off of the shelf or counter while going up the stairs. I especially don't like that the counter turns into a stair without any sort of clear dividing line.

stcredzero3• 13 years ago

If you made this out of plywood/polystyrene sandwich and gave it a slightly more aerodynamic shape, you could probably arrange to have this quite securely anchored, depending on the ground where you are moving. The hyper insulation of such materials would also do a lot to alleviate the climate control issues. You'd want to arrange for shade to control solar heating in warm climates. Also, such a small house would be easier to cool using solar and wind power.

Your third objection probably kills this, though. I'd just make the place 5' longer.

angersock• 13 years ago

There also does not appear to be a shower.

brudgers• 13 years ago

Pretty pictures.

() open steps over the food preparation area is not particularly sanitary due to what can fall off the bottom of a person's shoes, socks and feet...neither is using a food preparation surface as a tread.

() Considering falls are the principal mode of fatal and serious domestic injuries, no handrails on a winding stair that the occupant will be navigating to use the toilet in the middle of the night is unconscionable design.

() The simple task of making the bed becomes a gymnastic exercise performed without a net.

() Because it has fenestration on three sides, it's not efficient in terms of footprint. The safety, hygiene and convenience compromises are unnecessary - a larger footprint could be equally cost effective in single application and more environmentally sound by allowing denser development (e.g. as a grouphouse, rowhouse or flat in a multistory aggregate.

anonymous• 13 years ago

I think your first two points are mostly trivial to address - put a board going beneath all the steps and add a handrail.

The bed seems a poor idea to me too though. Maybe if it were just for one person or if you used a futon that you'd roll up. Isn't a futon more in-line with the micro home concept anyhow?

205guy2• 13 years ago

I had the same comment about the stairs above the food area. Even if occupants remove their shoes, there is always dust and dirt being tracked around (especially in a house that doesn't have an in-out transition area such as a covered entrance). Partially enclosing the stairs would help, but even then you could still have dust and dirt floating down. I also see this bad design in sailboats (another exercise in small living), where the companion-way steps go over the counter or sink.

For the bed in the loft, I think the open areas are more about wasted space. The downstairs has plenty of light, so the opening could be replaced with shelving or closed storage. The lost windows could be replaces with a skylight.

pessimizer• 13 years ago

For the people objecting to an open staircase over the counter - I'm pretty sure the only reason there isn't more to the stairs is because this is a display model, and building the stairs that way lets you see the stairs.

ffog2• 13 years ago

That bed is not good for sex.

ffog2• 13 years ago

I don't know about you but I enjoy life and the bed placement is cramped for anything but sleeping.

SwellJoe3• 13 years ago

I think many of these kinds of designs are very expensive, and often not as sustainable as I'd like.

When I finally settle down and build my own tiny house, I will likely start from an existing structure. Either a classic RV (like an Airstream of Avion) or a shipping container, and build up from there. It'll still end up costing about $15k-$30k, but I'd also like to reuse old materials wherever possible; not so much to save money (as I have a decent income), but to reduce waste and environmental impact. All of these "sustainable" building designs always use so much newly manufactured material. It makes it somewhat less impressive, to me. Another option might be natural building materials; cob, earth bag, etc. I've only recently started learning about them. Though they have other issues...they take of a lot of space, and often make it more difficult to build up, when you need more space. Tiny houses built with conventional modern building materials can be quite tall without a lot of extra effort. At the very least, a loft bedroom is pretty useful in building with a smaller footprint.

bcbrown• 13 years ago

You'd probably enjoy checking out the books of Lloyd Kahn: http://www.amazon.com/Lloyd-Kahn/e/B001JS1BQY/

205guy2• 13 years ago

I think old RVs are flimsy and poorly insulated, and good ones hold their value and can still be used as vehicles. The idea of recycling shipping containers is really just a designer's dream--you only ever see new-looking containers in their images. Decomissioned containers are probably rusty and/or bent/damaged and thus unsuitable for a dwelling--if they were good enough for living in, they're probably still usable for shipping. And I haven't done the math, but coverting a shipping container to a living space (insulation, plumbing+electric, doors+windows) seems like more waste than recycling the steel into a new container.

Cob/earth and/or locally sourced logs are great from a sustainability point of view (though not available in all locations), but they don't make portable housing. I would think that a house such as this, with its small size wouldn't be too expensive even if made with sustainably harvested wood and other building materials--you could also substitute recycled building materials.

SwellJoe3• 13 years ago

I don't disagree with anything you've said. I'm very familiar with RVs (I've been living and traveling in a motorhome for five years), and their limitations. And, you're right about shipping containers, generally speaking. But, I've met folks over the years who have successfully built a modern, energy efficient, home inside of the shell of all of these things, often with reused components (though insulation is one of those things that degrades with age and has developed dramatically in effectiveness in recent years, so it's usually new). And, of course, energy efficient appliances are a relative new invention; so they're also usually new. So, re-use is much more limited than I'd like.

I also know some folks who've built tiny houses on trailers; this one is 10x10, which makes it not street legal. It'd need a wide load permit and a good travel plan, in order to move it. I like the idea of an updated RV because I could haul it with my truck, even if I'm not regularly traveling with it (I'd rather have a motorhome for regular travel). But, many tiny houses built from scratch also have that property.

There are trade-offs in any construction. I probably should just say this is not the house I would build, when I build a tiny house (and I will build a tiny house, at some point). There are several reasons why it isn't.

And, speaking of re-used vs. newer/better materials, I've become somewhat enamored of structural insulated panels. There are a couple of folks who've built tiny houses with these materials, getting them custom cut for their needs, and it's pretty cool to see how fast a house can go up, and how efficient it can be once built. I don't know if I'll got that route, either. Compromises all over the place...

honestcoyote• 13 years ago

Pretty to look at it but deeply impractical. Others have described the faults better than I could, so here's a couple of builders, who have houses actually in production, which beats this micro house in both price and practicality.

Scott Stewart builds some interesting designs and most of what he sells is under $30k. His modular design at $8k per module has some potential.

http://www.youtube.com/user/scottstew1/videos

Or there's this house, 12' x 24', for 20k. Not a modern design, but it looks quite liveable and is more practical than the 30k micro.

http://www.sugarloafsmalls.com/

Of course, there's always Tumbleweed but their prices tend to be around $50k if you have them build it.

I'd highly recommend Tiny House Blog if you find this type of house design interesting.

http://tinyhouseblog.com/

eliteraspberrie• 13 years ago

If these become popular, I imagine the term "home robbery" will take on a new meaning when people literally steal your little home.

newman314• 13 years ago

Couple missing things that I see in this: cooling/heating, electrical, missing shower etc.

I entertain fantasies about living in a small home like this but the reality is this is only for one or two people. It rapid breaks down when you try to expand beyond that.

Sustainable Micro Home that Costs Less Than $30,000

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