half way house

HALF WAY HOUSE

A loyal minion not only bought through my Amazon links, he had several good article ideas for me.  Now there is showing some love.  One idea was to focus more on the middle ground between Yuppie Scum Prepping and Redneck Survivalist Better Than Nothing Frugal Preps.  With an example of a home a wife could be convinced to live in, without the thirty year mortgage.  You know you NEED to live in the equivalent of the B-POD, but most folks simply won’t live that low on the economic ladder. 

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No matter how panicky I get, you ain’t living too far away from suburban middle class ideals.  You think you have time.  I disagree, but that is besides the point.  The point is, you can be very frugal constructing a middle class home ( even if a “tiny home“ ).  Not an underground home, but an earth sheltered one ( with earth tube air conditioning ).  No, not on a city corner lot, but say an acre a bit outside of town.  A nice compromise between no debt and too much, with reduced on-grid vulnerability, in a structure most gals could agree on.  It isn’t a McMansion, but neither is it a hovel only bachelors would inhabit.

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Remember, this is only one idea.  I’m not a real great Bob The Builder type, so I can’t pretend to be a professional.  And my pricing is probably way off.  If you need a raised platform to compensate for a wet climate, for instance.  This is just a general guideline.  My frugal price for a modular home ( building one room at a time as funding becomes available ) can be as low as $300 ( dome kit rooms draped in cement cloth ).  Here I’m arbitrarily assigning a two thousand dollar per room figure, which should encompass a lot of material you don’t want to skimp on.  This is an old school home, a 400 or 600 square foot dwelling.  Nothing wasteful, but not depriving yourself either.

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My idea is to simply line up a row of rooms facing south.  The north ( with half wall for the west and east ) wall will be earth.  I wouldn’t recommend earth filled tire walls to anyone over 35-40, given the physical labor.  A cement block wall can be as easy as mortar-less cement fill, with some reinforcing rebar.  You should be able to construct that yourself.  If you aren’t using cement block footing for the house foundation, you could lay a continuous cement block carpet and fill with cement.  Even a cement block filled with the posthole “quik-crete” might work.  A Bobcat or similar piles up dirt against the back ( giving consideration to French drains, outside drainage ditches and the like ).  The roof is extra insulation with metal for rain catchment ( and don’t forget those ditches for sewer pipe for your earth tubes )( obviously this ignores building codes, and I‘ll assume you are knowledgeable on the engineering and safety ).

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This gives you the insulation and solar gain of a dug-out, but with the female approved full view of an above ground home.  And you can do it one room at a time, until it comes to the wall ( although you could do that one layer at a time-if you knew how many rooms you wanted ).  If you do the labor yourself, except the backhoe perhaps, you are looking at a full size home for the price of a sheet metal uninsulated RV.  With twice to three times the floor space.  It will be cozy but functional, with private space for everyone.  You are still talking about a square lumber box per room, easy enough for anyone to build.  The wall doesn’t require a mason, just the ability to plumb the thing.  Little hard-ditch digging level-labor is required. 

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Five rooms gives you a kitchen, bathroom, living room and bedroom with a dining room besides.  One or two more for kids.  You can have the bedroom and bathroom between the back wall and front rooms, as they don’t need sunlight-should you wish to shorten the wall.  It doesn’t have to be a rectangle.  You could even just make the whole thing an open floor plan like an RV or a shipping container, if that appeals to you.  I just think in terms of rooms as I like the “build as the paycheck comes in” model of financing.  You might not think 300 square feet is close to being enough space, unless you realize how wasteful the typical home layout is.

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A bedroom just needs a bed, and the bed doesn’t have to sit in the middle of the room.  It can be a Murphy or Hide-Away type.  With today’s small computers you can use a fold down desk, or a very shallow one bolted to the wall ( if you double your bedroom as an office space ).  More counter space in the kitchen can be a fold down flat over the chest freezer being used as a fridge ( I’m assuming solar panels ).  Look to RV’s for idea’s on saving space, just with you using actual quality materials instead of pressed wood and plastic.  What do you need a large living room for?  Two recliners in front of a TV is what most folks use anyway ( again, I understand things will be modified going from a couple to a family ). 

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Who uses a bathtub, much, anymore?  A shower and crapper and sink take up very little space.  I’m assuming you can build shelves everywhere so you need less horizontal space.  The dining room is so you can eat and recreate in the same space, cutting down on the living room space needed, or bedrooms.  Storage sheds are cheap to build ( uninsulated-except with food-square with stucco ) and will relieve the home of clutter, making small spaces quite livable. 

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$200 in two by fours to an eight by eight room, and another $250 in plywood, gives you the basic room cost.  About forty cement blocks with Quikcrete is around another $200.  That leaves a lot left over to provide insulation and roofing, drywall and the backside wall on a budget of $2k a room.  And five rooms is ten thousand dollars.  Yes, I understand there is the backhoe and windows and appliances and such ( although you can do most of that cheap if this is off grid ), so you can probably add fifty percent in costs just to be safe ( even doubling the price makes it quite affordable if not as easily financed or saved for ). 

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But it can be financed as easily as an RV, or paid for a bit at a time, if you are above minimum means.  It’s NOT a hovel.  And even though it is above some of our means, by no means is it impossible.  It is a mid level off-grid project, half way between living like a savage and Yuppie Scum living.

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