Insane Idea of the Week - Tiny Home or Park RV as a Home Addition....

I can already see Paul shaking his head saying "dammit Brian, you've been talking about adding on to your house for years, JUST DO SOMETHING!!!"

But I am making progress. I had a few builders come out and give us quotes. One idea was to add a room outside of the existing house foundation. Turns out that one tiny room would cost almost as much as finishing the entire basement. Makes sense, as you need a foundation, surveys, engineering, an architect, and more stuff.

So I started thinking outside the box and I found this....

https://www.parkmodelsdirect.com/

That's only $25k. It is called a Park Model RV and I no idea it existed before now. I know about Tiny Houses, but these seem to be a bit more tuned to real life.

So here's where the insane idea comes in. I have a concrete foundation beside the house that was poured with a foundation in mind, but never started. Buy Park Model RV (ideally have it custom made without a kitchen), drop it on the concrete pad, have a local contractor modify it to connect it to our house, and boom, a mega size master suite that should be far less hassle than a custom home addition.

Of course I have no idea how our local zoning would view this "addition". But right now I am just in the "crazy idea" phase to see just what else I can go with the money.

Just came here to shake my head!

No matter what you do, it's still a trailer built on a trailer frame. 

If I was a buyer, I'd run away fast. 

You can buy the largest Home Depot tool shed and try something similar. Twice the square footage for half the price. 

Tiny Homes are are truly bizarre phenomenon. 

SVreX said:

Just came here to shake my head!

An illustration of Paul as he read the post:

BTW, technically virtually ALL Tiny Houses are Park Model RVs.   They are not houses (can't be because if the building code). 

I would vote for a similarly sized but completely different sort of RV, and that you make it "dock" to the house in that spot:  

You can use it as an extension of your living space most of the time, and when the zombies come, you won't even need to go outside to get to your apocalypse rig!

slefain said:

SVreX said:

Just came here to shake my head!

An illustration of Paul as he read the post:

 

That's funny!

No, I am not disappointed. Actually, I totally approve of creativity. 

I just think YOU may disappointed in a Tiny House one day if you ever come to sell the house and find you have decreased your property value. 

SVreX said:

Tiny Homes are are truly bizarre phenomenon. 

I have to agree with you there.  Most of the tiny houses I've seen on the TV shows take a heavy duty vehicle to tow it.  Not something I want to be pulling all over the US.  Why not just buy a travel trailer for much less?     

I have seen some "storage sheds" that are now being "built to code".   I think they are pushing these to compete against the "not to code" tiny homes.   

I just took a trip down to Greenwood, SC and took the scenic route back.  I noticed several locations that had travel trailers set up in a small cluster.  These could have been hunting camps.  The counties around here do not want you living in RVs.   I guess they would rather you be homeless living under a bridge or in the woods in a plastic tarp shelter.                   

In reply to SVreX :

Yeah, it is possible, but considering I live behind a car wash and only 200' from a main rail line crossing, we ain't got far to fall.

We kind of got the idea from our friend that lives in Cabbagetown. They pretty much have a tiny "compound" they've built over the years. Behind their house is a construction office trailer that they fixed up as a guest house. Beside that is an old carriage house that is their art space / garden shed. In the middle is a garden courtyard. The whole thing is walled off by a 7' tall brick and rock wall.

Oh, and I had already thought about the jumbo Home Depot shed idea as a homeschool space....

As for tiny houses, our city will probably be the first one in Georgia with a tiny house community: http://www.cbs46.com/story/36040151/first-tiny-house-community-in-georgia-may-arrive-in-clarkston

My wife falls over herself laughing at the Tiny House setups being pitched as actual homes. She knows a trailer when she sees it.

In this situation, I'd be tempted to pick up an Airstream. They've got resale value of their own, they're cool looking and if you ever decide to AirBnB the thing it'll have an appeal to it. Plus you can make it go away if needed.

In reply to ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ :

I could see something like a jetway joining the RV to the house. That would be fun.

Keith Tanner said:

My wife falls over herself laughing at the Tiny House setups being pitched as actual homes. She knows a trailer when she sees it.

In this situation, I'd be tempted to pick up an Airstream. They've got resale value of their own, they're cool looking and if you ever decide to AirBnB the thing it'll have an appeal to it. Plus you can make it go away if needed.

Neighbor already got ticketed for parking their single axle AirStream beside their house. Pretty sure the city would do the same to me.

My wife has been looking at log cabin kits with the intention of building a detached office and guest bedroom space. I've tried to remind her how much she dislikes shoveling snow, but I don't think I have been very successful.

If it's going to be permanent, build it as such, if it's going to be temporary, build it to throw away. There is a culture of adding small buildings to the property to accommodate inlaws or kids or whatever. The idea being that you can drop a couple years rent on a building, live in it for 5-10 years, and when it rots just tear it down. We don't have building codes though, but it must make sense, because a LOT of people do it. 

In reply to slefain :

There's a nearby "house" to our place in IL that's two old mobile homes parked next to each other, with a peaked roof & sided exterior walls framed around the entire thing. Of course it's out in the country where no one gives a damn about building codes. 

So I called one of the park model builders here in Georgia (www.pinnacleparkhomes.com) and asked him if they have ever sold one of these things as a house addition. Yup! He said add-on offices were popular. They can also build one to any spec or size we want as long as it is no wider than 12'.

This is all very interesting....

Why not just use a prefab manufactured home that is specifically designed for placement on a pad. They are built to normal code and are pretty darn cheap as well. 

Are prefab manufactured homes still a thing?  I remember looking at demos years ago that seemed pretty nice and were affordable.  My brief attempts to find information online about these now was a little bit disapointing.  The prices were high and information light.

wearymicrobe said:

Why not just use a prefab manufactured home that is specifically designed for placement on a pad. They are built to normal code and are pretty darn cheap as well. 

You and WilD bring up good points, and I looked for them. But as WilD found, for some reason the info on them kind of dried up. I even priced out a prefab home a few years ago, but it looks like the market has gone away for some odd reason.

What I originally wanted was just a bolt-on master suite addition. There was a prefab house manufacturer that actually had them years ago. Built in their factory, shipped in two pieces, and erected on your site. The selling point being that you can be living in it within just days, versus weeks for a normal home addition. Price was 10-15% cheaper as well.

They are still out there. Search for "modular" homes.

We did our house that way

A lot of the modular companies went under in the 2008 debacle.    

Keith Tanner said:

My wife falls over herself laughing at the Tiny House setups being pitched as actual homes. She knows a trailer when she sees it.

Credit where credit's due - they did manage to make single-wides look a lot better than previous designs. But it the design in the first post is still fundementally a single-wide, and judging from the price it is most likely built to similar standards and materials as a conventional mobile home.

A couple definitions:

- House: a residence built in compliance with the building code on a permanent foundation. 

- Trailer: a vehicle built on a trailer frame designed to be mobile built to DOT standards  

- Park Model: an oversized trailer designed to be moved only occasionally by commercial haulers, usually with special DOT permits  

- Modular home- a home built in a factory in compliance with the building code designed to be moved in large modular components only once to a permanent site, and assembled on a permanent foundation  

- Tiny House- a trailer, built on a trailer frame in accordance with DOT regulations that has been mis-marketed as a house .  Tiny home are not built in accordance with the building code, and can't be installed in a permanent configuration .  They are not permitted in most zoned neighborhoods, and usually placed in trailer parks or unsigned rural communities.  They are often DIY, and frequently fall short of both the building code for a house, and the DOT regs for a trailer.  They are grossly overweight, and not very mobile  

If you build something on the existing foundation, you are still gonna need a building permit. The foundation will have to be assessed by an architect/ engineer to determine whether it is suitable to build a structure in, whether it is stick built OR modular. 

MadScientistMatt said:

Keith Tanner said:

My wife falls over herself laughing at the Tiny House setups being pitched as actual homes. She knows a trailer when she sees it.

Credit where credit's due - they did manage to make single-wides look a lot better than previous designs. But it the design in the first post is still fundementally a single-wide, and judging from the price it is most likely built to similar standards and materials as a conventional mobile home.

Fair enough. They basically were willing to go vertical, and there are a few clever touches in each.

There was a prefab custom home manufacturing facility here in town that went under a few years ago. They were aiming at the high end mountain town market. They left a really big factory behind.