4 ms·

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 th

by jws 5y ago

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.

metalliqaz 5y ago
Yes this is true. $/ft2 is only really useful to realtors. Most home shoppers probably understand things more like cost per living space (rooms)
bick_nyers 5y ago
At that point, if you have the land for it, why not just go for an "efficiently sized" home. Like 500-700 sqft.
- fulafel 5y ago
  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).
  - bick_nyers 5y ago
    True, although a lot of smaller houses/tiny homes will use mini splits for their heating/cooling, which are significantly more energy efficient than central AC units. Insulation is also relatively cheap. Solar is an option to offset it as well, although extra insulation is a much easier and cost effective option here (at least in the short term). Most houses that are classified as tiny are in the 200-400sqft area, so while a "small home" is about twice as large at 500-700sqft, we gotta remember that most houses are 1500sqft anyways, so we are still coming out ahead. Plus, I think it's much much easier to convince the average joe to live in a 500-700sqft home than in a 200-400sqft home.
- EricE 5y ago
  This is their first unit. If they keep going it sounds like they are planning to offer homes with more rooms. I hope so - If they had a two bedroom (so I can use the other bedroom as an office) one bath I'd be all over it.
EricE 5y ago
And here is the prime example of perverse incentives when it comes to housing - particularly in the US. Only focusing on acquisition cost. How about cost of utilities per square foot over 10 years? My money is on the smaller, vastly better constructed smaller home than traditional build to minimum code mass market crappy tract housing that dominates much of American suburbia. Who lives in one house for the majority of their life any more? It's pretty rare. In my development it was only a few thousand more to double the insulation and convert to more efficient HVAC - less than half the people building a new house did it. Heck it was $750 to insulate the garage - maybe 1/3 did - you can tell because the people who did got insulated garage doors with windows. A neighbor across the street bought a house where the previous owner didn't insulate the garage. The master bedroom is over the garage. I asked him if his master bedroom got cold in the winter - he got wide eyed and said that as a matter of fact it did. I pointed out the insulation difference - he had a buddy come over and help him pull down the drywall in the garage, they insulated all the walls and added more to the ceiling and re-drywalled and the difference was night and day. Building codes tightened up quite a bit in 2010 so I think they force builders to do that insulation for everything now, but that's just one example of how people care more about granite countertops than paying attention to core infrastructure that could impact a building for it's entire life. A pithier way to put it - much of your square footage discrepancy is from people sacrificing short term cost for long term costs we all pay for.

by jws 5y ago

metalliqaz 5y ago

Yes this is true. $/ft2 is only really useful to realtors. Most home shoppers probably understand things more like cost per living space (rooms)

bick_nyers 5y ago

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

fulafel 5y ago
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).
- bick_nyers 5y ago
  True, although a lot of smaller houses/tiny homes will use mini splits for their heating/cooling, which are significantly more energy efficient than central AC units. Insulation is also relatively cheap. Solar is an option to offset it as well, although extra insulation is a much easier and cost effective option here (at least in the short term). Most houses that are classified as tiny are in the 200-400sqft area, so while a "small home" is about twice as large at 500-700sqft, we gotta remember that most houses are 1500sqft anyways, so we are still coming out ahead. Plus, I think it's much much easier to convince the average joe to live in a 500-700sqft home than in a 200-400sqft home.
EricE 5y ago
This is their first unit. If they keep going it sounds like they are planning to offer homes with more rooms. I hope so - If they had a two bedroom (so I can use the other bedroom as an office) one bath I'd be all over it.

EricE 5y ago

And here is the prime example of perverse incentives when it comes to housing - particularly in the US. Only focusing on acquisition cost. How about cost of utilities per square foot over 10 years? My money is on the smaller, vastly better constructed smaller home than traditional build to minimum code mass market crappy tract housing that dominates much of American suburbia. Who lives in one house for the majority of their life any more? It's pretty rare. In my development it was only a few thousand more to double the insulation and convert to more efficient HVAC - less than half the people building a new house did it. Heck it was $750 to insulate the garage - maybe 1/3 did - you can tell because the people who did got insulated garage doors with windows. A neighbor across the street bought a house where the previous owner didn't insulate the garage. The master bedroom is over the garage. I asked him if his master bedroom got cold in the winter - he got wide eyed and said that as a matter of fact it did. I pointed out the insulation difference - he had a buddy come over and help him pull down the drywall in the garage, they insulated all the walls and added more to the ceiling and re-drywalled and the difference was night and day. Building codes tightened up quite a bit in 2010 so I think they force builders to do that insulation for everything now, but that's just one example of how people care more about granite countertops than paying attention to core infrastructure that could impact a building for it's entire life. A pithier way to put it - much of your square footage discrepancy is from people sacrificing short term cost for long term costs we all pay for.