
Sustainable Micro Home that Costs Less Than $30,000 - hansy
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/ian-lorne-kent-nomad-micro-home
======
brudgers
Pretty pictures.

() open steps over the food preparation area is not particularly sanitary due
to what can fall off the bottom of a person's shoes, socks and feet...neither
is using a food preparation surface as a tread.

() Considering falls are the principal mode of fatal and serious domestic
injuries, no handrails on a winding stair that the occupant will be navigating
to use the toilet in the middle of the night is unconscionable design.

() The simple task of making the bed becomes a gymnastic exercise performed
without a net.

() Because it has fenestration on three sides, it's not efficient in terms of
footprint. The safety, hygiene and convenience compromises are unnecessary - a
larger footprint could be equally cost effective in single application and
more environmentally sound by allowing denser development (e.g. as a
grouphouse, rowhouse or flat in a multistory aggregate.

~~~
anonymous
I think your first two points are mostly trivial to address - put a board
going beneath all the steps and add a handrail.

The bed seems a poor idea to me too though. Maybe if it were just for one
person or if you used a futon that you'd roll up. Isn't a futon more in-line
with the micro home concept anyhow?

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aiiane
The thing that stood out most as missing to me is a shower. Sure, I suppose
you could do that at a gym, but still - having at least a shower is a pretty
big quality-of-living improvement (or lack thereof).

~~~
shazow
The bathroom is indeed a shower, per this photo:
[http://www.nomadmicrohomes.com/uploads/3/2/7/6/3276237/51529...](http://www.nomadmicrohomes.com/uploads/3/2/7/6/3276237/5152913_orig.jpg)

via
[http://www.nomadmicrohomes.com/gallery.html](http://www.nomadmicrohomes.com/gallery.html)

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lazyjones
This probably competes with the IKEA houses announced in the past few years.
But the best concept for modular, mobile micro homes in my opinion is still
the Nagakin Tower
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakagin_Capsule_Tower](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakagin_Capsule_Tower)).

Imagine taking your home cube with you to another big city and having it
attached to a fixed base (your choice of floor and orientation as available),
or even just relocating to be in walking distance from your new office.

------
pyre
\- No temperature control. This could only work in areas with moderate
temperatures year-round. You probably wouldn't want one of these in Arizona or
Montana.

\- Seems like it would have the same tenuous relationship with tornadoes that
trailer homes/parks do.

\- Lack of a divider between the stairs and the kitchen makes it seem like it
would be too easy to accidentally knock things off of the shelf or counter
while going up the stairs. I especially don't like that the counter turns into
a stair without any sort of clear dividing line.

~~~
stcredzero
If you made this out of plywood/polystyrene sandwich and gave it a slightly
more aerodynamic shape, you could probably arrange to have this quite securely
anchored, depending on the ground where you are moving. The hyper insulation
of such materials would also do a lot to alleviate the climate control issues.
You'd want to arrange for shade to control solar heating in warm climates.
Also, such a small house would be easier to cool using solar and wind power.

Your third objection probably kills this, though. I'd just make the place 5'
longer.

~~~
angersock
There also does not appear to be a shower.

~~~
asciimo
The bathroom _is_ the shower.
[http://www.nomadmicrohomes.com/uploads/3/2/7/6/3276237/51529...](http://www.nomadmicrohomes.com/uploads/3/2/7/6/3276237/5152913_orig.jpg)

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nowarninglabel
If you are into this kind of thing,
[http://www.reddit.com/r/tinyhouses](http://www.reddit.com/r/tinyhouses) has a
modestly active community.

I've recently built a geodome structure and am working on a tiny house, which
will probably end up like this wonderful abode
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toFBj9qBLQo](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toFBj9qBLQo)

Small is beautiful.

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gremlinsinc
Make it modular and expandable, have like a 'base house' with the kitchen, 1st
bath, 1st bed, and living room then then add the ability to add Bedrooms, and
Bathrooms as 'modules' \-- basically a house building block system, --that
would be cool.

~~~
malandrew
This is a really cool idea. It would be awesome if the walls were also modular
enough that you can take the glass doored walls off the original structure and
put them on the new pieces you purchase.

~~~
gremlinsinc
yeah definitely -- you could even potentially pick which wall to slide the
'window panels' into, so you could move your windows to a different wall
entirely.

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robmil
Isn't the problem that, while the house may cost $30,000, the land on which it
would have to reside will inevitably cost far more than that?

~~~
ctdonath
No. A couple minutes with zillow.com or trulia.com will show you lots
available for well under $10,000. Sure, they won't exactly be in premium
locations, but with some work you can find some that are desirable & decent.
I've seen some under $2000 just outside Atlanta, rural half-acre lots close to
rivers & lakes.

~~~
VLM
The tech inside the house visually appears to be mobile home tech not self
contained RV tech. So you'll need the $10K septic field, the $10K electric
power line, maybe natgas/propane for heating/cooking, a $5K and up water well
or $10K to connect to city water if available, it adds up.

(edited to add I forgot to add the cost of a foundation, in the south the
freeze line is like 2 inches, but where I live I believe its 4-5 feet, so
you're already spending 90% of the cost of a full basement, may as well finish
it off and have a basement, but thats another $10K perhaps for something this
small?)

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mcgain
What is sustainable about a home that you can't cook in?

~~~
mediocregopher
Living in a hurricane state I've learned that it's possible to cook nearly
anything on a grill.

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SwellJoe
I think many of these kinds of designs are very expensive, and often not as
sustainable as I'd like.

When I finally settle down and build my own tiny house, I will likely start
from an existing structure. Either a classic RV (like an Airstream of Avion)
or a shipping container, and build up from there. It'll still end up costing
about $15k-$30k, but I'd also like to reuse old materials wherever possible;
not so much to save money (as I have a decent income), but to reduce waste and
environmental impact. All of these "sustainable" building designs always use
so much newly manufactured material. It makes it somewhat less impressive, to
me. Another option might be natural building materials; cob, earth bag, etc.
I've only recently started learning about them. Though they have other
issues...they take of a lot of space, and often make it more difficult to
build up, when you need more space. Tiny houses built with conventional modern
building materials can be quite tall without a lot of extra effort. At the
very least, a loft bedroom is pretty useful in building with a smaller
footprint.

~~~
205guy
I think old RVs are flimsy and poorly insulated, and good ones hold their
value and can still be used as vehicles. The idea of recycling shipping
containers is really just a designer's dream--you only ever see new-looking
containers in their images. Decomissioned containers are probably rusty and/or
bent/damaged and thus unsuitable for a dwelling--if they were good enough for
living in, they're probably still usable for shipping. And I haven't done the
math, but coverting a shipping container to a living space (insulation,
plumbing+electric, doors+windows) seems like more waste than recycling the
steel into a new container.

Cob/earth and/or locally sourced logs are great from a sustainability point of
view (though not available in all locations), but they don't make portable
housing. I would think that a house such as this, with its small size wouldn't
be too expensive even if made with sustainably harvested wood and other
building materials--you could also substitute recycled building materials.

~~~
SwellJoe
I don't disagree with anything you've said. I'm very familiar with RVs (I've
been living and traveling in a motorhome for five years), and their
limitations. And, you're right about shipping containers, generally speaking.
But, I've met folks over the years who have successfully built a modern,
energy efficient, home inside of the shell of all of these things, often with
reused components (though insulation is one of those things that degrades with
age and has developed dramatically in effectiveness in recent years, so it's
usually new). And, of course, energy efficient appliances are a relative new
invention; so they're also usually new. So, re-use is much more limited than
I'd like.

I also know some folks who've built tiny houses on trailers; this one is
10x10, which makes it not street legal. It'd need a wide load permit and a
good travel plan, in order to move it. I like the idea of an updated RV
because I could haul it with my truck, even if I'm not regularly traveling
with it (I'd rather have a motorhome for regular travel). But, many tiny
houses built from scratch also have that property.

There are trade-offs in any construction. I probably should just say this is
not the house I would build, when I build a tiny house (and I will build a
tiny house, at some point). There are several reasons why it isn't.

And, speaking of re-used vs. newer/better materials, I've become somewhat
enamored of structural insulated panels. There are a couple of folks who've
built tiny houses with these materials, getting them custom cut for their
needs, and it's pretty cool to see how fast a house can go up, and how
efficient it can be once built. I don't know if I'll got that route, either.
Compromises all over the place...

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segmondy
Or you can move to michigan and buy a house for $30k.

~~~
ExpiredLink
... plus the parcel.

~~~
cschmidt
Well, the median house price in Detroit looks to be about $40k at the
moment... including the parcel.

[http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Detroit-Michigan/market-
tr...](http://www.trulia.com/real_estate/Detroit-Michigan/market-trends/)

~~~
fsckin
Lots <10 miles from downtown Detroit are in the $1k range.

------
honestcoyote
Pretty to look at it but deeply impractical. Others have described the faults
better than I could, so here's a couple of builders, who have houses actually
in production, which beats this micro house in both price and practicality.

Scott Stewart builds some interesting designs and most of what he sells is
under $30k. His modular design at $8k per module has some potential.

[http://www.youtube.com/user/scottstew1/videos](http://www.youtube.com/user/scottstew1/videos)

Or there's this house, 12' x 24', for 20k. Not a modern design, but it looks
quite liveable and is more practical than the 30k micro.

[http://www.sugarloafsmalls.com/](http://www.sugarloafsmalls.com/)

Of course, there's always Tumbleweed but their prices tend to be around $50k
if you have them build it.

I'd highly recommend Tiny House Blog if you find this type of house design
interesting.

[http://tinyhouseblog.com/](http://tinyhouseblog.com/)

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pessimizer
For the people objecting to an open staircase over the counter - I'm pretty
sure the only reason there isn't more to the stairs is because this is a
display model, and building the stairs that way lets you _see the stairs_.

------
lucaspiller
I saw this the other day, it seems slightly more practical:

[http://www.hivehaus.co.uk/](http://www.hivehaus.co.uk/)

It can also be upgraded as you need / can afford more space.

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raphinou
The open stairs going over the kitchen (!!), and the bed with nearly no
protection barrier are two bad points that strike me in the prototype

~~~
volune
Protective barrier? For falling out of bed?

~~~
pyre
... and immediately down the stairs.

It's not like people don't fall out of bed from time to time. I'd rather not
have to include "down the stairs" in the story.

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newman314
Couple missing things that I see in this: cooling/heating, electrical, missing
shower etc.

I entertain fantasies about living in a small home like this but the reality
is this is only for one or two people. It rapid breaks down when you try to
expand beyond that.

------
usaphp
Quite dangerous to sleep like that, right over the stairs...You can easily
fall down. Also it looks like its going to be hard to get in/out of the bed.

~~~
stcredzero
_> Quite dangerous to sleep like that, right over the stairs_

Just add a safety rail. EDIT: Ah, there is a safety rail, but it should be
extended so you have to get out of bed on the end.

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eliteraspberrie
If these become popular, I imagine the term "home robbery" will take on a new
meaning when people literally steal your little home.

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wehadfun
I'm being blocked buy what is this. Another glorified card board box, with no
bathroom, crap kitchen, BS heat, imaginary AC

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robotic
Isn't this just a fancy mobile home?

~~~
ISL
Yes. Sometimes mobile homes are a good idea.

~~~
mhurron
$30,000 for 100sqft doesn't seem like a good idea though.

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snorkel
... For certain definitions of the word "house" this is a 30k house.

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ffrryuu
And they will still sell it for 1 million in Silicon Valley.

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ffog
That bed is not good for sex.

~~~
ffog
I don't know about you but I enjoy life and the bed placement is cramped for
anything but sleeping.

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mkramlich
This is great but adding a shower would be a huge improvement towards making
it a more feasible choice.

Because as a general rule: every day I need to sleep, eat/drink,
urinate/defecate and shower/bathe. Enable _all_ those functions and you have a
compelling product/price.

~~~
SwellJoe
As someone else mentioned in another comment, it may be a "wet bath" as found
in smaller RVs and on boats. The whole bathroom converts to a shower,
basically, by having all surfaces water-tight. It's a very efficient use of
space, but very few larger RVs have them, because they aren't considered
comfortable by some; keeping them dry and clean is reportedly an issue.

I've been thinking about tiny houses for years (and I've live in a motorhome
for about five years), and I think I would prefer to build slightly larger and
have a nice bath and shower. But, in other regards, small is beautiful.

