New ways to build housing

Also grew up in 1000sq ft, 3br/1bath apartment. No dining room, just kitchen, nook and small living room.

My sister and I are close today, but when I was a teen and she was home from college trying to find an apartment, we almost had a lifetime-ending-never-talk-again fight due to bathroom conflict when she was in her first week of her new job. It was ugly, and I feel bad for not realizing the bind I put her in that day.
Yeah, if I was designing a starter house, I’d try to find a way to have a bath and a half in the budget but in the end, many people only have one bathroom even today. Scheduling and communication are key and obviously not typically done between siblings. I don’t actually remember too much grief over the bathroom. Thankfully, by the time I turned a teenager, we moved to a house that had a head and a stall shower in the basement.
 
We are at about 1400 SF plus a garage and a shed for 2 people. This is plenty of room for us. More space would just mean more cleaning. More than 1 bath is essential though. It avoids that stealth use of kitchen sink as urinal when "someone" hogs the 1 bathroom. :angel:
 
We have 1000 sq ft. I renovated and turned a 3 bed 1 bath into a 2 bed 2 bath (ensuite). It's enough for 2 of us.

We also have a full basement with a half bath and an extra bedroom for guests. It's also a band rehearsal space and a gym, so 1000 sq ft wouldn't be enough if we didn't have a basement.
 
I felt blessed as a child that, even though we had only one bathroom for 5, the business was attached to the house and, in an emergency, any of us could run next door and use the half bath (equivalent.)

I still live in a modernized version of that old house when on the mainland. Ironically, for over a week this spring, DW and I were running over to the business when tree roots clogged our plumbing. The REAL issue was not having a shower! Before the business opened, DW and I had to use the sink at the business for our daily ablutions. Not fun, but much better than most people had it 100 years ago.

ONE bathroom is SO much better than NO bathroom. Returning you now...
 
Marginal cost for the extra square footage?

The price of a house looks pretty linear with square footage, in the same category. So if you can add a few square feet for only the cost of materials, you're going to increase profit margin.

All the bureaucracy, regulations, inspections, environmental approvals, sign-offs, government filings at various levels, and other one-time expenses have probably gone from simple in the 50's to needing a dedicated team nowadays. And those expenses are the same for a 1200sf and a 2400sf house.

So why would a builder not add square feet to dilute the overhead and still get pricing at the same dollars per square foot?
 
Marginal cost for the extra square footage?

The price of a house looks pretty linear with square footage, in the same category. So if you can add a few square feet for only the cost of materials, you're going to increase profit margin.

All the bureaucracy, regulations, inspections, environmental approvals, sign-offs, government filings at various levels, and other one-time expenses have probably gone from simple in the 50's to needing a dedicated team nowadays. And those expenses are the same for a 1200sf and a 2400sf house.

So why would a builder not add square feet to dilute the overhead and still get pricing at the same dollars per square foot?
Yeah, we in the Islands have ended up with what have become referred to as "monster houses." Often times, these end up being rented to multi-families. The powers-that-be have finally figured this out and are attempting to stop the practice. Issues of parking and congestion as well as other issues I'm not aware of have wakened the gummint I guess. But the practice makes sense due to the horrendous costs (and time) of permitting.
 
ONE bathroom is SO much better than NO bathroom. Returning you now...

Not sure that is true from a child's perspective - at home there was frequent suffering waiting one's turn for the single bathroom, but when we visited our great-uncles' farm, their outhouse had THREE seat-holes. Such luxury!
 
Not sure that is true from a child's perspective - at home there was frequent suffering waiting one's turn for the single bathroom, but when we visited our great-uncles' farm, their outhouse had THREE seat-holes. Such luxury!
Why stop at 3? The Romans didn't. :)
travel-roman-toilets.jpg


Seriously, we lacked that 1/2 bath. It would have made all the difference in the world.
 
Not sure that is true from a child's perspective - at home there was frequent suffering waiting one's turn for the single bathroom, but when we visited our great-uncles' farm, their outhouse had THREE seat-holes. Such luxury!
I'd prefer to wait inside rather than go outside but YMMV!
 
Why stop at 3? The Romans didn't. :)
travel-roman-toilets.jpg


Seriously, we lacked that 1/2 bath. It would have made all the difference in the world.
The last house we actually owned had two full baths and 2 half baths. Rarely any waiting for our family of 5. True luxury! And a bit nicer than the Roman lack of privacy but YMMV.
 
The last house we actually owned had two full baths and 2 half baths. Rarely any waiting for our family of 5. True luxury! And a bit nicer than the Roman lack of privacy but YMMV.
I always chuckled at the idea of the corners. You know, you could have a nice conversation with your crap partner.

There are some interesting "interpretations" of this. Most of these common toilets had a trough in front which ran water. The idea was you dip the common sponge in them to wash it off before taking care of your business. (I won't link the photos, look it up.) YIKES!

Anyway, my dad was so sorry he didn't make it a 1 and 1/2 bath. He helped design it in 1956. Right after this time, the 1/2 bath became essential. I can see why.
 
Long ago, when I was in the Navy, I had occasion to use something almost exactly like that. Just two rows of toilets facing each other, about 5 toilets per row, in a large bathroom without any stalls, walls or other enclosure between them. So we all got to use the toilets communally. It was no place for shy people.
 
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The high cost of housing is problem in the USA. We often builds using the stick method where most of the house is built from scratch or near scratch at the site. But, there are other ways to build housing and supposedly it is cheaper.




There was/is a company in Australia called Force10. In 1991 they were building CAD houses that were rated for 155 mph wind loading. This was based on a 1x3m panel system. Shipped as a complete package in containers to the site.

Looked at getting one here in Florida or helping expand for US production. Cost for certification and compliance for old building requirements in the US made it impossible.

US Developers don’t want to allow innovation or change they don’t control.
 
Codes are one thing and can get intermingled with union politics. Well, at least in Chicago. I say this not to bash the unions -- I'm so glad my dad had union benefits. I just say it as a matter of fact. The unions in Chicago have resisted certain changes to the codes in the name of safety. They are not completely wrong. For example, THNN in conduit is safer than Romex (no nail punctures), and PVC DWV pipe burns fast, where copper won't unless it becomes an inferno.

But still, there's an underlying wink and nod to know that laying conduit or sweating copper are highly skilled jobs compared to PEX and Romex jockeys.

So, change comes slow in some jurisdictions.
 
The high cost of housing is problem in the USA. We often builds using the stick method where most of the house is built from scratch or near scratch at the site. But, there are other ways to build housing and supposedly it is cheaper.




I loved my 1953 750 sq ft house i bought in 1976 and owned until 1989. The largest house I owned was 1203 sq ft. (I did like thast the latter had a garage.) All my needs have been met in both houses.
 
as we near the decisions on a retirement location and home we've considered a "kit" house and found a nice-looking (at least on their website one: imaginekithomes.com
HOWEVER, when I found one I liked of the size I wanted, the kit, with the things I wanted included, was $245k. That was JUST the kit. There were all kinds of "things not included":

This is my research from May, 2023.

Things not included (from their website)
Items Not Included – All Forms of Labor. Electrical Components. Plumbing Components. Kitchens & Bathrooms Internal & External Stairs, Balustrades. Any Personal Choice Items such as Flooring, Window Coverings, Paint – as well as any additional items not listed in the “Inclusions”

And this from their website FAQ:
How much will the total price of my home be?

As a guide, if you double the kit price plus 10% it will give you an indication of the total cost. Our costs are for the manufacturing and supply of the frame for your home. Your budget will determine the contractors and materials you can use which affects the total cost of the constructed home.

With that the cost of the kit ($244,092) * 2 + 10% = $537,002 JUST for the house if we used that particular kit.


There is still site prep and cost of property to be considered.

So even the kit houses are pretty darn expensive, IMO.
 
Problem here is the "CREATED NEED" by the Advertising gurus. They teach all of us that bigger, state of the art, gorgeous, standouts etc is WHAT WE ALL NEED! Enter PROFIT, builders want to get richer quicker, Cities want to maintain exclusivity (minimum two acres, no fences....Etc), we are more mobile, everyone wants ONLY THE BEST ("what do you mean I cannot afford it? Just tell me how much per month"!).
Add Cities that want to preserve character read high prices, exclusivity), City fathers & Building Dept employees who can only wield power over any & all of us, politically motivated zoning laws, jealous , feuding neighbors, rest of us trying our best to game all of the above....!etc etc. Only the uber rich can get what they want, rest of us have to settle with "this is the best you can get, never mind what you want/need".
 
Oh, I don't know. We got what we wanted and needed in 1992, and we're still happy with it. I expect we'll live here until they carry me out. Is it the perfect house? No, not at all. It was built in 1857 and has all the problems (and costs) associated with a house that old. But we get to live right on the harbor, our neighbors are nice, and it has all the space and features we could ever desire. In my view, people should stay off the internet, stop comparing themselves to others and just choose things them make them happy
 
Frances... where are you building? It looks like they are listed in Aus$... which is .66 to US.. so 537K is 354K...
 
The high cost of housing is problem in the USA. We often builds using the stick method where most of the house is built from scratch or near scratch at the site. But, there are other ways to build housing and supposedly it is cheaper.





Prefab homes made of concrete are very common down in Florida. In The Villages, almost all the new homes being built are prefab. They can get the outside of a home up very fast!
 
We've been greatly blessed by the great Lord to have built multiple new homes, (completely ourselves) over the years. I grew up in terribly crappy trailers after 5 yrs old. Never, ever again! Regardless of what you call them. Trailer, modular, enhanced manufactured. None are worth the cost. We've built stick, Sips, timber frame, and log. We kept coming back to log. We built three log. Our current, last is a log cabin under 900sq ft. Remote n off grid. We live in extreme northern weather. Log is by far the most comfortable for our state. The new innovation homes have SO many problems... roofs, windows, doors to mechanicals. They are in NO way more cost effective. Sometimes....the shell may go up quicker, ( not usually) but the rest is such a pain the whole process is slower and problematic! The majority of building supplies are still built around the stick built designed home. We never built over 1700sq ft and received considerably flack over the small sizes. The longest sell time was two months on a log home and that was 2012. The recession hit our state several years later than the rest of the US. All but one home had steel roof and all had a lot of custom details. One can be very creative when designing, building your own home. New ways of building always intrigued me. The one new innovation I wanted to try but never did get to was, Superior foundations. Off site built concrete foundation walls. Reason being they would only sell and install themselves. Individuals could not install. We used built trusses on all but our current. We built our own on this log home. Frankly because trusses are horridly trash. The wood used is so bad, it's unbelievable. The wood quality over the 30+ years we've built has gotten to the point of barely usable. Just one reason we use log. One of these years, hopefully soon, we'll finish our small lumber mill.
 
I've been reading StrongTowns and Charles Marohn for several years now. His latest book touches on all the ancient sins of US housing, as well as ancient remedies.

He mentions a town in MA that only has 5-6 properties that pass all the rules in 100k people. The entire place is an exemption to their own rules. Town in IN has pre-approved single and multi family designs for free on abandoned lots. Going like hotcakes, the number one builder in the town is... the residents themselves!

Realist look at the past, how we got here, both economics and politics. Hard optimist look at future of housing and options is rest of book. Lots of nuance.
 

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