Should you Build or Buy your Tiny House?
Do you build, or do you buy? What a great question! And one that can't be answered as easily as 'yes' or 'no'. Free time, budget, ability and where you will source your materials from all dictate whether you'd be better off starting a build yourself or outsourcing the work.
Things to Consider When Choosing to Build a Tiny Home
We would say a straight-up yes to building it yourself if you have plenty of free time, you are an experienced handyman (or woman) with local friends who can help you source the right materials etc. Then all you'd need to do is learn a thing or two about house builds, waterproofing and insulation followed by working with an electrician for a day or two and 'tah dah' you'd probably end up with a relatively decent build.
If you don't fit into this category, yet you have friends who are builders (joiners or generally good with their hands), you could still pull off a pretty decent tiny home if you put in the effort.
If right now, you're confused and unsure of where to start then starting with this article will help you to understand what to expect from a self build. As tiny house builders, we are often asked if we know the labour, materials and equipment costs for building a tiny home from scratch, and so here are some rough ideas of what a tiny house could cost you should you build it from scratch.
Architectural Costs: £250-£1000
Making your dream home spring to life will be in the hands of an architect. They consult you on your grand plans and review your ideas as you work together to design the home perfect for you and your family. Not only do they provide you with full renders of your new home but also a structural plan for those building theirs themselves. This will ensure an even weight distribution when positioned on a trailer while ensuring your home is weatherproof and fully functioning.
General Material Costs: £10,000-£20,000
Without saying 'how long is a piece of string?' it's really hard to say what costs you may be looking at. You see, if you're lucky to find reclaimed wood, cabinets, flooring etc, your budget can be much lower. Compare this to someone who only has access to brand new materials, a person's budget for the main structure of the build could be anywhere between £3000-£4000 whereas reclaimed wood could be as little as £1000-£2000.
Then there's the roof, insulation, flooring and so much more. All of which can be done on a budget, again if you can find someone on Gumtree who's giving away floor panels or leftover wood, your budget can be reduced significantly. From our research, we've seen tiny homes being built by hand for around £10,000-£20,000 with the higher end choosing better insulative materials for an increased R-Value along with higher quality fixtures and fittings.
There's a lot to consider when establishing a budget for a tiny house, and so our estimates below are to provide a rough outline of a standard tiny house (approx 7m Length, 2.5m Width, 3.5m Height).
Material Costs For Building a Tiny House:
Structure: £3000-£4000
Exterior Cladding: £1200-£2000
Insulation: £1100-£1500
Marine Board (waterproof board): £1200-£1400
Interior Cladding (inc plasterboard): £1000
Roof: £500-1000
Interior Flooring: £200-£400
Kitchen (tiles, hob, extractor fan, fridge and furnishings): £2000-£4000
Bathroom (toilet, shower, sink, furnishings): £2000-£4000
Living Room (furnishings): £1500-£4000
Rough Total: £23,500
This excludes sockets, lights, windows, doors, stairs and other smaller items which would be used in the build.
Equipment Costs: £1000-£1800
To begin your build, you'll need a few more tools than your hammer and nails. Standard equipment such as a power drill, saw, screwdriver, electrical tester, level and tape measure will be adequate to get you started and can be purchased at reasonable rates. We would recommend visiting website reviews of products before purchasing to ensure it does what it says on the tin!
Labour Costs: Potentially FREE to £9,000
Depending on where you are in the country will be dependant on labour prices. The average joiner in the North West would charge approx £100 a day for a full day's work (roughly 8 hours). Let's say you have a whizz of a builder who can knock it together in 15 weeks (approx 75 days based on five days a week) that's around £7500 for a complete build. However, if you have a handy person or want to give this a go yourself, then you can completely skip this fee!
*The above price is based on a standard sized tiny house of 20m2 floorspace with essential features and fittings.
Plumbing & Electrics - What Are Your Options?
This is where the costs get a little tricky as there are several options for plumbing and electrics. The simplest would be to hire an electrician to do your lights and sockets etc to plug into the grid. Alternatively, you can purchase solar panels and an inverter to become entirely off-grid, which is an upfront cost but can save you heaps of cash in the future, not to mention the environment. Same goes for plumbing, you could opt for a non-flushing toilet and arrange a water tank for rain collection, or you could plumb a flushing toilet and connect yourself to the water and sewage pipes. This in itself will require some costs as you may have to dig a reasonable amount of land up to connect yourself to electric, water and waste pipes.
To continue with our not so perfect estimated costs, the off-grid solution (non-flushing toilet, rainwater collection and solar panels) will set you back approx £10,000 or there abouts. Compare this to potentially digging 25m to the nearest grid which is around £6000 for utility connection fees, not to mention the cost of standard bathroom fittings (flushing toilet, shower and sink) around £600-1000.
We do hope this post isn't as useless as it felt to write. We know that tiny homes come in all shapes and sizes using different materials from different sources and built by people from all walks of life. This post aims to give a starting point of costs for someone who may be inexperienced with building, someone who doesn't know where to purchase materials from and to potentially build an outline as to what it takes to build yourself your dream home!
If you have any questions, need our help or services, feel free to get in touch with us! We're always available and happy to answer any of your questions.
