Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Successful Tiny House !!

The Tiny House movement deserves some study as a sustainable housing strategy.

Historically, the biggest problem is finding a place to put your tiny house.  Zoning and building codes have made it nearly impossible to do legally.

The town of Spur, TX, made a conscious commitment to allow them, so a guy named Conor had one built and installed in Spur.

He documented his schedule and costs

Here's the detailed story with all the cost information, but I will summarize:

It cost a total of $47k, which includes the cost of the house built on a trailer of $24.7k.  He thinks that a Tumbleweed home would have been double that.

The best news is now his monthly cost of housing is just $4.21 for the property tax.   Utilities run about $227.  Food is on top of that.

Conor is completely happy with the final result, and gives kudos to the open-minded town of Spur:  "I really do applaud Spur for opening up their town to people like me and houses like this one."

There's one more hero in this story.  Tom Meyers is the building code official that prodded the IRC into eliminating the 120 sq. ft. minimum requirement for habitable space.


Other towns have seen the light, joining Spur recently is Walsenburg, CO, and Osprey, FL


To Conor and myself, paying lot rent of $200+ at a tiny house community just doesn't make any sense if you are trying to be self-reliant and minimize your long term expenses.  Eventually, that tiny house community will be eliminated, just like cities have been getting rid of mobile home parks since the 1970s.