STRAP UPDATE NUMBER 2

Subject: (Fwd) STRAP Update: Design, financing, members Date sent: Fri, 23 Feb 1996 13:31:50

Hi All,

I knew I would forget something, and that thing was a member list update. STRAP now has 38 members. The breakdown is as follows: Pacific NW: 12; Northern california and Nevada: 5; Southern California, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Alberta, Canada: 1 each; Colorado and Wisconsin/Minnesota: 3 each; South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and DC: 7; Tennessee and Pennsylvania: 1 each; Ontario Canada: 2.

The DC numbers are a bit soft as several people living there now have plans of moving elsewhere. But for the time being, seven people for an eastern project would be really helpful.

The Pac NW is the area closest to a critical mass, whch I've arbitrarily set at 30 people, assuming that only half would be able to make any particular weekend date.

While I can't report 100 people, I do feel that these numbers are encouraging. My first issueance of the STRAP call brought 18 members. The second call brought another 18. I see no reason that over the next few months the list doubles again, and that would give us some workable numbers.

Financing: I'd like some feedback. This is not a listserv so whatever mail comes my way will be cut and pasted and sent back out as a digest.

My idea for a $30 contribution per member to help builders over the financial hump was a loose idea. The contribution would be a gift, large enough to have some cumulative effect, but small enough that each member could just it. The ideal would be that what goes around, comes around, and that contributors could expect similar contributions coming their way when they built. The other reason for a gift attitude would be so we didn't accumulate any debilitating organizational structure or legal/financial status.

After I fielded that idea, the possibility that these contributions could be matched by a yet unknown but interested party. If (for example) $30 times 30 members times 3 months =$2700. If matched, this would produce roughly $5000, which is a lot of materials. Alternatively, low interest loans might be obtainable simply on the basis of the sweat equity contributed by the group, and not on any financial contributions. This has obvious benefits for a lender in that the principle is the same as individual owner sweat equity, but the effect is greatly magnified.

Design: I've approached STRAP with the perspective that successful implementation means that more people could afford to own a home. In order to do this, the easiest and quickest way is to defiantly challenge the normal costs and methods of building "normal" houses. This does not mean settling for a hovel; it does mean using your most important tool--your head--and understanding that cost savings offer many forms of payback.

I furthermore use the same approach I would when considering going off the electrical grid. You total all your electrical needs, figure out how many dollars that would cost in photovoltaic panels, suck in your breath at the amount, and then say:"Well I think I can cut a few things out here and there, at least for now." :-)

Applied to a SB house, this means:

1) Assess your (and I do mean minimal) house space requirements. The tradeoff for your ego here is that you will design your floor plan to include an addition in no more than one or two years. Thus a well designed 750 to 900 sq ft house might be a workable minimum for a two or three person household (hey that's a good sized apartment) for a short period of time. One or two years later you add on a 16 by 22 addition that contains two rooms, and now you have a small average house. The benefits are the amount of money you did not have to come up with up front (read: long term debt).

2) Assess the percentage costs of the various components of the house. Of course it needs walls, a roof, water, heat, electricity (in some form), a door, windows, and interior partitions. You look at the component totals and figure which of them you could cut out for the time being. For example, windows are expensive per square foot. You can save some money by installing the window bucks during house erection, and then installing those nifty windows later. Similarly, interior trim can be minimized, and some interior partitions can be tastefully accompished with screens or curtains instead of complete walls. It's no lie that for most homes, the house is only half done ($$) when the sheetrock is up.

3) Assess the local supplies of used lumber and windows. New versions of both are spendy.

One yardstick for house cost estimating is "cost per square foot". When I moved to my present location 7 years ago, one could still have a house built for $35/sf. Now it is about $60 due to lumber price increases. Growing urban areas can easily double this amount, and the upper limits know no bounds. Applied to a 750 sq ft house, a $60/sq ft cost would equal $45,000. And you additionally have costs for land, water, sewer, and electricity. I'll call this the norm (for this area). With land, sewer, electricity, etc, and you can easily have a $100,000 house.

My personal goal is a basic house at $20/ sq ft. If this seems hard to do, think for just a moment on how much time you will spend paying back every additional $10,000 on price. The $20 figure reduces the house material total to $15,000, (plus land, sewer, etc). I consider that a laudable and reachable goal. Moreover it is easy to see that many people would be brought into the homeowner arena, which is very good. Twenty dollars per square foot means cutting everything to the bone, but it is arbitrary judgement that this is a worthy tradeoff for the chance to own a home, and a chance to unplug from the rat race which leads people to equate their life with the production of income.

For another version of this line of thought, refer to the Strawbale House Book pp 38-39.

One helpful tool would be a selection of well designed, small houses that include integrated floorplans for "phase 2" and "phase 3" additions. I have yet to see Eric Hart's SB planbook, but perhaps it includes some small houses.

I'll end here as ask again for succinct feedback on these subjects. Mine is not the only opinion. Everyone has different goals; I'm just putting out a concept set that supports the low end buyer.

Jim

March 8 Footnote: The "minimalist house" concept discussed above is aimed at people of limited income whose only means to obtain a home might include this concept set. Other interested people might also include those who would like to detach from the system of long term indenture to financial institutions that we now consider to be "normal." Not all people are included in these two groups, and this post is not intended to exclude anyone.

Reaction to the financial contribution ideas in this post was underwhelming so this particular idea may not survive. Financial assistance, however, is a desirable goal, and this and other ideas will be fielded and discussed as part of the ongoing STRAP evolution. At the very least, the "sweat equity" aspect of STRAP should be very appealing to conventional lenders, and is a concept STRAP should pursue.