Tiny house build (on wheels)

Hi all,

I've had some requests to post the build of my tiny house. I'll keep it short and to the point. When my wife and I were just discussing dating we talked about the idea of living in a nontraditional house. We talked about a lot of things from shipping container homes, earth-ship style structures, and other off grid homes. I told her I'd spent some time researching tiny houses, specifically those on a wheeled trailer bases because of the ability to move it in the event of disasters, easier to put them off grid, and they are not governed by codes, only by zoning.

We decided to have a experienced builder prefab the shell so that we could start with 4 walls and a roof. This would ideally enable us to build on the inside without the worry of the season or weather outside. We sent the builder a blueprint of what our ideal house would look like and he went to work on it.



$29,000 seems like a lot for what we we're gonna get but we figured if we outgrew it we could always use it as an income generator (AirB&B rental ect). We estimated that we could finish it all out for $50,000 at the end of the day. Other houses similar we're selling finished out for $90k. Once again it seems like a lot but when you look at some of the finer RVs on the market they are really up there in price.

Which brings up another question. Why not just buy a cheap RV and be done with it? Well, to answer that I could go into a lot of the technical research we did, but suffice it to say that most RVs are not designed for human occupancy beyond 30 days at a time. They are built for people to go on a vacation and then come home and park it. You'll see cans of "damp-rid" in a lot of camping and RV stores. You have to do a lot of humidity management in a small space, and if you don't, you'll be faced with mold problems pretty quickly. The other major factor of why not an RV really just came down to personal taste. We wanted something that looked permanent, not temporary, and not like "someone who's not from around here". We also wanted something that would be well insulated from the weather, another thing that RVs can be notoriously bad about.

So we waited. A few weeks in Doug (our builder) started sending us pictures. Then we started to see something really cool take shape.

 

$50k for 204 sq. ft. and you’re doing all of the work yourself except trailer and framework?

Damn.

I’m a long time follower of this concept, I’m curious to see the outcome given your details.

Congrats on the build.

 

Very thick open cell spray foam over top of the roughed in plumbing and electrical.


Choice of stains. We picked the 3rd one counting left to right. The reddish one.

 

Love the tiny house show

 

Cool

 

Very Cool

 

Shell complete.

 

Subbed

Have you tried to pull it with your taco yet?

 

See post #1

 

Sub'd

 

She does.

2005 Chevy Silverado 3500 Duramax Dually 4x4 Crew cab.

There are so many reasons why this over RV. A few I already said: More Permanent, better insulation, gets around building codes.

Otherwise I'd just say overall it feels more like a house. Everything can be built to a better standard. Nothing has to be super lightweight and cheapy feeling. Real wood, real double paned windows, more light, it's really about quality of life. It's just better in a tiny house.

 

Flowing your other rebuild (5lug) and I’m excited to your work in this. It looks great!! My gf and I have been thinking about building one as well.

Not to hijack but here is my rough design. How doable? Won’t know till we get there if it happens.

 

Looks good, but I'd urge you to maximize the house on the trailer base. If you want decks and such you can always build them later and take them apart when you want to move, you only get to do this for once so make it count. I would spend some time on YouTube looking at the tiny house living channel, they have lots of interviews with owners and walk-arounds inside. They talk about everything including price and land selection. That's a really important part.