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Building a house for under $5000
- antidaily 17y agoLove the idea of living off the grid. But things like using a "Compost toilet" scare me.
- dylanz 17y agoIf done right, it's the same as a normal toilet, but substitute the "flush" for scooping some sawdust down the hole. I've used quite a few, and if you do it right, you can't smell a thing.
- electromagnetic 17y agoI have a lot of experience with the unconventional animals, many of which have much more potent odors than human waste and sawdust does great. Cedar has great absorbency for liquid and odors, it also helps significantly that cedar generally has a really nice smell to it. I've even composted the waste before and it doesn't change the odor given off by the heap. If you still frequently cut your grass, you're going to be smelling composting plant matter far more than the human element. Personally, if I had the land available, I wouldn't have a problem with a composting toilet on my property. However, I'd probably stick with a low-water toilet for inside the house.
- enneff 17y agoIndeed. Composting toilets are amazing, especially when compared to 'drop' toilets (which I'd imagine constitute most people's negative 'alternative toilet' experiences).
- FraaJad 17y agothey are used everywhere in Rural villages where there is no sewage network.
- pingswept 17y agoI'm proud to say that I have substantial experience with composting toilets (both because it's true and funny) from Clivus Multrum: http://www.clivusmultrum.com/products_system_process.shtml http://www.clivusmultrum.com/products_system_process.shtml The main trick they use to avoid the smell is a fan that pulls air down past the seat and then vents it out the top. If it's set up right, you smell nothing but the roses outside (or whatever is nearby). Plus, you get badass compost for free.
- showerst 17y agoI think it's pretty cool that he had a go at this, but how does he know that it's actually structurally sound? I'm not sure how things are in Wales, but here in Missouri, you have to be concerned about things like high winds, earthquakes, etc, not to mention how your house fares if a fire starts. I'm guessing hay bale insulation isn't too fire retardant. Most houses around here are built to stock plans, and the loads on the floors/roof have been calculated by a professional. I'd be a bit weary of hanging out in that place in storm. (Note: I know nothing of likelihood of thunderstorms in Wales. People built houses like this for hundreds of years in England so it's not that harebrained). It would make one heck of shed/club house though!
- dylanz 17y agoOne of my friends built a large community of affordable straw-bale housing in Afghanistan. The officials thought it was a joke, so came over and shot their machine guns into one of the buildings. The bullets didn't penetrate the walls, so they were impressed and gave them the thumbs up to go ahead.
- kirubakaran 17y agoObviously the building passed ISO-AK47 standard.
- LogicHoleFlaw 17y agoA pile of phone books makes a great backstop for bullets when loading and unloading firearms. I imagine that the straw-bale works under the same principle. Neat stuff.
- russell 17y agoThings that you need to be concerned about in CA, MO, and other places that have hurricanes, tornadoes, and earth quakes: rafter ties and joist ties to keep the roof from flying off and to make the framing a continuous unit. The framing needs to be bolted to the foundation. You dont want the thing to collapse in a 6.5 earthquake. I've had 2 houses that each survived a different one. Compare that with other parts of the world where a 6.5 leaves rubble for miles around. I would guess that bales of straw plus fireproof facing are more fire retardant than the wooden houses most of us live in.
- dxjones 17y agoI think the $5000 for supplies underplays the enormous investment required to build this home. 1500 hours @ 30/hrs manual labour per week (could you do more?) works out to 50 weeks ... one solid man year of construction Next question: What is required for ongoing maintenance and repair? By the way, as an alternative, if you devoted one full year's salary, could you buy a better home?
- redorb 17y agosomehow I don't think he thinks about time vs money as we do. I would be proud of this house; then again I live in a barn in Yukon,OK ;)
- ijuhytgjh 17y agoOr another way of looking at it - he saved 50weeks of $100/week gym membership and 50 weeks of activity holidays in rural wales.
- timdorr 17y agoI know this is barely related, but it reminds me of a quote about the Mac vs. PC argument. Paraphrased: Mac's are only more expensive than PCs if you consider the value of your time to be $0. Again, really off topic, but I like the quote :)
- pg 17y agoWhen I look at the pictures of this house, I have something like the feeling you get when you start to drink a glass of water and suddenly realize you were really dehydrated. I often feel it when I see handmade things. There's something missing in manufactured stuff. It's information poor.
- ryanwaggoner 17y agoI agree, and while I think part of it is the organic nature of the subject, I also think some of that feeling comes from that fantastic quality of the photography. It just looks like a fairytale.
- staunch 17y agoLet's just say that if you sent a letter to that place addressed to B. Baggins it wouldn't be returned.
- TomOfTTB 17y agoI think you make an important point. It looks great but obviously the guy who built it had an eye for visual design and put a lot of effort into finding the exact right location. Duplicating his setup would be next to impossible. Conceptually though you could take any old patch of land and build a log cabin with the same functionality and general feel of nature (first one that came up on google: http://www.lincolnlogs.com/askabe.html http://www.lincolnlogs.com/askabe.html)
- KWD 17y agoWhen looking at the design I immediately thought of a Yurt. I guess primarily due to the roof structure. In this case, he just built it into the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yurt There are actually several companies building modern yurts. It's one of those fleeting thoughts of escapism I often have that is about buying some land and putting a yurt on it.
- gdee 17y ago> It just looks like a fairytale. Well applied HDR[1] does that to photography. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging
- dylanz 17y agoPermaculture FTW
- netsp 17y agoI wish people could enjoy and appreciate a house like this or a self sufficient hobby farm, or a "down-shifting" lifestyle without it being part of some greater anti-industrial ideology. Why does eating locally need to be justified in terms of food miles or global warming? Why does the author here who has obviously taken on a very enjoyable & fulfilling project creating something beautiful, need to take a poke at manufactured housing as some sort of evil (which makes housing more affordable for other people). Why can't it just be that he doesn't like manufactured housing.
- enneff 17y agoYou ask an odd question, paraphrased: "Why can't he be some of the things he is, while not being others?" Part of the reason he's done it is because he has these views. You can't ask him to separate them out. And I can understand it, because I share some of his views. If anything, it's admirable that he's walking the walk as well as talking the talk. Some people do enjoy living 'off the grid' (so to speak) and aren't as radical as this guy. They just less likely to set up web sites about what they've done, as they've no motivation to promote their message (if they even have one).
- netsp 17y agoI'd prefer to stay away of calling him radical. Both building & living in that house seems pleasant to me and to many of the commentators here. As I suppose is implied above, I challenge the notion that in this case (and many others), ideas about ecologically sustainability really do logically imply that people should build their own houses, live off the grid, eat locally grown foods, make their own yoghurt etc. I think That the case is mixed (at best). I think that this is all besides the point anyway. I think that many people enjoy building their own houses, live off the grid, eat locally grown foods & make their own yoghurt. However, they seem to want these things to be moral imperatives, not just preferences. Superficially, it's similar to people that like to photograph unusual doors or meet descendants of historical characters. It gives them a framework to travel & meet people. I have no issues with that. But this case is problematic because it's political. it implies there are benefits to this far beyond the personal enjoyment of the individual. I think the house is beautiful. I appreciate that he is an ethical consumer with regards to his chosen building materials. But I reject the case that manufactured housing is bad.
- christofd 17y agoWell, why spend 250.000 on a home built out of wood framing and drywall? You can build it yourself with lumber from Home Depot and some specs. Plumbing and electrical aren't that hard to figure out. And making walls with drywall and insulation isn't that hard either. If you take a summer off work, you could probably build a decent house on your own for around 20.000 bucks. And that includes one foot apart floor joists (not the 16 inches common today) for stability. You first of course need the lot and somebody to come by to pour the foundation right. My two cents. However, I can't currently take a summer off.
- stcredzero 17y agohttp://www.shelter-kit.com/kits.php?kit=lofthouse http://www.shelter-kit.com/kits.php?kit=lofthouse A complete house-kit with outer shell, siding, roofing materials, doors, windows and all fasteners. Can be erected by 2 unskilled people in 2 weeks. Starts at $17,185 I do not work for Shelter-Kit. I would like to build one in Austin, though.
- christofd 17y agoThanks for the link. Very interesting. We need more ideas on how to break through this vicious cycle of paying that much for real estate. Look at the Amish - when an Amish couple marries, or needs an extension on a barn, the whole community gets together and builds a structure within days: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_raising http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barn_raising
- absconditus 17y agoA family estate with a few acres and a few homes that would eventually be paid off could be one solution.
- stcredzero 17y agoI played music at a wedding for a family that's doing this in rural Louisiana, where land is cheap. (It's the 3rd world.) They have a barn out back and a pool of 3 1980's Mercedes 240 Diesels, and they do all the work themselves. The house started as a 120 year old wood-sided cabin, and they built additions to it to make it much larger. (The additions look like they're part of the original, though!) The wedding was a dance. No wedding cake, just 500 of the most delicious cupcakes, baked by the bride, her mom, and the rest of the family. Party favors were home made jam. Lots of food that was grown by them. It was "Consume the Minimum, Produce the Maximum" all around. Replace money with knowledge, attention, and time.
- wenbert 17y agoI love this. I live near the equator so the walls and the flooring would have to do away if this was built from where I am at. It would be to hot to live in if this was built in Philippines -- it would have to be built above ground and made of bamboo.
- noonespecial 17y agoCheck out the planning and zoning page: http://www.simondale.net/house/planning.htm http://www.simondale.net/house/planning.htm That's insane (in the cool sense). It seems like you can basically build the house and if no one complains, no one will ever bother you. if someone does complain, you file for the permit as a "Retrospective Application", and it may still be approved. I live just outside of DC and did most of the building on our house. Every time I stuck a shovel in the ground there was some (often extremely clueless) "official" tittering over my shoulder about what fees and approvals I had to have in advance of applying for any permissions I might need to secure the professional opinion of some registered somethin-or-other that might pertain to something I might think of building. Its a severe understatement to say that this sort of thing is comically impossible where I live. Something tells me that policies more like these would go a very long way toward encouraging greener housing in this country.
- patio11 17y agoSomething tells me that policies more like these would go a very long way toward encouraging greener housing in this country Yes, but that would also result in people being able to build houses for $5,000 (plus one man-year of inexpert labor, granted), and there are a lot of people who would be discomfited by that, so I don't expect those policies to go anywhere. Yeah yeah, I know, I know, it has everything to do with public safety and nothing to do with the fact that everything touching housing, from designing to building to selling, is controlled by guilds. (Guilds which could be replaced pretty much wholesale by recent immigrants or other dirt-cheap non-expert labor. After all, if a non-expert can snap together freaking Bag End in the English countryside, how much guild-approved expertise do you really need?)
- lsb 17y agoYes; I'm sure if he were doing it in Camden or Shoreditch or Clapham (right on the outskirts of the capital), he would have gotten a lot of grief for it. Imagine, however, making this in West Virginia; that's tantamount to Wales, in comparison.
- Goladus 17y agoI am curious to know how well this house keeps out rodents and insects.
- KWD 17y agoI came across a place in Taos NM by accident several years ago called the Earthship. It does get you thinking about what could be possible if some of these ideas made it into mainstream housing. http://www.earthship.net/index.php http://www.earthship.net/index.php