I absolutely loved reading this. I liked how he went into it cautiously, testing out whether he could get by with a small fridge, small bed, less possessions, etc. And I also appreciate the web page design itself -- one long vertically-scrolling piece, very easy to read through!
One thing I find ironic though is the attitude towards other people who make a different decision about the worth of a home and the mortgage. Does he not realize that his van was only possible because his parents owned a home, raised him there, and let him park the van in their carport for 40 days while building it out?
That's not exactly true. He could have done the build-out in plenty of other manners, some less efficiently. With some extra money, he might have had it done more quickly, even.
Camping out during the build time, or getting a hostel/hotel for 40 days, renting a room, building it ahead of time, etc. Lots of reasonable options.
I noticed on some page he mentioned "focusing on building less expensive homes" and then pointed at tumbleweed homes, they build those "tiny homes" on trailers. Those things go for like 3x the most inexpensive mobile homes.
We've already solved this problem, we're just changing the paint to avoid the social taboo.
I too have wondered at the tiny home thing. Regular single wide mobile homes are small, cheap and standardized, and they even have "communal living" in a park. I'm pretty sure it's just trying to tell bougie people that it's fine to live in a trailer park
I'm not really against it, even. I think it is fine. Some of those tiny homes are really nice, or inspiring, or liberating. I really appreciate hand-made things, especially ambitious projects like homes. And I definitely appreciate the frugal builds.
But when you're buying it pre-built, it's just a tiny, expensive mobile home.
If they catch on enough, they'll build them cheaper and more efficiently, and we'll have smaller versions of normal mobile homes, with aluminum siding and all.
I'm all for it, personally--there's no reason for the dream of home-ownership to be expensive.
Sure, variety is the spice of life, I just don't get it.
It feels like a cynical marketing exercise to me, and I have some other personal issues probably tied up in millenial homeownership angst, but that's me, not the tiny homes.
When I've lived in mobile homes, I've found them to be substandard in various ways. One might be prepared to accept that in exchange for their advantages, but if not it seems perfectly rational to seek other solutions with different trade-offs. E.g., most mobile homes are over 70' long, while tiny houses are much shorter.
The social taboo had nothing to do with quality and everything to do with the mobile home = trailer trash stereotype.
Tiny houses are what happens when a garden shed has sex with a travel trailer. Practically tiny houses copy the floor-plan and interior design of an existing high end travel trailer and paste it into a traditionally constructed building. The result is basically a travel trailer optimized for staying instead of going.
As people realize they want more space than a tiny home they're gonna basically build mobile homes, realize they're heavy as all hell and not really mobile and see that the mobile home people are actually on to something.
It is true that is it partly about class and stereotypes, but the Tiny House people have thought about this much more than you seem to think (I'm currently designing one). Here are some counterpoints.
Beyond class, the other major reason for Tiny Houses appearance is acceptance in local communities. If they look nice, people and the law tend to leave them alone. Also it is nice to be nice for appearances sake.
Because they don't move that much they often get wide permits and skirt the trailer or put it onto a pad such that it appears to be a small house rather than a something on a trailer.
I should say also this perception that Tiny Houses are, well, Tiny, is not quite accurate.
Some of them are very small, 200 sq ft. Many of the new builds for living full time are easily 500 sq ft if you include the loft space.
In America that may be still very small but in many countries such as mine, that is actually larger than many townhouses most people live in.
As for later discovering that they need more space, that is not something that scares Tiny House people. They already built a small house, constructing other modules to do other things doesn't scare them much.
It is difficult to overstate how much less expensive they are than the traditional housing route. 50% of the cost of building in the West is paperwork. That is half off the most expensive item most people buy in their lives.
The main hiccup is about Land. This is solved in different ways, I intend to buy mine.
Most Tiny Housers spend money on quality materials. I've worked in construction before and know that most 'modern' builds won't last much longer than a 30 year mortgage due to cutting corners, substandard materials and an overall lack of attention to detail. I fully expect my TH to last at least 50 years, probably longer, be constructed from state of the art materials, and still be 1/4 of the cost of the average house in my area (excluding land).
Of course not everybody can go this route but it beats being homeless or paying a mortgage for decades. Besides, as a geek it is fun to find out how things work, it is an education.
The point I clearly made is that social taboo is not the only reason why one might prefer a tiny house or indeed any other sort of house over a mobile home. You might not care about the other reasons, but they exist nonetheless.
He owned a house before, so that's a moot point, he could have used his own house before selling it.
But of course his lifestyle is enabled by his environment. It is easier to do that in the US than in Europe, easier in the Western World than in the third world, easier if you started off as a developer rather than a min wage employee with the burden of student debts, easier single than couple with kids, easier as a man than woman, ...
If you are one of the richest man in the world (not the 1%, just above average in one of the richest country in the world), which is pretty much the majority of HN, this is an interesting alternative lifestyle.
Note that it is oddly reminiscent from the 7/80's hippies. I just wonder if just like them, some of those people will settle down one day and make a 180 turn on everything they valued when they were younger.
> Note that it is oddly reminiscent from the 7/80's hippies.
I found his reasoning very solid. To me it seemed like a nice way to save money, enjoy the time and invest it to into his game creating business. What made him a hippie to me was not the van part but the part where he created his own programming language before getting to work.
Can you elaborate on why you think this would be more difficult in Europe?
I can imagine Europe wide fitness chains not being so common. http://www.basic-fit.com and friends seem to be building something like it. But then again, public swimming pools, and even public showers are more common and often highly subsidised.
- Language will be a problem. Speaking more than 1 language will help.
- Access to public bathroom is going to be another - like even public bathroom in place like Walmart-equivalent cannot be assumed to be generally available.
- Legality and Cultural acceptance is going to vary country by country. In my home country, a single man living in his van will be reported to the police the second nights he stays in the same place, and he will be asked to move somewhere else at the very least.
- You pointed out to a gym being available across Europe, but the replacement, swimming pools are not anywhere as available as gyms. There is no public toilet at the public library that is next to my place. Public shower are often restricted to professional drivers and I haven't seen one outside of the highway or trucking road.
- Insuring your car requires to have a physical residence in a country, and you generally can't legally be more than a few months in a country with foreign registration. Similarly depending on the age of your car, your country may require a yearly car check which mean you need to be around there at that time.
- Internet access - you will need to prepare that a bit more carefully.
- What about taxes ? That's another thing you have to know when crossing several countries.
- Stupid little things like currencies.
So going across Europe is going to be more adventurous than in a country that has road-trip in its DNA, and depending on the country, even staying in a single one is going to be more adventurous. Of course it's all relative, that is harder than in the US, but nowhere as hard as for Syrian refugee in Turkey.
Well actually that one is pretty easy. If you are European you can ask for your European Health Insurance Card (free, valid for several years) which will cover you in the whole EEA as if you were a resident yourself.
The problem though is that if you have a chronic or permanent disease that requires continuous medication. Hospital will likely sort you out in a pinch, but if you need to stock up some pills you will need to go through the whole doctor chain (GP / Specialist / Various treatment trials ...) in each country (prescription do not cross borders). I have known people going back to their country on a regular basis just because that´s just a pain in the ass to go back to square one and start a several months ordeal only to end up with the medication you know is working.
His dad's woodshop (& expertise) was critical to the build - note that dad did all the cuts into the body of the van. There's nothing wrong with it, just a reminder that we never really do anything alone.
Personally, I'd rather have the shop than the van ;)
Not to be too critical, but reminds me of a woman I know who pitches how great & easy & wonderful it is to buy complete fixer-upper cars and houses and make something great out of them. But if you read her posts on the subject, you realize her father is a contractor, her husband is a mechanic, and they do most of the work.
Yes, he glosses over that part. From the pictures it looks like he _and_ his dad built it in 40 days (and who knows how many hours per day). That's not free, and could easily add another $20K-$30K.
One thing I find ironic though is the attitude towards other people who make a different decision about the worth of a home and the mortgage. Does he not realize that his van was only possible because his parents owned a home, raised him there, and let him park the van in their carport for 40 days while building it out?