Comments on: It can’t possibly be worth it…

By: Nathab

Nathab — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:58:42 +0000

Hey to NK, and anyone thinking you’d want to be a hermit.. no.. if you live in a city even major city.. you just need to get certified a 6 week class and test, you’ll need to study.. or if you know a friend whose already a contractor you could build in the middle of a group of townhouses, or in a old abandoned building. Your going to have more than six months work cut out for you. But a super-green home, is within anyones grasp. Just think how much space do I need, what can I do to make the interior self suffecient. I’ve seen 3 story buildings brick that the people put trays on the roof and grow wild grasses, and used rain water collected then filtered for shower, laundry, and toliet. Or think underground in a nigherbor hood of ranch houses, pick a house that had fire damage, or calapsed after an earth quake, or had a trailer that is so far gon not worth salvaging buy the land it’ll cost more than in a rual but if you could get if for low prices. Then rent a skid loader and use it to demolish the structure after you’ve salvaged it of wood, tiles, copper plumbing, hardware and windows that you could use. Then have that suff hauled away and dig deep build a hill on one side of your property then start builing and then push the fill dirt back around afer you’ve poured the walls and then cover the top leave the back or front open and angled toward the direction you’d get the most sun in during the cooler months. Might cost you double what it would in the middle of no where, but in San Fransico or Denver, or Seattle, or Las Vegas it’ll cost less then half what buying new would cost, and it’ll be intresting, efficent, and you’ll have the best back yard barbques in the city. Plus room for the kids to hang out on the lawn, climb trees, and improve the look of your nieghborhood.

By: Fay

Fay — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 20:03:51 +0000

I think Stackwall homes are great, but who will insure them? This seems to be a problem here in Northwestern Ontario in Canada. Can anyone help me find an insurance company? Also, insurance companies here don’t like it if you say you heat your home exclusively with wood. Are there any insurance companies out there who can live with that, and will insure a Stackwall house with a wood burning woodstove?

Fay

By: Big Daddy

Big Daddy — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:37:30 +0000

Big Daddy says

Hi, the stack wall home in the picture is in upstate NY, and its just outside a small town. Learn from experience you don’t want total isolation but you do want to be removed from the higher cost of the cities that demand the higher wage jobs to help pay for the conveniences and the lifestyle that goes with it.

The number one challenge is not the land purchase or the building of the desired home of your dreams its what comes next, and finding the finances to fund the journey. This was the down fall of the original back to the landers.

With the internet and the advent of on line businesses being available today there is no reason for a reasonably healthy person should not to be able to make this lifestyle work. I have been doing it for years, nature wins over the throw away society trapped in the unsustainable over priced rat race. You can have your cake and eat it too.

With corporations and globalization, template business models and systems designed on how we should interact between job and community as well as being run red line for their disposal when a recession hits. Then if this isn’t its own form of isolation then I don’t know what is? The reality is the winner is the one that calls their own shots and becomes independent of the lifestyle best served by shareholders and big business creation. On the land you will at least be able to feed your family and see your dream made by your own hands
and this is the real freedom you want.

By: Morgan

Morgan — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 01:15:43 +0000

I used to build grain silos on the the family farm and dream about what they could be turned into… skateboard halfpipe: yes. House? perhaps. Just take four grain silos and connect them with large hallways built from those sea containers and you’d have yourself a modern day castle!

By: PatrickB

PatrickB — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 03:59:58 +0000

We presume some building skills and the health to be able to complete the project – I am still looking at using 40′ used sea-containers – they sell here in the UK at about US$2,000 delivered on site. They can be adapted in so many ways including underground or partially buried, or even stacked . They are 40′X8′X8′ (also 20′ and specialist cylinderical and insulated units are available) and very susceptible to the ministrations of a plasma cutter and a welder. You simply add new units as you can afford them or as your needs increase. The shell is weather, quake & fire proof and easily and cheaply protected against corrosion. If you ever need to move house – it could not be simpler.

By: Morgan

Morgan — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 22:32:45 +0000

Thanks for the Dignam link Shannon. I’ve been looking up land on mls.ca but it mostly lists slices with houses allready on them. Dignam seems much cheaper.. Buying land seems in reach for a poor carpenter like myself!

Those cordwood houses sure are beautiful! They would be a good solution to all the pine beetle infested trees here in BC.

By: Lizz

Lizz — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 00:29:03 +0000

Shannon, your blog posts about housing and earthly home structures really has been very inspiring to me. Back in the early 90’s my parents acquired 25 acres of land in Florida. We visited it every summer and it has always been their dream to build their dream home and farm on it. Unfortunately they never had the funds to do so and now that they are nearing retirement age I fear they might sell the land just so they can have some money to fall back on. (Not that it will matter, all of Florida will be underwater in a decade or two anyhow!) My parents have many health problems and do not go to the doctor because they do not have insurance. As much as I really hate to leave my childhood home, I am becoming more and more tempted as the months go by to leave the United States for good. 1/8 of my monthly pay goes to health insurance that wont even cover half the things I need attention for and there isn’t a single one bedroom apartment in a 20 mile radius that I could afford without giving up my passion for art and acquiring two roommates. If I could live frugally for a few years and save up some money to escape I am definitely fleeing to Canada. Its always been a dream of mine to find friends interested in the same goals and pitching together on one or several nearby plots of land to build a small sustaining community of earthly homes with a small farm. Anyway this turned into somewhat of a rant but I just wanted to thank you for your blogging about homes and land. Thanks a lot! I think my dream is still attainable.

By: Bryant

Bryant — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 21:23:15 +0000

crystal -

I just read this, and thought the same thing. There are actually some affordable properties on Ebay, mostly in the AZ/CO area though.

This is something that I have thought about several times in my life, and this post just got me stirred up again. Thanks!

By: crystal

crystal — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:05:34 +0000

Shannon (or anyone else with an answer) if you know of a company such as Dignam selling US properties I’d love the info. Thanks!

By: Audrey

Audrey — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 15:04:20 +0000

Hi Shannon- I think I would actually prefer to live in a solar powered house like the one pictured, it is awesome. Where I live now I would have to get approval from the “association” in the development to even consider solar panels. I live in suburbia outside Philly and here you can’t even change the exterior without approval from the board. Lots of red tape. I am an antisocial hermit by nature but my kids love playing with our neighbors. So I think I will be here for a while for them. Every dwelling situation has its pros and cons.

And as for US healthcare, I hope you are right. We just need to get the republicans out of the white house…