How about a really small house.....

[AlaskaJack]

Mike, The "Luv Shack" eh? .... Lol. A buddy of mine built one of those, and well.... uh, nevermind, it's a loooong story. (in the interest of brevity, he got into lots of trouble)

[Podunkfla]

wow...what a terrific thread!
I'm a 'small house' veteran...I lived for three years in a ~510 s.f. rental house after I moved from the 3-floor city Victorian I'd spent 13 years renovating.

Yes... Gaelen... Welcome to the to the forum! Nice bunch of folks here, as you may have already seen. I've built a few small houses over the years. And, I have a little 12 x 16' one in the back yard now I am renovating... It was free for moving it. I have added a small 8 x 10' bedroom and even smaller bathroom on back. The house was used as a little Barber shop for about 70 years. Fun project.

[dwgriff1]

Mike,

There are all sorts of ways around the rules (without getting in trouble).

Solutions vary -- be creative. We are thinking of building a "guest house." Multi generational living in the same house or on the same parcel of land is going to be a sure future trend. There are lots of solutions to preserve privacy and sanity!

I was cautioned years ago, that you can live cheap retired, but you can't have ANY debt. My experience agrees with that assessment.

dave

[Elumia]

The trend since the 70's has been bigger and bigger houses (and smaller families to boot). I was reading an article in the doctors office the other day that said average houses had gone from about 1500 sq ft to 2400. Another interesting point was the boom in storage centers. They basically didn't exist in the 70's, now you can't drive a few miles without seeing them. The irony is that they are mostly full of stuff that isn't worth the annual rent on the space. How many people do you know have so much stuff in their garage that you can't fit a car in it. Our culture of consumption is driving us to hoard the cheap stuff we buy at the discount store.

Imagine the energy savings if we all heated and cooled a few hundred less square feet. I recall reading or hearing that nearly 50% of our energy usage in this country is for heating and cooling, but we get focused on the energy cost of the gas we put in our cars instead. Those bigger houses also contribute to spawl which in turn requires us to drive further.

My biggest beef is all those hollywood/political types that live in mansions, fly private jets and tell us how to live "green". Just because they have the money to buy carbon credits doesn't make them any better that the average Hummer driving suburbanite. Really, when does riding in a limo to the airport constitute carpooling?

Ok off my soapbox.

Mark

[Fenlason]

While there are plenty of reasons to go with a smaller house. There are other ways to get lower utility bills. My own house is definately not what one would call small...although it is not huge. The basic house is 1,988 sg ft. [which just happens to be the year we started building. ]


There are times I wish it was bigger.. yet there are ways it could use space more efficiently. While building this [we built it ourselves] we lived in an OLD house trailer. One that was a little over 200 sq ft. in size. It was horrible.

Our current house in an underground dome. It is 2 stories. We enter on the north side.. to the second floor which is where our kitchen, living room, and kitchen are. Down stairs we have our bedroom, bathroom, utility room, and gym. The south side is mostly all glass. It was built as we went.. so no morgage.

We live in Central Maine.. and I forget the heating degree days for the area.. but it is significant. We heat the house with less than a cord of wood a year. Most often mostly pine. We basically clean up dead pine from our 40 acres. While we have never left it for more than 10 days in the winter.. we could leave it without added heat for the whole winter.

While we do not have the the same cooling needs as many of the rest of you. it still hits the 90's here in the summer. The bedroom rarely gets above 70.

This place is naturally cool in the summer and warm in the winter. I have more light and windows than most above ground homes. It is quiet .. snug and safe. It requires much less mantainance that a "regular" house. I don't worry about storm damage and something that Nightcap would appreciate.. it is even zirky proof.

take care
glenn

[wolfix]

I love reading housing stories such as yours....

" It was built as we went.. so no morgage. "

The dome homes were one of the first ideas I looked into when I decided to go small.... It's just been put on the backburner for the main reason of not being able tofind a lot that it would be suitable for.......

[Fenlason]

Wolfix:

I too feel that a house's design has to match the site. The surrounding climate is also important. Our house as it is, would not work as it does, in all parts of the country [or the world].

I had looked at a more conventional dome, at one point [if you can call any dome conventional] I also liked the idea of the passive solar designs of " The Shelter Institute" and I also like the idea of going underground. I pretty much drove my wife crazy drawing up plans. By the time I got her all talked into a particular design.. I was off on another.

I ended up deciding I wanted to build a passive solar underground dome.. but I did not know how possible that would be. I eventually came across a company in Co. hmm I forget their name at the moment. They had a few shapes of metal beams to work with. You could design what you wanted with these shapes .. and they would do the engineering. The beams themselves were fabricated in Az.

The different radius of beams allowed domes of 12' ,20 or I think 26' in height. You could do full domes.. or barrel volts.. or a stretched dome as long as you wanted. There was a bit of variety.

These domes are not geodesic [sp] the support beams are set up more like the ribs of an umbrella. There is a compression ring and the top.. but the ribs go from this all the way to the foundation. From here the beams are covered with a a wire mesh.. like you would use in a slab. and burlap. Then a lot of rebar. Our particular house had 3 miles of rebar in the shell.

From there it has concrete sprayed on it. You then waterproof and then insulate... then backfill.

Our house is dug into the side of a hill... sort of at the top. We had hoped to set it a little lower in the ground, but hit a lot of ledge. From the north side... the first floor is below ground level. The south side was dug out so that the lower floor opens out on at ground level..and the earth that was dug out yhere.. was used to back fill the rest of the house. The minimum amount of earth we currently have is 2 ft thick at the very top.. and that increases as you move out from the top.

oops time to leave.

take care
glenn

[dwgriff1]

I built a small house 30 years ago. While the style I built is hopelessly arcaic, no one would ever confuse it with a ticky tacky box, which, I am told, is it's enduring charm.

Mine is story and a half, with the first set 4' underground. All tile floors. Easy to heat and cool. Weird little place, but comfortable.

I knew a young architect once who suggested that a house should be about 700 square feet (this was some years ago -- he might change that number now). That would be room for basic day to day living. Then they would have a "barn" next door. That barn would be equipped as the family needed. It could be a party barn, it could be a craft barn, it could be a shop, but the space the occupied most of the time would be quite small.

I always wondered about a small house with a full finished garage: ceramic tile floor, fireplace, the works, for the two times a year when you need more space.

dave

[wolfix]

I always wondered about a small house with a full finished garage: ceramic tile floor, fireplace, the works, for the two times a year when you need more space.

dave

I had a friend who inherited his parents really nice house with a nice steel building. His father took excellent care of the steel building and had it insulated with that foam insulation........ My buddy rented the house out to a local doctor and moved into the steel building that also housed his parents travel trailer. He hooked into the water supply and septic system...... He then divided the building off into about a 26x36 with walls. He heated this area with a wood burner and then when he needed supplemental heat he used the trailer..... He parked his car and moto bike in this heated area.
He had plenty of room for a pool table and several "bar' coolers that housed adult beverages.....
It was truly a guys place.......

[dwgriff1]

THAT is innovation.

When we can no longer live alone, I have wondered about a barn that holds the travel trailer -- instant kitchen/bath, with a bit of extra space to sit and gawk, plus utility and a bit of storage.

It is workable, and if done right, still just looks like a barn.

dave

[dmb90260]

THAT is innovation.

When we can no longer live alone, I have wondered about a barn that holds the travel trailer -- instant kitchen/bath, with a bit of extra space to sit and gawk, plus utility and a bit of storage.

It is workable, and if done right, still just looks like a barn.

dave

This is what you asked for: http://www.rvdoctor.com/chalet.html

There is a web site for it that I cannot find right now, but I will look for it.

I live in a 750 sq ft house that is worth so much I may have to sell it and find my own chalet spot somewhere.

[Endo]

This is what you asked for: http://www.rvdoctor.com/chalet.html

There is a web site for it that I cannot find right now, but I will look for it.

I live in a 750 sq ft house that is worth so much I may have to sell it and find my own chalet spot somewhere.

Wow that really is pretty cool. It looks like a regular cabin/home. A great way to utilize the RV all year.

[apratt]

This is what you asked for: http://www.rvdoctor.com/chalet.html

There is a web site for it that I cannot find right now, but I will look for it.

I live in a 750 sq ft house that is worth so much I may have to sell it and find my own chalet spot somewhere.

Wow that really is pretty cool. It looks like a regular cabin/home. A great way to utilize the RV all year.

This thread has been very interesting. Myself I would love a small house but a very big shop. But my wife... no way would she have anything to do with a small house.

[dwgriff1]

that is one good example.

dave

[Oasis Maker]

Wow good looking small cart and use full too during the travel. i didn't see even such cart before

Mike, I believe we have a spammer here. How do you zap'em?

Scott G.