lowest $$ foundation for tiny house w/minimal equipment

There are to my knowledge only a few types of foundational systems to begin with, but i'm just trying to verify what I think I know I guess...  : P  Anything alternative-ish?

If you saw my posts elsewhere you'll know i'm in love with earthscrews and screw piles for simplicity, ecofriendliness, theoretical cost to DIY in bulk when doing multiple projects needing foundation-earth ties including solar panels - but the more I research them the biggest hangup is the cost to buy, build, or rent the machine to do the job plus the difficulty of hauling the machine into the backwoods somewhere.

Slabs are a nonstarter for me - cost too much, too much weight to haul back, only efficient with a cement truck and again getting it to a middle-of-nowhere area now a problem.

So whats left???

I'm PROBABLY thinking just concrete piers then of some sort - but can anybody come up with alternatives I should at least also consider??


My current plan for a tiny house is in the 400-600square foot range.  It's options like a converted semi trailer or sealand container or ideally building an A-frame to maybe 20x30 with the ability to extend it on the long axis, which would mean making a foundation extension to extend the house later.

I'm 50/50 on whether the foundation has to be fully code legal but i'd like to know about what would be and what wouldn't be...  ie some nontraditional foundation might work for an outbuilding or gazebo and be worth knowing about, but not work for my main house.

What would you use for this?

These are good questions that I haven't the answers for.
Here are some foundations you haven't mentioned here:
-Tire bales
-Gravel trench
-Stone
Tire piers(arguably just another concrete peir)
-Wood piers scribed to stone
- Diamond Pier(cast concrete piers with long pins driven radially through them)

I'm a big fan of the rubble trench with concrete grade beam. For a 400-600 sqft structure that would take about ~10-15 yards of gravel/rubble and ~2-3 yards of concrete.

Concrete piers are more conducive to remote and solo builds only requiring ~1-2 yards of gravel (soil dependent) and 1-1.5 yards of concrete for the same build. However, I think you lose out a lot with pier and beam on not having the earth connection.

Here are videos showing an install of  a rubble trench and concrete piers:

To me, before discussing foundations it is good to know what is going to be built.

As mentioned, a converted semi trailer or sealand container would require a different kind of foundation from a stick-built tiny house.  Or at least that is the way it seems to me.

The house we are living in now was someone else dream.  It came with a slab foundation which was not my choice.

Now that I am living with my first slab concrete floor and am really happy with it.  It holds the heat in the winter and cools in summer like a thermal mass.

Our previous tiny house was set on concrete blocks.

Out in West Texas, we have a container for storage.  I can't remember what kind of foundation was used though when I was doing research these are usually on a  pier, pile, slab and strip foundation.

If cost is the primary issue.  I would dig 2ft diameter holes 3ft deep for each pier.  Then alternate packing gravel/ small stones with tamping it down with a large log.  Do this every few inches all the way to the top.

That should give you a solid base with a large enough footprint so your posts won’t sink.


Then cap your gravel packed hole with a large flat rock or solid concrete block.

Then you’re able to go up with a wood post from there on out.



I’ve built a few tiny cabins and I’d suggest to securing them to the ground with either purposefully built anchors.  (You can find these if you search mobile home anchors) or by driving multiple stalks of rebar into the ground at each corner at 45 degree angles then binding the tops together with chain or cable then attaching that to outside band of your house.  

A tiny house may seem heavy. But if a strong straight line wind hits it just right.  It could knock it off it’s foundation if it’s not secured to the ground.

It would help to know in what climatic zone you are located, because it will affect the price of your foundation.
If you save on foundation, you may lose on other building parts in the future.
I think the best "cheap" solution is what Aaron suggested (please do not forget rebars in the concrete).

Cristobal Cristo wrote:I think the best "cheap" solution is what Aaron suggested (please do not forget rebars in the concrete).

With pier and beam I think it's more a pay later solution unless you're in a climate that never gets below freezing and you don't need to heat or cool your house.

As I'm getting older, I *might* be getting wiser, but I'm certainly getting more risk-averse.

So yes, whatever you do, make sure the foundation is tied to the building and tied to Planet Earth.  I read about a house that was built on a huge oak stump on one side, and the house was over 100 years old if I recall correctly. The stump stayed dry because of the roof overhangs, and dry wood can be pretty rot-resistant.

So please consider your climate zone, your primary natural risk factors, and consider that many storms are currently going through a "bigger is better" phase, so what used to happen once every 5 years, in my zone is now happening 5 times in one year and with 3 to 10 times more force or volume.

Just choosing the specific spot on your land will change the risk. I just watched a friendly geologist on Y--tube teaching about how to recognize past land-slide signs and how important it is not to choose that sort of land to build on! I suspect that if the Cascadia Subduction lets go, my house won't survive the experience. Then again, if we flip into the next Ice Age, we'll be done with this house for sure, but not this year!

So we might be able to give you more specific and better ideas if we knew more about the soil structure, natural plant types and climate risks for your planned location.

Brian Shaw wrote:If you saw my posts elsewhere you'll know i'm in love with earthscrews and screw piles for simplicity, ecofriendliness, theoretical cost to DIY in bulk when doing multiple projects needing foundation-earth ties including solar panels - but the more I research them the biggest hangup is the cost to buy, build, or rent the machine to do the job plus the difficulty of hauling the machine into the backwoods somewhere.

Brian, my first thought was screw piles also. They're economical and they have a screw adjustment in case things settle later so you can level things out easily.

What are your subsoil conditions?

I built a big sun porch 12x26 on my previous house. Fully insulated 2x10 deck and tempered glass -- not lightweight. We installed 8-ft DIY screw piles to support the outside end. The Code people were okay with it, since it was dense, stable prairie clay all the way down. Two strong men on the bar were able to install four of these by hand, no machine required.

Anne Miller wrote:To me, before discussing foundations it is good to know what is going to be built.

As mentioned, a converted semi trailer or sealand container would require a different kind of foundation from a stick-built tiny house.  Or at least that is the way it seems to me.

Our previous tiny house was set on concrete blocks.

Out in West Texas, we have a container for storage.  I can't remember what kind of foundation was used though when I was doing research these are usually on a  pier, pile, slab and strip foundation.

Whats going to be built will be what ends up available or affordable at the time.  

What I do know is that I would prefer it suspended above the ground a bit, not on the ground, because of concerns about overland flooding and winter melts and other stuff.  So in my mind no matter what it is it will just be a little jacked up anyways.  Whether it's the corners (and middle of the long side, prob 6 piers) of an A-frame, the same treatment to a sealand container, or something similar with a semi trailer.

I'm aware I could just throw some concrete blocks on ground level but i'm assuming frost heave and such will still be a problem.  My thinking was piers could get down below the frostline to support the weight above more reliably - a better, but not perfect solution.  (this is not a forever house, more like a 5-10 year house while we hope to build resources to upgrade)

Whats different with a strip foundation, and are there reasons to go with one type over another?  


Everything i'm weighing is going to be pros and cons, but the biggest issue is going to be money and trying to avoid use of heavy equipment including a dozen plus yards commercially delivered fill.  IF i'm suspending the house (not guaranteed) I wasnt sure why I needed a slab or large area of infill I guess...  vice versa, if I can save the money of a slab or infill by going with piers why not just make piers of some sort?

What can I DIY and haul in with a normal pickup as much as possible is my quest.

William Bronson wrote:These are good questions that I haven't the answers for.
Here are some foundations you haven't mentioned here:
-Tire bales
Tire piers(arguably just another concrete peir)
-Wood piers scribed to stone
- Diamond Pier(cast concrete piers with long pins driven radially through them)

Not very familiar with any of those, feel free to expand.  :)  Does anyone know if any of those pass code?

Jay Grace wrote:If cost is the primary issue.  I would dig 2ft diameter holes 3ft deep for each pier.  Then alternate packing gravel/ small stones with tamping it down with a large log.  Do this every few inches all the way to the top.

I’ve built a few tiny cabins and I’d suggest to securing them to the ground with either purposefully built anchors.

THATS a clever idea, I hadnt considered that maybe just using a 'pier of gravel' would do the same job as mixing all that as solid concrete...  perhaps it would?  Any naysayers?  Any ideas about code?  I really like that idea/it'd be something I could haul in and DIY myself.  Or even use tires as a form to hold the gravel vertical inside a hole as well.

But would that hold a vertical load down?  I take to heart your comment on using anchors, and dont know if anchoring the tiny house to just a plate of concrete on the top of it would be enough.  There may be other options to get a vertical tie down - like a plate in the BOTTOM of the hole with a steel post in the middle concreted in, so that the weight of the gravel is holding it down, and i'd just tie into the steel post similar to how earthscrews get tied into things.

But would it pass code or does it seem to alternative-ish?

Jay Grace wrote:I’ve built a few tiny cabins and I’d suggest to securing them to the ground with either purposefully built anchors.  (You can find these if you search mobile home anchors) or by driving multiple stalks of rebar into the ground at each corner at 45 degree angles

Or its possible you were talking about anchoring separately from withstanding the vertical load, I misread.  :)

Cristobal Cristo wrote:It would help to know in what climatic zone you are located, because it will affect the price of your foundation.
If you save on foundation, you may lose on other building parts in the future.

Minnesota, we usually do basements here but that will cost way too much for what this HAS to be which is a way out of a financial nightmare which needs us to radically lower housing cost for about a decade.

Flat slabs cost more than I like and i'm not sure what I gain vs sitting up on piers a bit, the land I have to use might be less than perfect as far as not necessarily full on flood risk but just 'overland water flow' that i'd rather be a foot above.  There are no perfect solutions though.

This is meant to be an interim solution while we save up for a better one, even if something went 'bad' with the foundation I wouldn't expect it to go so severely bad so quickly as to be unliveable, a sealand container is already pretty stout and A-frames hold themself together even just mounted on skids as they are stronger than normal house builds.  Any foundation should just enhance this, not detract from it.  Any of the three could just be plunked down on dirt with some concrete blocks and likely survive a few years, but might tilt from frost heave I mean...  I wouldn't try that with a normal weak house.

I'm not going to know more about soil types and plants until I start looking for land, but the type of land I look at might be...  substandard... to be cheap enough to acquire without plans of building a normal house there.  I dont know.  Any and every compromise for cost might have to be endured and force me to think out of the box.  :(  It's more a question of how good or bad or far do I take those compromises or relative risks...  it's why i'm not against ideas like a semi trailer which already sit up like 3.5 feet in the air anyways, if it just has something sturdy to plonk the wheels and support jack on.

What i'm building might be more akin to how people stick down a gazebo on land they already have, without excessive consideration they'd normally give to a house meant to last 30 years, or they'll rebuild it if it goes to crap.  Ability to pass for code is an ideal, cuz I might make it a legal residence - or it might be glorified camping land and we will only be there intermittently, I dont know yet.  Just keeping options open.

Since this is for a building intended to be temporary and cheap, that changes things considerably.
The code/no code dilima is another other design bottleneck.
I think you might want to skip on passing code if you are trying to save money.
The only way I see a code compliant building fitting into your plans is by paying someone else to build the cheapest foundation possible.
This would need to include sewer and water stub ups.

A tractor trailer or sea container is liable to cost more to bring them to code than building from scratch would, and that's aside from the foundation.
With an A frame you are back to just getting a code approved foundation.

A new or used 5th wheel set up on the land has the virtue of being normal.
You will be able to get clear answers from code enforcement on what is allowable, and you might be able to sell it when you are done with it.
If living on the land in a camper/trailer etc is allowed at all, it will probably be pretty simple/cheap/easy to do.
I would ask what the options were for camper foundations, and then ask if it could go inside of a pole barn, and what the minimum requirements were for that.

If you are going totally rogue you can build a post in hole building , like a pole barn with a living space inside it or a basic cabin set on pavers, tires, rocks, buckets filled with gravel, etc.
Basic buildings like this are easy to build and their shortcomings in durability can be overcome by their ease of maintenance.
Rotted out posts can be sistered, and a cabined that shifts because of frost heave can be re-leveled with jacks and shims.
This is not something you want to be doing in your dottage, but when you are fit and able a building or car that is less durable can be way more affordable, money wise.

By "overland flooding" do you mean a foot of (moving) water, or runoff from the land on the uphill side? Any house unless in a desert should be situated with its floor/slab/whatever distinctly above grade on all sides with finished grade sloping so water drains away from the foundation for at least three feet, more is better. If there is a possibility of significant runoff from one direction, I would increase the diversion grading there.

Are you considering "disposable" land you can put something on with plans to acquire better land later, or staying on what you buy? Obviously the latter reduces the cost of starting fresh later. How much land do you feel you ultimately need?

Being off the ground with the wind able to blow through seems like a very poor choice in Minnesota. You will lose real money every year on extra heating required, even if it is just your labor processing wood. There are earthen floor designs that would require little concrete yet have a good connection to the earth.

Glenn Herbert wrote:Being off the ground with the wind able to blow through seems like a very poor choice in Minnesota. You will lose real money every year on extra heating required, even if it is just your labor processing wood. There are earthen floor designs that would require little concrete yet have a good connection to the earth.

Not to mention:
1. If you insulate down on the outside, the floor becomes insulated mass which will make the house more comfortable in cold weather. If this may need to be for 10 years, it would be nice if it was warm and cozy rather than feeling like you could freeze in the dark.
2. Rocket Mass Heater/cook stove becomes an option if you've got ground contact. I haven't used one myself, but I'm aware of the importance of thermal mass for other reasons.

There's a small house build here on permies where the fellow essentially used gabions full of rock. Not sure the climate. In some soils/climate, metal rusts, but decent wire thickness (like upcycling chain-link fencing) should last 10 or more years in most climates??? (That's a WAG - wild-assed-guess. Hopefully one of our engineers will express an opinion!) A series of gabions wired together and with a level top would allow you to put an A-frame on top of that and have something heavy to tie down to. However, that requires you to buy land that has lots of rocks on it... I'd ship you some if it weren't for the cost! (I'm on glacial till and everywhere I dig, I come up with interesting rocks.)

You speak of buying land and expecting it to be marginal. Lots of permaculture is done on marginal land - it's a matter of figuring out *why* it's considered "undesirable" and then determining the risk factors and how to mitigate them. People build in really risky locations all the time. I prefer my permies alive and well, so please be careful when choosing your building site - watch for things like landslide potential, because that will take you out with no warning.

When a friend dragged me to Kaua'i, I saw building essentially at sea level as if there'd never be another hurricane. Then right next door, I'd see homes built on 10 ft piers - the low level provided shade and car storage, but the house was designed to be above the worst storm surge they expected. No hurricanes in Minnesota at least. But snow melt is a possible issue, but can be mitigated first by choosing a good location to build on and second by digging diversion channels and grading the land with whatever's at hand. During really heavy rain on our land, we've got an old log on the ground that turns into a waterfall. Beavers build dams with just wood and muck, so wood and muck can redirect water, slow it down, and protect your house *if* it's done like a beaver would so that it doesn't come loose.

Here's a video of an A-frame build.

Early on they describe the foundation.
There is very clear depiction of it at the 2 minute mark.

Glenn Herbert wrote:By "overland flooding" do you mean a foot of (moving) water, or runoff from the land on the uphill side?

Runoff, or "this isnt the perfect place for the house but it's the closest to the road until I can drag the A-frame on skids further up the hill".

Foundation free means less money up front, its not about whats best its about whats inexpensive.  Sticking a camper shell or RV on land is inexpensive, throwing some concrete blocks under the tires or jack stands is less expensive than slabs.  It's the absolute minimum first "until we can do better" solution.

If its a sealand or semi trailer it might well be moved to completely different land, an A-frame probably not, if we could afford better land in the future its one of the options.  First place vs best place.

Being off the ground with wind blow thru - its like mobile homes, they use skirting to stop wind going under it.

If i'm later convinced something is the right/best answer dropping the home back down on the ground to thermocouple the earth is fine, i'm just not sure when I know that.

Jay Angler wrote:
There's a small house build here on permies where the fellow essentially used gabions full of rock. Not

I love gabions.  : P  If anyone sees please share.

Also to be clear, just beause I say starting out without a foundation doesnt mean a foundation never added in ten years... its more you can start without it.  Even the A-frame if on skids or something later upgraded.

As I get things like a tractor to dig a bit and grade i'd look into adding a foundation and doing other projects.

The marginal land idea is yes i'm aware the permaculture is done on marginal land, I just need the house to be too cuz its just there to enable the permaculture.  I dont want to build 'risky' its more 'inexpensive' or 'less desirable compromises' vs people building more conventional houses.  One guy was selling arguably swampy land...  not wet year round but, wouldnt want to think things would work year round normally.  It made me wonder what I could work around with it for the price.

Oh and yes minnesota overland snow melt totally wet ground high water tables are another issue - instead of fighting for 10 year or 100 year flood plains just accepting okay a few inches of standing water might happen at least a few weeks per year so what.

Once I have the equipment and understand how to do better things with the land, I could change that up and move the house to a 'best on land' option.  There's so many things to learn, insuring the perfect first foundation seemed like something that could wait a year if the house was on skids or something.

I agree that working "with Nature" makes so much more sense than trying to stop her from doing what she's done for thousands of years in a place. If she wants a swamp, you can still grow by making chinampas - humans figured out several versions of that concept thousands of years ago! Spring flooding is what kept the Nile river valley fertile for thousands of years until humans thought that building mega-dams was a good idea??? I've been learning soooo... much in the last year about how damaging many US dams are, and I'd already read about huge concerns regarding the one on the Nile. Yet they're building another big one here in BC - humans should leave the dam building up to the beavers, as they seem to know what they're doing!!!

Maybe we need a whole thread about "floods and why permaculture needs them"! What we also need, is housing designed to cope with potential flooding along with other natural intermittent weather!

In the arena of whacky ideas that might give someone some good ideas:
1. So do you have an area with a lot of trees too close together that you don't mind cutting down? If this is temporary, could you cut the stumps 3 feet off the ground and use those as your foundation, considering this is more or less, "temporary"? Enough that if any 1 stump rotted before you were done with the house, it wouldn't collapse. (Think living piers depending on the species.)
2. Consider actual tree-house tech if you've got big enough trees. Building tree-houses that will last any length of time is *much* harder than most people realize. Trees move a lot in the wind, and buildings usually aren't designed for that. This is likely not a cheap solution.
3. There's this "friend of a friend". Was told he couldn't build where he wanted to... On an Island... Built a boathouse on one of those nifty boathouse foundations that are concrete that floats. Got it registered as a boat-house. Floated it out to the island. Every time there was a big storm at high tide, he hauled it higher up the island until he got it where he wanted it. Totally legal!

Jay Angler wrote:There's a small house build here on permies where the fellow essentially used gabions full of rock.

OK, I wasn't remembering exactly right - but close. It's more rocks with some wire supporting them and also some cement reinforcement in places. However, the concept is about the same...
https://permies.com/t/102542/cabin-project-pic

Jay Angler wrote:There's a small house build here on permies where the fellow essentially used gabions full of rock.

OK, I wasn't remembering exactly right - but close. It's more rocks with some wire supporting them and also some cement reinforcement in places. However, the concept is about the same...
https://permies.com/t/102542/cabin-project-pic
Use mostly rock, use some fencing to keep the rock where you want it, and use a minimal of concrete/cement where it will help the most. If rocks are in abundance, it can level an area enough for a secure tiny house that won't get flooded in the spring.

Mr Chickadee has several videos on the foundations under his house and workshops.

He uses no power tools. At all. And no concrete that I know of.

He has made pier, plinth, and stacked stone foundations.

Jay Angler wrote:
In the arena of whacky ideas that might give someone some good ideas:
1. So do you have an area with a lot of trees too close together that you don't mind cutting down? If this is temporary, could you cut the stumps 3 feet off the ground and use those as your foundation, considering this is more or less, "temporary"? Enough that if any 1 stump rotted before you were done with the house, it wouldn't collapse. (Think living piers depending on the species.)

That... is actually very clever.  >_>  That may very well be tried.  I suppose by definition the tree stumps shouldn't move with frost heave...  how deep does a tree 12 inches across go down into the dirt anyways.  Having it 3 feet up would let me potentially avoid some overland water issues and means I wouldn't have to even remove the stumps if I get treed land to start with (which I sort of want to anyways because I wanted to use a home sawmill to cut my own lumber for the house).  

If nobody else has done it I may very well be the first!  : P  If anyone can see evidence someone else has tried this please let me know.  Or if someone wants to guesstimate how long such a 'foundation' would be good for, ie 3 years 5 years or 10. (10 being the maximum conceivable time I could imagine happening before it got moved onto something else)

Jay Angler wrote:
Use mostly rock, use some fencing to keep the rock where you want it, and use a minimal of concrete/cement where it will help the most. If rocks are in abundance, it can level an area enough for a secure tiny house that won't get flooded in the spring.

I like the design of that foundation, and yes it looks like a good way to use a partial hillside as well, also letting me use less than perfect land.

Erin Nakamura wrote:Mr Chickadee has several videos on the foundations under his house and workshops.

He uses no power tools. At all. And no concrete that I know of.

He has made pier, plinth, and stacked stone foundations.

That looks cool... i'm all for labor saving devices, but the ability to make at least a simple foundation by hand would be a huge plus.  

Brian Shaw wrote:That... is actually very clever.  >_>  That may very well be tried.  I suppose by definition the tree stumps shouldn't move with frost heave...  how deep does a tree 12 inches across go down into the dirt anyways.

The type of tree and the ecosystem are factors. A tree which wasn't transplanted and has a tap-root will go much deeper than our local cedars which are notorious for shallow roots.

And said:

Having it 3 feet up would let me potentially avoid some overland water issues and means I wouldn't have to even remove the stumps if I get treed land to start with (which I sort of want to anyways because I wanted to use a home sawmill to cut my own lumber for the house).

Exactly! However, the more the stumps get wet and stay wet, the faster they will rot, so trying to encourage the water to go around your building rather than under it, would be worth doing in my books. That said, I live on the Wet Coast and it's amazing how long stumps can last with no visible signs of deterioration. Some species will last longer than others, so once you've got land, you can research the specific species you may be potentially using.

And said:

If nobody else has done it I may very well be the first!  : P  If anyone can see evidence someone else has tried this please let me know.  Or if someone wants to guesstimate how long such a 'foundation' would be good for, ie 3 years 5 years or 10. (10 being the maximum conceivable time I could imagine happening before it got moved onto something else)

I *know* I read about a house somewhere in the USA where 1 quarter of a house was supported on a stump and that it had been that way for multiple decades. I also read a proposal for housing in Africa that would be based on planting trees in the spots needed, but they may have planned on using the trees live, and I'm not convinced it was ever more than a proposal. However, I've seen videos of people building sheds on logs buried in holes, and they do similar with the Wofati at Wheaton Labs. If a reasonably rot resistant species was used, I'd expect it to last the 10 years. We've had standing dead trees that long on our land.  

My mother owned a house built in the 1920s.  When I crawled under it to do some work, I realized it was sitting on old tree stumps. The house is still standing. The last time I checked …1970? …the stumps were in good shape.

Hi,  I know of someone who has a wood foundation. He also has a  basement with wooden walls. The house is in Michigan.  The water table is 3' below grade. The basement is dry.   Its possible to dig a 2' trench by hand and lay your own cut square tree logs in the trench. Then build up above grade.  Cost so far is very minimal if all done by hand. Then rent s small earth mover and push dirt up against the wood to shed water and keep the place dry.

You can build whatever you would like. Either cheap or more expensive code complient on top of the foundation.

Brian Shaw wrote: My current plan for a tiny house is in the 400-600square foot range.  It's options like a converted semi trailer or sealand container or ideally building an A-frame to maybe 20x30 with the ability to extend it on the long axis, which would mean making a foundation extension to extend the house later.

My first recommendation is to buy a well-used, a.k.a. Cheap, 10 ft X 50 ft mobile home. Live in that for one year and then make your jump to build a Tiny House. Not so bad for ONE person, but it gets especially small for TWO persons. After a year you will KNOW if you want such a small house, OR a starter Tiny Home that can be easily extended later.

IF you're talking about a permanent home later then the Tiny House you build first - must have a substantial permanent foundation. House foundations built on skids or in shallow trenches are going to cause problems. Near me there was a tract of very nice homes built, thousands of $$ to buy, with 18" deep foundations. Three years later all of the houses had cracks as the FROST LINE for this area is 3 feet deep. The "foundation" was the cause of all the problems.

That deep foundation may be a huge expense, however, you don't want the problems associated with shallow foundations - unless, of course, that you're made up your mind that the Tiny House is NOT going to be permanent.

I am building a 600 square foot house on an extremely tight budget.

I used second hand electric poles for my foundation.  I used put in 3 rows of five as piers to build the house on.  A pier foundation by code has to be engineered because they can fail by the piers tipping over if not done right.  The problem is, engineered drawings  cost more than I plan to spend on the entire build, so I did some reading, and some math based on my soil type and decided to take a chance and build it without an engineer.  According to my math 1 pier could support the weight of the entire house, and 3 is enough to support the wind side loading, and if they do start failing I have a back up plan.

I also set the posts so their bases are below where a basement floor will be if I ever decide to dig it out and put a basement under the house.  So some of the posts are 7 feet deep.  Digging mostly by hand with some help from my wife and a winch to lift the dirt once the hole got too deep it took me 3 weeks of spending every spare minute after work and on weekends working until dark to dig and set them all.

J Hillman wrote:  According to my math 1 pier could support the weight of the entire house, and 3 is enough to support the wind side loading, and if they do start failing I have a back up plan.

Instead of paying an engineer, you've tried to over-engineer it far past what would be required - an approach Hubby would approve of!

and wrote:

I also set the posts so their bases are below where a basement floor will be if I ever decide to dig it out and put a basement under the house.  So some of the posts are 7 feet deep.  Digging mostly by hand with some help from my wife and a winch to lift the dirt once the hole got too deep it took me 3 weeks of spending every spare minute after work and on weekends working until dark to dig and set them all.

I hope you took some good pictures and precise measurements, so if you do decide to make changes, you can rely on something other than the human memory!

You've also exchanged your time and muscle power for lack of money. It's hard to guess the future, so there's no guarantee you'll get money back for that effort, but if you get a safe, healthy place for you and your wife to live, that's priceless!

Jay Angler wrote:

J Hillman wrote:  According to my math 1 pier could support the weight of the entire house, and 3 is enough to support the wind side loading, and if they do start failing I have a back up plan.

Instead of paying an engineer, you've tried to over-engineer it far past what would be required - an approach Hubby would approve of!

and wrote:

I also set the posts so their bases are below where a basement floor will be if I ever decide to dig it out and put a basement under the house.  So some of the posts are 7 feet deep.  Digging mostly by hand with some help from my wife and a winch to lift the dirt once the hole got too deep it took me 3 weeks of spending every spare minute after work and on weekends working until dark to dig and set them all.

I hope you took some good pictures and precise measurements, so if you do decide to make changes, you can rely on something other than the human memory!

You've also exchanged your time and muscle power for lack of money. It's hard to guess the future, so there's no guarantee you'll get money back for that effort, but if you get a safe, healthy place for you and your wife to live, that's priceless!

Every bit of it is trading lack of money for hard work.  I started building it by buying a $50 chainsaw and several tons of scrap steel to build the tools I needed to harvest my materials from the land. I have no worries about getting my money back if we ever sell the place.  Many people tell me I should consider resale value.  I expect it to cost $7000 to build.  I figure a 2 bedroom house in this area rents for about $1000 a month so if we live in it for 7 months we are money ahead over renting.  At that pint if we ever decide to sell the land we can sell for just the value of the land and throw the house in for free if it has no value at that point.