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.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Monday, February 16, 2015
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.
Monday, February 9, 2015
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.
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.
Monday, February 2, 2015
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).
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).
Monday, January 26, 2015
Tumbleweed Workshop Review
This weekend Sam and I attended a Tumbleweed Workshop in Boston. These workshops are pretty pricey (we paid about $250 for a ticket, and that was the Black Friday sale price. Normally those things sell at $400 a pop). Given the sizeable chunk of change that it takes to attend one, I thought I would write up a Tumbleweed Workshop Review. This is intended to help people in the planning stages of their Tiny House Builds decide if a workshop would be worth the investment for them.
First, the nuts and bolts: The workshop itself was essentially a two day long power point presentation, with Tumbleweed architect Meg Stevens as the presenter. It was apparently one of the larger workshop groups (with maybe 75-100 people in attendance). As we walked into the hotel event room, we were asked to check in, fill out a name tag, and were given a very nice booklet with color printouts of the power point slides with a space for notes along side each slide. We all sat at small tables in the ball room while Meg stood on a slightly elevated dais at the front. The power point was projected onto a large screen behind Meg while she spoke. The event was well organized: the room was comfortable, hot drinks were provided, the microphones all worked, it was easy to hear and understand the presenter, there were no technical difficulties with the slides. The room was well lit but the projection screen was easy to see. The booklet for notes was also of a much higher quality than I would have expected.
Apart from the small tables and the tea, coffee, and water that were available at the back of the room, the whole thing reminded me very much of some of my introductory science classes in college. The lecturer (Meg) stood at the front of the room, spoke for a few minutes about each slide, and then took questions before moving onto the next slide and repeating the process again. Every hour or two we got a 10 minute break.
Perhaps it was due to the size of the group, but there were much fewer discussion/interactive elements to the workshop than I had been led to expect (I might go so far as to call it a lecture rather than a workshop). I found this lack of hands-on activities frustrating. As for the presentation's content, while the breadth of information was impressive, the depth was not so much. Had I not spent the last two months obsessively researching Tiny House construction, I think I would have found this presentation very, very helpful in organizing my thoughts. As it was, I didn't learn anything new from the workshop. I was also disappointed when two subjects I was most interested in learning about (electrical and plumbing systems) were brushed over with a simple "hire a professional for these portions of your build". That said, I did come out of the weekend feeling very confident in my research and our level of preparedness for this project. As we sat through slide after slide, I was able to go through my own mental checklist and say to myself "I've researched that, I've thought of that...".
In retrospect, I probably could have saved $300 and been a little less confident, but without knowing that beforehand, I feel good about going to the workshop. I would definitely recommend it to people who want help kick-starting their research, or who don't have the time or ability to do a copious study themselves. For these people, being able to go through the process of building a Tiny House start to finish, and having a booklet to go back to that will help structure their planning process, will be very helpful. Had this workshop been scheduled back in December, it would have saved me a month's worth of work. But for those of you who feel confident in the overall process of tiny house building, who don't need the process described in broad brush strokes to help organize and focus their research, you can probably save your money.
And although this may not apply to anyone else out there, there is one thing which resulted from this weekend that was 100% helpful for Sam and I. I think that Sam feels a lot more included in the Tiny House Planning now than before the workshop. I had been trying to fill him in as I went along over the past two months, but quick chatty conversations after we got home from work or before we left for work in the morning weren't really enough for Sam to get the whole picture. I think that sitting down and watching the power point for two days really helped tie together the bits of information he was getting piecemeal from me since December. It's going to be a lot easier to include him in future decision making processes now that he's had a chance to hear all that foundation knowledge- and that's totally worth the ticket price.
First, the nuts and bolts: The workshop itself was essentially a two day long power point presentation, with Tumbleweed architect Meg Stevens as the presenter. It was apparently one of the larger workshop groups (with maybe 75-100 people in attendance). As we walked into the hotel event room, we were asked to check in, fill out a name tag, and were given a very nice booklet with color printouts of the power point slides with a space for notes along side each slide. We all sat at small tables in the ball room while Meg stood on a slightly elevated dais at the front. The power point was projected onto a large screen behind Meg while she spoke. The event was well organized: the room was comfortable, hot drinks were provided, the microphones all worked, it was easy to hear and understand the presenter, there were no technical difficulties with the slides. The room was well lit but the projection screen was easy to see. The booklet for notes was also of a much higher quality than I would have expected.
Apart from the small tables and the tea, coffee, and water that were available at the back of the room, the whole thing reminded me very much of some of my introductory science classes in college. The lecturer (Meg) stood at the front of the room, spoke for a few minutes about each slide, and then took questions before moving onto the next slide and repeating the process again. Every hour or two we got a 10 minute break.
Perhaps it was due to the size of the group, but there were much fewer discussion/interactive elements to the workshop than I had been led to expect (I might go so far as to call it a lecture rather than a workshop). I found this lack of hands-on activities frustrating. As for the presentation's content, while the breadth of information was impressive, the depth was not so much. Had I not spent the last two months obsessively researching Tiny House construction, I think I would have found this presentation very, very helpful in organizing my thoughts. As it was, I didn't learn anything new from the workshop. I was also disappointed when two subjects I was most interested in learning about (electrical and plumbing systems) were brushed over with a simple "hire a professional for these portions of your build". That said, I did come out of the weekend feeling very confident in my research and our level of preparedness for this project. As we sat through slide after slide, I was able to go through my own mental checklist and say to myself "I've researched that, I've thought of that...".
In retrospect, I probably could have saved $300 and been a little less confident, but without knowing that beforehand, I feel good about going to the workshop. I would definitely recommend it to people who want help kick-starting their research, or who don't have the time or ability to do a copious study themselves. For these people, being able to go through the process of building a Tiny House start to finish, and having a booklet to go back to that will help structure their planning process, will be very helpful. Had this workshop been scheduled back in December, it would have saved me a month's worth of work. But for those of you who feel confident in the overall process of tiny house building, who don't need the process described in broad brush strokes to help organize and focus their research, you can probably save your money.
And although this may not apply to anyone else out there, there is one thing which resulted from this weekend that was 100% helpful for Sam and I. I think that Sam feels a lot more included in the Tiny House Planning now than before the workshop. I had been trying to fill him in as I went along over the past two months, but quick chatty conversations after we got home from work or before we left for work in the morning weren't really enough for Sam to get the whole picture. I think that sitting down and watching the power point for two days really helped tie together the bits of information he was getting piecemeal from me since December. It's going to be a lot easier to include him in future decision making processes now that he's had a chance to hear all that foundation knowledge- and that's totally worth the ticket price.
Monday, January 19, 2015
How-To Videos Review
I've been doing quite a bit of Tiny House Research over the past month and a half. In addition to reading absolutely everything I can find for free on the internet and watching countless you-tube videos on the subject matter, I also purchased three How To Build A Tiny House video collections which are currently on the market. Having watched them all, I thought I'd share what I found helpful (and not so helpful) about each, so that others out there might be able to just get the video collection which will best serve their needs.
The three video sets I purchased were from Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, Tiny Home Builders, and from TinyHouseBuild. I purchased all three videos while they were on sale after Thanksgiving, but otherwise paid market value for them. None of them was gifted to me from the companies which produced it, and I am in no way paid for or compensated for this review in any fashion. If for some reason that's not enough to convince you that this is an unbiased review, then let me know what will be.
The first video set I purchased was from Tumbleweed, and unfortunately I was fairly disappointed. These videos reminded me of an informational segment on Mr. Roger's Neighborhood than a step-by-step how to video. Sure, some specific points were covered and some key vocabulary was introduced, but at the end of this video, I felt no more prepared to build my Tiny House than at the beginning. I feel that the information contained in this video is available for free from other sources on the internet if you don't already know it. Furthermore, if you do not already know the content that is provided in this video, you'll need far more information than is provided to successfully build a Tiny House. If, on the other hand, you're already fairly comfortable with the building process, then the information contained in this video probably isn't crucial for you to hear. Either way, you can probably save your money on this one.
The second video set I purchased was from Tiny Home Builders. Dan Louche gets credit for being the only one of these guys to skip the hassle of making actual DVDs and just put the videos online available via a year long subscription, Right off the bat, these videos gets points for being immediately available (what can I say? I'm a digital native and I want my content now, not in 4 to 6 business days after processing), and for not requiring an optical drive. They also have the most content of any of the three video sets. Unfortunately, that's where they start to loose me. These videos feature a lot of Dan standing in front of his Tiny House in Progress going into detailed descriptions of how to build the thing, with monologues like "you hold this small piece against the big piece, and you scribe a line from one to the other, then you take that angle and transfer it onto the flashing and cut that....." and by that time I've fallen asleep. No, literally, I think I've made it through only one of his videos start to finish without falling asleep half way through. The long, technical descriptions with relatively little visual reference makes it very hard to watch these. On the other hand, there is a lot of information, and I'm really hoping that when I'm actually building my Tiny House, and I have the big piece, the small piece and the flashing in front of me, his long descriptions will be a lot easier to listen to and find interesting/useful.
The final video set I purchased (and my favorite so far) is from TinyHouseBuild.Com by Andrew Morrison. I was the least eager to purchase these as a) I had already bought tow video sets and wasn't sure that I really wanted to spend money on a third and b) the hOMe Tiny House that is built in the video set is the least similar in both design and aesthetic to the Tiny House that I want to build. But it turns out these videos were incredibly useful, and I'm really glad I bought them. Much more detailed than the Tumbleweed videos (although perhaps not quite as thorough in some aspects as Dan Louche's videos) this videos gave me a really good understanding of how to accomplish most (if not all) the steps involved in building a Tiny House. The video itself was also dynamic enough in it's content to keep me interested, and each technique was shown as it was done, rather than just described verbally as in Dan Louche's videos. I felt that this video set was really key in developing my comfort level with the process of building a Tiny House.
So in summary: Having watched the Tumbleweed videos, I don't think I'll be referring back to them again, and wish that I had saved my money for other things in my tiny house build. Conversely, I do expect to refer back to both Dan Louche's and Andrew Morrison's videos frequently throughout my build, and I'm very happy that I bought both of these video sets. I'm hoping that some of the more detail oriented (read: harder to follow) monologues in Dan Louche's sets become more clear/easier to follow when I have my actual building materials in front of me. If I had to choose just one of these videos to buy, it would probably be Andrew Morrison's, but I'm glad that's not a choice that I have to make.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Floorplan
We've pretty much settled on a floor plan. There maybe some minor adjustments made, but for the most part we'll have a rear-wall bathroom with a central door, against that we'll have a split kitchen with central aisle that opens into the great room. On one side of the great room will be the couch, on the other will be the wood stove and what we're calling an "armchair" (really just a built in storage compartment for the battery bank with sofa cushions on top), There will be two closets: one positions next to the door for outerwear (coats, shoes etc), the other positioned next to the bathroom to store our clothes. We'll have an 8' sleeping loft and a 2' storage loft opposite. I've also blocked out space for the fridge, stove, sink, on-board water tank, water heater and water pump, but their exact locations might change as I get a better idea of their installation requirements.
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