KCI’s construction students
March 13, 2010
There are three classes that will be working on KCI’s Fencl. Two are construction classes and one is a cabinet making class. These are just a few of the students in the classes. They’re viewing construction videos, and writing some tests on important construction techniques and safety codes.
Jay Talks Tiny
March 12, 2010
Wednesday, March 3, 2010 Jay Shafer discussed some of the economic and environmental aspects of our housing laws.
Logo contest update
March 4, 2010
In just over 1 day, we’ve had over 30 entries to our logo contest. Some really great ideas there. And we’ve been providing feedback to help refine the logos for our final 3 choices.
…more entries using our favorite pictures
However, almost all the logos have been of the same style. We are hoping to have more entries using our favorite pictures. If you’re thinking about designing a logo, but don’t feel the creative style, please work with these suggestions.
1. Create a logo using one of our 3 favorite images: the gothic window, the Weebee at Sunset, or the Lusby at the Valley Ford Rush Minute.
2. Create a long horizontal logo that will stretch across the top of our website that has our name and 3 of our houses, so it looks like a scene. Here is a really bad example. Obviously, the backgrounds would need to blend together. It could be set against a night sky with all 3 houses shown.
All the files needed are available at 99designs.com
Good luck! Can’t wait to see the results.
Wee Shall Overcome
February 24, 2010
It has been nearly 14 years since I started, what I like to call, my aggressive pacifist’s campaign to make the built world a smaller place. To date, my approach has been to pretty much just live my life in a small footprint and hope that my example might inspire others to do the same.
On Wednesday, March 3 at roughly 7:00pm at the Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastopol, CA. I’ll be taking a somewhat more active approach. Ignite Sebastopol 3 is part of Global Ignite Week. Roughly a dozen speakers from the Bay Area will be given just twenty slides and five minutes each to present their subjects. I will be using my time to rip America’s system of imposed excess a new body part. My distain for the building codes that restrict how small a house can be is no secret. On March 3rd I’ll be making my position all the more clear. All presentations will be recorded and posted for international viewing.
We’re expecting a full house (~130 inside, and others watching the live feed to a screen in the outdoor Beer Garden), so get your tickets early. [Read more]
Building the Fencl
January 26, 2010
Over the spring of 2009 we built our largest home on wheels, the Fencl. This small house is 130 square feet and features a kitchen, bathroom, sleeping loft, fireplace and much more.
How long did it take to build?
Jay Shafer, the designer, and a crew of 4 others built this house over 10 weeks.
We spent 825 hours to purchase materials and build this green design house.
How much did it cost to build?
When all was said and done we spent $19,148.
Jay shopped around and shaved almost $2,000 from the cost when he found a trailer 100 miles away at a much lower cost.
Build one myself?
Depending on your skill level and determination it is possible to build a mobile home for a fraction of the cost of buying on already built. We do recommend hiring licensed contractors for the plumbing and electric work. When we build a house we hire specialist for those tasks. Typically, the electrician and plumber are the highest paid people per hour, so we keep the amount of their work limited to just those two areas. We spent less than $2000 to have that work completed on the Fencl.
When we build a small house we usually hire a finish carpenter as the job foreman. We keep the number of workers at any given time to 2 or 3. Aside from the finish carpenter and electrician and plumber, the other crew doesn’t need as much experience.
Buy this house from Tumbleweed?
This green home can be purchased for $53,997 plus shipping and applicable tax.
Is the price negotiable?
We price our homes and home plans with a very low markup. We do not leave room in our pricing for a discount. Our expenses are subsidized by selling ad space on our website and by the sale of our books. We are proud of the fact that we pay our crew a fair US wage with insurance.
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