Inexpensive Alternative Housing...

dorm style housing, with private bedrooms but communal living areas

might even be able to use storage unit type metal construction to bring costs down

in an 1833 farmhouse which is a beast to heat in the NW PA winters - but it's paid for.

We have 40 acres (and a mule) - the good news is a gas well will be drilled on the property shortly for free heat. Whew!

We also have a very rare necessity - spring water! Gravity flow off the hill - no pump necessary. Great, huh? Small stream flows beside the house which is very common for old farmhouses. They build them and the barn close to running water back then.

Can irrigate garden, is necessary - again, gravity flow through a hose set upstream.

small home a feeling of being larger by opening up to the roof - w/o rafters. Waynes coat on the ceiling and stain light for the feeling of even more space.

I saw a sm ranch done this way - two bedrooms and a den. When you walked in, it looked huge! Large living room with optional dining room table at the kitchen end of the room. Half wall open to kitchen for food pass through and expand the feel of the kitchen also.

Many trucks to give the 'feel" of a larger home with the economics of a smaller one. If no basement, heat in the floors is the way to go with supplemental heat in the peak.

Another one I saw, you walk in to living room/dining room and off to the right is the kitchen (L shaped) ALL with open to the roof. Huge space for family to gather - and was only two bedrooms. It is my 82 yr.old aunt's retirement home on a golf course (for resale purposes).

lower housing costs is to get rid of all the codes and zoning regulations. In areas of Maine where all this stuff is minimal folks put up their own housing all the time. Places with 2 acre, or even 5 acre, minimum lot sizes and intensive building codes make it so the average joe can't even live there. The building codes stifle creativity and resourcefulness.

built cheap : http://www.simondale.net/house/index.htm

We are going to build a home that looks like a log home but instead it will be a pole home. Much like the beach houses, except that our poles will be the support for our floors and roof, exactly like a pole barn, only finished out. Our local electric co-op is letting us have the poles for free, and then we just paint them several times to seal in any contaminates, and then fram them up on the outside of the structure, or fully encase them in the wall. There are no load bearing walls so it can be as open as you want it, you can add on to it at any time, and using poles you can build on slopes, or whatever type of land you have with no sight preparation, and of course no expensive concrete foundations.

The rest is going to come from a discount lumber store close to our town, and Craigslist.

I applaud your work, inexpensive housing has always been something I've worked on designing. We're planning on building our outbuildings and animal housing using different ideas such as papercrete, cobb style, straw bale, and stacked cord wood. Have fun!

I know a little about this subject because over the past two years, I have been building a renaissance faire. We've created many small buildings.

Ferro-cement/concrete stucco is indeed the perfect construction medium except for one big problem: It's a tremendous amount of work. It is much cheaper than wood frame, but also much, much slower to do. It can yield very pleasing results, especially if you use white portland with white or colored sand---but it's a chore to build.

If you want to build an easy, inexpensive small house, I recommend using wood "clapboard" construction over a post and beam ("pole barn") frame. Very easy learning curve, and it creates a very light, strong, solid building. Stain it instead of painting, so that you can continue to upgrade its exterior with minimal fuss.

SUPPORT OUR FOUNDERS' AMERICA
Support the Constitution of the United States

http://www.jarnhirose.com/images/teepee400.jpg