When I look at the pictures of this house, I have something like the feeling you get when you start to drink a glass of water and suddenly realize you were really dehydrated.<p>I often feel it when I see handmade things. There's something missing in manufactured stuff. It's information poor.
Check out the planning and zoning page:<p><a href="http://www.simondale.net/house/planning.htm" rel="nofollow">http://www.simondale.net/house/planning.htm</a><p>That's insane (in the cool sense). It seems like you can basically build the house and if no one complains, no one will ever bother you. if someone does complain, you file for the permit as a "Retrospective Application", and it may still be approved.<p>I live just outside of DC and did most of the building on our house. Every time I stuck a shovel in the ground there was some (often extremely clueless) "official" tittering over my shoulder about what fees and approvals I had to have in advance of applying for any permissions I might need to secure the professional opinion of some registered somethin-or-other that might pertain to something I might think of building. Its a severe understatement to say that this sort of thing is comically impossible where I live.<p>Something tells me that policies more like these would go a very long way toward encouraging greener housing in this country.
I wish people could enjoy and appreciate a house like this or a self sufficient hobby farm, or a "down-shifting" lifestyle without it being part of some greater anti-industrial ideology.<p>Why does eating locally need to be justified in terms of food miles or global warming?<p>Why does the author here who has obviously taken on a very enjoyable & fulfilling project creating something beautiful, need to take a poke at manufactured housing as some sort of evil (which makes housing more affordable for other people). Why can't it just be that he doesn't like manufactured housing.
I think it's pretty cool that he had a go at this, but how does he know that it's actually structurally sound?<p>I'm not sure how things are in Wales, but here in Missouri, you have to be concerned about things like high winds, earthquakes, etc, not to mention how your house fares if a fire starts. I'm guessing hay bale insulation isn't too fire retardant.<p>Most houses around here are built to stock plans, and the loads on the floors/roof have been calculated by a professional. I'd be a bit weary of hanging out in that place in storm. (Note: I know nothing of likelihood of thunderstorms in Wales. People built houses like this for hundreds of years in England so it's not <i>that</i> harebrained).<p>It would make one heck of shed/club house though!
I think the $5000 for supplies underplays the enormous investment required to build this home.<p>1500 hours @ 30/hrs manual labour per week (could you do more?) works out to 50 weeks ... one solid man year of construction<p>Next question: What is required for ongoing maintenance and repair?<p>By the way, as an alternative, if you devoted one full year's salary, could you buy a better home?
Well, why spend 250.000 on a home built out of wood framing and drywall? You can build it yourself with lumber from Home Depot and some specs. Plumbing and electrical aren't that hard to figure out. And making walls with drywall and insulation isn't that hard either.<p>If you take a summer off work, you could probably build a decent house on your own for around 20.000 bucks. And that includes one foot apart floor joists (not the 16 inches common today) for stability. You first of course need the lot and somebody to come by to pour the foundation right.<p>My two cents. However, I can't currently take a summer off.
I came across a place in Taos NM by accident several years ago called the Earthship. It does get you thinking about what could be possible if some of these ideas made it into mainstream housing.<p><a href="http://www.earthship.net/index.php" rel="nofollow">http://www.earthship.net/index.php</a>
I love this.<p>I live near the equator so the walls and the flooring would have to do away if this was built from where I am at. It would be to hot to live in if this was built in Philippines -- it would have to be built above ground and made of bamboo.