Wish to build a cabin on homestead and with a mortgage etc. money is kind of tight. Any suggestions for cheap building materials?

-- Billy Edmonds (bedmonds@scottsboro.org), June 30, 2001

Answers

Have you considered a small mobile home as a core start?Many can be obtained for as little as $600 and every so often some folks will give one away just to get it moved. Add on to it as you can afford to.

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), June 30, 2001.

Perhaps a slab foundation, standard 2x4 framing cheap siding of choice and roof trust. Few nice windows and door or two. A carpenter with a helper could build it in a week. Complete the inside as time and money allow. If you have time look for windows,doors now. Use standard biulding materials and room additions that do not look like additions are easy to build. Would make a nice shop or garage if you decided to build something nicer.

-- ed (edfrhes@aol.com), July 01, 2001.

Jay has a great idea - here in NW IL there is a small community of mostly Russians that came over here in the late 60's - almost all of them put a mobile home on their 1/2 or 1-acre lot, with well, septic, & electricity, and went on from there, building on as they could afford. Many of the homes can't be distinguished from regular ranch homes now. I've been in several, and they are very nice - used to best advantage. I admire their persistence and ingenuity.

As the county laws change in this area, they won't let anyone put a single-wide mobile home on a lot anymore - must be a double-wide on a foundation so it can be classified as "real estate" and taxed accordingly (a single-wide in a mobile home park is taxed as "personal property", and has VERY low taxes that go down each year so the county feels they are losing money, poor things!) Consequently, when a mobile home park wants to get rid of their old rentals or abandoned MH's, they may sell them VERY cheaply - in fact, a couple of years ago, a MH park PAID my son to take several away! They were smaller ones, 10' & 12' wide, and some he just hauled with a tractor about 12 miles to his home where he tore them apart and kept what was good about them. Otherwise, the MH parks have to hire a backhoe to come in and smash them & haul all that stuff to the landfill.

-- Bonnie (chilton@stateline-isp.com), July 01, 2001.

If mill ends are available cheaply in your area,they make a very solid and inexpensive house(stackwall construction). They do take more time to build however.

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), July 01, 2001.

Billy, the trailer ideas are good. Another similar idea is making an old school bus liveable.

Also, do you have trees on your homestead? If so, paying one of those guys with portable sawmills to cut you a bunch of lumber is another cheap way to go.

Stone is another free building material if you have it. There are several good books on rubblestone and cyclopean masonry.

Tearing down old barns and houses is another source of lumber.

-- Rags in Alabama (RaggedReb@aol.com), July 01, 2001.

Billy:

Your options will depend heavily on your climate. What is the coldest/hottest normal temperatures?

A pole structure with 4" slab could be real inexpensive to build. The advantage of a pole structure is that the foundation is really easy. Around here (Washington State) they are built by augering 18" diameter holes four feet deep and 12 feet on center. Position 6"x6" treated post in each hole. When plumbed, braced and aligned, fill the holes with concrete to 6" below the top of the future concrete floor. The outer walls are framed with 2x6's running horizontal at 24" on center. Side with 5/8" T-1-11. The roof is framed with trusses running the width of the building between the posts and then 2x6 purlins running the legnth. Sheath the roof with 1/2" plywood and then apply building paper and metal. Doors and windows are cut in wherever you want. If your climate is mild and you can live without insulation, then you have a habitable structure with minimal cost and ease of construction. Add interior walls, wiring, plumbing, etc. as you can afford. (Just remember to stub out plumbing under the slab before you pour.)

-- Skip Walton (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), July 01, 2001.

If your going to do this with a mortgage then you better find out what your lender will allow as building materials. If you want a log home then your mortgague may be willing to pay. If your looking at log cabin stuck in the woods then most likley not.

As for building, The trailer idea is often the lowest cost. You can get new double wides with 10 year loans for minimal monthly money layout. Used trailers can also be found pretty cheep. I know several people who are getting mobile homes turning them into portable hay barns, portable stables and misc storage. Even if you dump the wheels of them they are very usable for a home. With a mobile home you can "add" on as money allows. We have a number of homes around us that have had mobile homes a bases homes. Never could tell it now. There are also some pretty bad HACK jobs that look like someone stuck plywood roofs on a cheap mobile home two. Either way they are quite usable for housing.

-- Gary (gws@redbird.net), July 02, 2001.

I think that going the pole building route is really economical and you could also use it for housing your stock on one end and storage, and everything, really. It just depends on what you need overall. if I ever build that's the approach I believe I will take as I really kind of wish I had made my barn larger than it is now. Seems like there's always that accumulation of more good junk happening to me.

-- Doreen (bisquit@here.com), July 02, 2001.

When we were thinking of purchasing land, we finally came up with this idea. We decided on a Pole bulding with a sub floor, insulation, then flooring. We were going to use saw mill ends for sheathing Overlapping with foam between. We were then going to put regular insulation in the walls, With sheet rock over the top. The great thing about pole building is that it is strong, and it makes a nice home. There are some pole building sites out there. The biggest thing to remember is that your Poles must be sunk between 5' and 8',depending on the soil, and need to be treated. This must be calculated into the length of pole you need. Also, poles are usually more narrow at the top than the bottom. If you could find the length it would be nice to use a squared beam, but finding them is hard, unless you talk someone into doing it for you. If you happen to have a nice stand of doug fir, you could probably make your beams with a chainsaw. The important thing is that, when using the treated poles, you want to make sure that they are enclosed in the walls, so that the family isn't exposed to the preservative. This makes for a very well insulated house, because there is so much space in the walls.

Little Bit Farm

-- Little bit farm (littleBit@compworldnet.com), July 03, 2001.

You may want to check into straw bale construction. Yup, building with straw bales! Just do a search on any engine using the words "straw bale construction" and see what comes up.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), July 04, 2001.

You might try this site. It's called Dirt Cheap Builders, but the tag comes up differntly.

www.northcoast.com/~tms/cheap.html

-- XP (xp@allydocious.net), July 04, 2001.

I've thought about that a lot, and built two cabins, one frame and one log. For economy I'd go frame. Set on piers saves on foundation expense but then you have the hassle of rodents etc, under the house, and freezing pipes. If you can do without plumbing (need outhouse), and central heating (use small woodstove), and really live like the pioneers or the unabomber, you can live for very little, but living like that can get old after a while. Trailers are a good idea and cost little used, but if you want a real house one possibility is to have the foundation and basement poured, put on the floor joists, subfloor,stairs, and some kind of entrance, and then put tarpaper and roll roofing on the sub-floor and move in, finishing the upstairs when you have the money. My grandparents did this in the 1930's and it used to be quite common to see basement houses until the owners could build the upstairs. Many areas with zoning, though, won't allow this anymore, so you'd have to check there. One thing about cabin life, if you can afford a good perimeter foundation you're way ahead. Nothing more irritating than the constant assault of rodents, porcupines, etc, getting under your cabin, getting in, chewing on the beams, etc, not to mention settling of the structure. Slab foundation is economical way to go but seems like most cabin areas need deep footings, so basement space is very economical to get if you have to go down four feet or more.

-- Scott Lawrence (krashtt@my-deja.com), August 22, 2001.