I was wondering that myself. I fantasize about plopping a house down out in the desert, but their video shows a crane used to unfold it. By the time you get all the heavy machinery out there to prep the land and assemble the structure you're most of the way to just building something unique.
>but their video shows a crane used to unfold it. By the time you get all the heavy machinery out there to prep the land and assemble the structure you're most of the way to just building something unique.
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But many municipalities prohibit it because if you make housing too cheap the "wrong kind of people" might move in. In the desert you shouldn't have problems though.
The Boxabl house folds up much more compact and in their render at least it is being delivered behind a pickup truck. So it seems they are solving a different problem and might be able to get these things into places a large tractor with an extra-wide load might not be able to access. Though that is negated somewhat if you need a crane to deploy it as the video shows.
It doesn't have to be. They have a video where he hits the exterior with a propane torch - not all construction materials are the same. These appear to be quite well constructed and as long as they have figured out how to prevent air infiltration at the joints once it's unfolded and fully assembled these should be far more energy efficient than the vast majority of tract housing being mass thrown up.
Once you have found the contractor to do all that, you’re all the way…and off the end of the runway with two points of failure and no single responsibility when things don’t line up.
And the contractor is only making overhead and profit on half the work of a tiny budget which means that you are not a priority…even if the construction cycle was flat which it isn’t.
The efficiency of the market is why people don’t build this way much. As Heinlein says every generation thinks it invented sex. They think they invented modular housing too I think.
My friend and I were having a similar fantasy of putting places like that all over the western US so we started with a one-off project to build a tiny house so that it can just be “plopped” down (or rather rolled in).
How big were you thinking? Something like 400 SF? Or a proper house?
As I said in another comment on this thread I think it’s possible to build something totally custom for a similar budget (200-250 psf) as long as it’s on a trailer because you avoid most of the code and inspection issues in several western states by putting it on wheels.
Still working on the interior but this house is built better than my actual house in a high-cost market in California. It is super tiny though (200 sf and that includes the loft).
Possibly that small, but I'm a family of five so sleeping that many quickly becomes a problem. Bunk beds and squeezing in are fine but we're +1 over what almost every dwelling considers family-sized.
I hadn't considered a trailer because that usually requires a commitment to owning a huge truck. But are these trailers you are referring to more semi-permanent?
Yeah, agreed, I've had so many conversations about this where people like the idea in concept but when you hear about people actually living in these it quickly becomes clear that it doesn't work for some folks. Specifically, though, in the 400 SF version that we'd like to build next (assuming we're able to actually sell the smaller one we're currently building) it would be on a 30-foot trailer and actually have two sleeping lofts. In that model, a minimalist family of 4 (minimalist, he says, as if!) could totally fit with the two adults in one loft and the two kids in another. At 3 children you start getting more difficult, but I'm sure you could do a 600 SF house, but then a trailer large enough to build such a thing becomes difficult to move.
Re needing a truck, plenty of folks tow tiny houses so that's no problem assuming you don't want to constantly move it. If you wanted to be truly mobile I personally question whether a tiny house really is the right vehicle (ha!) for that lifestyle. And the trailer we're using has jacks, which stabilize the trailer so, no, it's not semi-permanent, but when you jump around in ours you can't feel it moving at all. We also had a thought about adding a skirt to the trailer itself to increase curb appeal if someone purchasing it is going to leave it fixed in one location, but that's for when/if we sell. Gotta finish the interior first.
Semi-permanent trailers are common. Most camper trailers are not designed to go cross country - they are for the family who does a couple in-state vacations every summer. (at the cost of fuel a mini-van + hotel room is the same price as a truck + camper if you drive for 10 hours every day - that is assuming you have the truck and camper anyway and so there is zero cost to buying it)
It depends on the State, but in most parts of Oz, you need a Building Permit, then a Certificate of Occupancy to be able to live there.
The exception appears to be where there is already an approved dwelling on the land, and even then a Caravan can only be used temporarily (eg in your example of temporary AirBNB accommodation).
I know because I've just lost exactly this battle with the local council.
Thought the same about the crane. Surely there is a way you could adjust these to avoid the crane? As in, have a pulley mechanism that could be built into the frame to lower the floor? And roof panels that slide across rather than fold over?
But I guess you need to deliver the thing, and that means truck and crane anyway, unless they're towed to site and the trailer is part of it. Couldn't slide it off a trailer without damaging it. Unless you reinvent the trailer which significantly ramps up your costs.
There's a render on the site where a regular looking pickup truck tows it to a site, then it unfolds itself magically. The video of an actual unit had the crane assist. Elon's house aside the product seems to be mostly vaporware so who knows what it actually requires.
