Planning a Road Trip

So, looking into the costs of shipping both our Trailer and the SIPs to our build site in Rhode Island, it's looking like it will be cheaper to drive down and pick them up ourselves... here's how the situation breaks down:

Geography: 1400 miles round trip
The trailer pick up is in a town called Chambersburg, PA. This SIPs are in a town called Danville, VA. Driving through Chambersburg on the way to Danville is about a 15 minute detour, so it's really feasible to drive to Chambersburg, pick up the trailer, and continue onto Danville to pick up the SIPs, load them onto the trailer, and then drive back to Rhode Island. Round trip, it's about 1400 miles and 24 hours of driving time. It's a lot of driving, but (if broken up over several days) possible.

Costs of Shipping: $3,300 to $1,600
The cost of shipping the trailer and the SIPs varies depending on the way in which we would do it. The simplest way (also the most expensive and inefficient way) is the ship the SIPs and Trailer separately. Tumbleweed changes $1,800 to ship to RI, and the UShip estimate to deliver the SIPs is about $1500. Total cost: $3,300 Option B requires more coordination on our end, and involves having the trailer shipped to the SIP manufacturing plant in VA and then having the SIPs loaded onto the trailer and hiring a guy on UShip to tow our loaded trailer to RI. It only costs $800 to ship the trailer to VA, and hiring a guy to tow your trailer is much cheaper than hiring a guy with a trailer to ship your materials. UShip estimates the cost of towing your trailer from VA to RI at about $800. Total Cost: $1600

Costs of Roadtrip: $1000
Rental Truck: ~$600 (priced from Uhaul's website)
Hotel Rooms: $200 (priced from priceline.com)
Gas:  $325 (Calculations shown below)
Misc Items: $75 (mostly done to make the numbers even)
Total Cost: $1,000

Gas costs calculated in the following way: Assuming a conservative  average of 15 mpg on the way down (no load) and 10 mgp on the way back (with a tow load), and an average price of $2.54/gallon (the average given for last month by eia.gov) the price of gasoline for the trip would be

700 miles/15mgp = ~47 gallons on the way down
700 miles/10mpg = 70 gallons on the way back.

47 gallons * 2.54 $/g = $ 150 on the way down
70 gallons * 2.54 /g = ~$175 on the way back.


Final Reckoning:
So, by picking up the trailer and SIPs ourselves, we can save anywhere from $600 to $2,300. We're still looking into the details, but I think that we're going to go for it.

The Importance of Google SketchUp

I would advise any one looking into building a Tiny House (especially if you're considering SIP construction) to have a solid working knowledge of Google SketchUp first. If this incredibly powerful tool isn't in your arsenal, then you should learn it, or find someone who can help you get a 3D model of your tiny house before you build.

For us, because time is a factor and I didn't have time/energy to become fluent in a new software and still be able to get the rest of the Tiny House research done (and all the medical/legal clearance paperwork from the Peace Corps that Sam and I have been inundated with of late), we chose the latter of these options. We were really fortunate to find Joe Coover, who is working on a website to facilitate the sale of Tiny House SIP Kits. One of the biggest barriers we faced getting a SIP Tiny House was that I had no idea how to create a 3D rendering of the Tiny House and how to get that information into a format that would work for the SIP manufacturer. Joe knows the SIP guys, has ordered Tiny Houses from them in the past (including his own), and is a wiz with SketchUp. After exchanging emails with me about the details of our Tiny House, he created the beautiful SketchUp rendition of our tiny house you see above. Without this help, Sam and I never would have been able to order SIPs.

If you're dead set on doing every last piece of the puzzle yourself but don't know how to use SketchUp, Google offers some good video tutorials, and there are many other tutorials available on the web, both free and paid. Another good resource to look for is local Meetups at which SketchUp will be taught- I know that the Greater Boston Tiny House Enthusiasts Meetup Group has had several such sessions in the past, which I believe were well attended.

Whatever way you decide to go, make sure to take advantage of the incredible planning tool that is Google SketchUp. You'll have a better Tiny House for it in the end.

Delays and Extensions.

So, it looks like the original schedule of having the Tiny House dryed in by June is a pipe dream. We had hoped to get all of our ducks in a row by the end of January, and maybe start working in February. But there's no way that's going to happen: there's just too much snow here. There's snow everywhere. Like, seriously, everywhere, and it's super deep. We can barely drive around the city of Providence because the roads are so narrow and poorly treated. So we'll have to wait for it to clear up before we can access my family's barn (our work space) at all (right now, it's filled with snow drifts).

But, on the bright side of things: we also have an extension of our June deadline. Sam and I were officially offered positions with the Peace Corps last week, but not for the program we were nominated to. Instead of the Cambodia program, Sam and I will be serving as TEFL (Teach English as a Foreign Language) volunteers in Armenia. The best part about this change is that the Armenia volunteers don't leave until the end of August, so we've got some extra time to finish up the Tiny House.

I think that the process of delaying and extending construction projects is universal. I'm glad that it looks like it will all work out for us.

Progress Update

So, things are (finally) in the works: A week ago at the Tumbleweed workshop we put a $500 deposit down on our trailer, and this weekend we sent our drawings to our awesome SIP kit coordinator, Joe Coover. He's an amazing resource for us, as neither Sam nor I are Google Sketchup users, and the next step is to make a 3d model of the SIPs, approve it, and send it off to the SIP manufacturers. All of which is very exciting.

We're going to get quotes for our roofing, windows and siding this week, and hopefully I'll talk to Joe more about potentially coordinating the Tumbleweed Trailer delivery to the SIP manufacturers in Virginia, where we'll be able to have the SIPs loaded onto our trailer and hire a driver from UShip to tow it up to New England. This way we'll save on trailer shipping (it's cheaper to ship to VA than to RI) and on SIP shipping (it's cheaper to hire a tow vehicle than to hire a tow vehicle and trailer).