Home in a Can: When Trailers Offered a Compact Version of the American Dream
collectorsweekly.com
collectorsweekly.com
I filmed a several how-to videos and put them up on youtube. Not the most economical (cost/resale-wise), but a great experiment and real-world break from full-time programing.
My Tiny House is super insulated and energy efficient. The only leaks are from windows. I wrapped the whole thing in rigid foam panels and lifted the metal roof up an inch to keep the roof from ever getting hotter than the ambient air temperature.
Building energy-efficient, non-toxic homes is important. Many of the ideas I used for this Tiny House I plan on implementing on more traditional housing structures.
Regular homes are supper-sloppy when it comes to conserving energy and there is a lot of room for improvement (with little added cost) if the ideas are implemented during the initial construction.
Trailer trash is a largely american stereotype because US had a car-centric culture and early economic development that allowed even the poor to buy an RV, while locking them out of the traditional property market. But the stereotyping is against poor people and it's practiced in any society that values material gain.
https://www.trulia.com/property/5033711929-325-Sylvan-Ave-28...
https://schlemielintheory.com/2014/06/18/the-restless-ones-a...
It was probably a bit nicer than this 30 years ago
https://www.google.com/maps/@34.897915,-82.4379351,3a,68y,28...
At least one of my friends lived in that very mobile home park.
Granted, you are expected to build your own if you want it to be cool, but it has all the hallmarks of a traditional trailer.
I'm not knocking tiny homes nor trailers, to be clear. I think they're a great solution for folks wanting to own a home on a budget.
It’s also worth mentioning that most tiny homes I’ve looked at were far lower square footage than a typical mobile home.
All this to say tiny homes are not imho rebranded mobile homes. They are a different beast altogether.
If you want to compare similar sizes, you can start looking at campers, which are also tiny homes on wheels. Nobody considers them glorious to live in, either. A tiny home might be more comparable to a hand-built camper / towable RV.
Building your own construction project is generally not a cost savings, in the same way that growing your own food is not a cost savings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOQzZo00kYw
I don't really care for the floorplan, but the concept is attractive - being able to travel off the beaten path, irregardless of the weather conditions.
Unfortunately, while many of those boomers are just wanting to check out the experience, many have found that their "retirement plans" aren't able to include a regular home. This is partly the subject of this book:
Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century
[1] http://rvlife.com/camperforce-at-amazon/ [2] https://www.wired.com/story/meet-camperforce-amazons-nomadic...
https://www.amazon.com/dp/039324931X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_dp_t7...
Interesting that the shortened link is http, while the destination is https. Is that usual?
Ah, and I just noticed that a.co goes directly to amazon.com, so I suppose it's their own shortner. Of course I didn't know that before I clicked.
"Drag a hundred-dollar bill through a trailer park, you never know what you'll find."
With that one quote, he smeared one of the victims of Bill Clinton's predatory sexual attacks AND insulted low-income Americans.
The part I find maybe most interesting, and most troubling, is the way classism plays out even among the set of people that live in RVs. I've noticed a distinct set of phrases rich/white people who travel in RVs use in reviews to describe parks that are inhabited by poor people or people of color, which is a subtle bit of red-lining among RVers. And, this reinforces the division; parks that want good reviews from the wealthy travelers take steps to prevent poor people from staying in their parks. Imposing a trailer age restriction is the most common and most effective; poor folks can't afford a new RV. It's maybe even more pronounced among RVers because the rich ones don't want to be associated with "trailer trash", even though they have a lot in common with them.
But, I think the explosion of housing costs have led to an interesting shakeup in the market. RV manufacturers that historically targeted the high end, where retirees would sell their house (or use the equity in their house) to buy a monster luxury motorhome, a few years ago started making lower end trailers again. Winnebago even makes trailers again, which they didn't do for a couple of decades.
There's also a strong bit of nostalgia in the market that's somewhat new. Manufacturers are looking backward for design ideas; partly to make low-cost options again, and partly because the industry got lost in the woods for a long time just making the biggest and most expensive thing they could because that's where the money was. I'm pleased to see the change because old RVs were often beautiful or charming in ways that modern fiberglass rectangle boxes distinctly are not.
One thing I've also noticed: RV park prices in major cities have gone through the roof, while availability has gone way down, in the ~9 years I've been traveling. I used to be able to arrive in a city and get a spot in a park within a reasonable distance, without a reservation. No longer is that true. Austin is maybe the most pronounced difference. It was always a favorite landing place for me because it's a major city with a couple of RV parks in easy biking distance to downtown. Those parks have doubled their rent and have months-long waiting lists now. It's not as pleasant to travel in an RV as it once was, even just a few years ago, if you like visiting bigger cities. And, I think that's because so many people have been pushed out of houses/apartments and into RVs. That's an alarming trend, I think.
We bought a pretty old (1986), small (15') travel trailer that we've been working on in order to explore some bits of California and hopefully other parts of the US we haven't seen. And yes, there is a huge bit of nostalgia in the market: We were shocked at the prices of 'classic', partially-or-fully restored trailers like Shastas and Aristocrats. You can buy used "fiberglass rectangles" with more amenities and generally better construction for far less (but they are, as you say, not in any way charming).
Check out the 5-year history of the stock of Winnebago Industries (NYSE: WGO). I think that's a lot of baby boomers hitting the market.
You will. California is awful. Particularly the bay area. I ended up having to park over an hour and a half away from San Francisco when I visited. I'm in an old Avion travel trailer these days. When I first moved into an RV it was a newish motorhome, and I never ran into the trailer age restriction. But, I think there's actually two things at play: Parks that never had such restrictions in the past have added them in recent years. All the parks I used to stay in in Austin had no such restrictions in the past, and all but one does now. This is, I think, a reflection of the growing class divide among RVers and the growing desire among wealthy RVers, who do it by choice, to not be associated with or share space with poor trailer residents who do it out of necessity.
It is most pronounced in major cities. It's rare to find this restriction at parks that are out in the country. Also, obviously, city, county, state, and national parks have no such restrictions. So, it's usually possible to find a good place to park it, but it's surprisingly difficult to get a spot somewhere close to a major city.
It's been such a frustrating problem for me that come spring, I plan to buy a newer rig just so I don't have this problem anymore. I like to be able to visit major cities with my RV. It pisses me off that I'll have to give my business to parks that participate in ugly classism in order to do it, though. I've also considered going with a big old bus and just putting a gazillion solar panels on the roof and huge water tanks, so I don't need to be in a park at all.
IMHO, homes should be smaller and designed by architects rather than efficiency experts and with an eye toward past stylistic precedents (gothic, craftsman, prairie, stick, etc.)