Jay Leopold

No doubt that this and any other item is less costly if you buy a bunch of them ... and if you are like ThinHaus and make a lot of tiny houses, then maybe you can save. If you are building one tiny house, you probably won't need more than a couple of bags of these. There are many other places to save on your build than spending time trying to save $5 on grommets.

John C Daley wrote:If you have decided on a steel frame, consider getting quotes to have the frame factory built and fitted to the trailer, or at least made in panels you can fit together at home.
You need to run gromments through any holes in the frame that you pass anything through. Power, water

Absolutely! We use these from Home Depot and Lowes and they work great. Not completely cost free, but at 25cents each, it's a terrific insurance policy especially for a movable ThinHaus.

ThinHaus builds with steel ... and a lot of tech screws. In fact, there are over 10,000 screws in each ThinHaus. This one is engineered to 150mph winds and stands 13'6" tall on a drop axle trailer. There are a ton of reasons why steel is better, but you have to get past the fact that the material is a bit tricky to get and the skill to build it is uncommon. Once past that, you have something really special.

"Best Practices" manuals and tutorials are great and provide a terrific "historical" view of construction methods ... but they do not take into account the rapidly changing world of new materials and tools. Our ThinHaus models of today look like the older models, but are really a completely different. The frame is made of 16ga steel that is crazy strong, crazy light and totally put together with a modern tech screws. There are no nails or wood anywhere. The best place to learn to do that is on YouTube! Some of the tools that we are using are new, too. Cordless hand tools with 60V power has changed how we do things. Even safety has changed with the introduction of light weight, reflective vests and disposable ear plugs that actually work. Bottom line, if you are building something in 2020, you will want to study Google and YouTube. The older manuals are fun, but don't tell a modern story.

Something is happening. Small home contractors like ThinHaus are shifting production from foundation based, stick-built houses to moveable tiny houses. We could have easily taken the money from our last sale and used it to build another house here in Phoenix. No one would have thought twice about that decision. Instead, we decided to use that money to design and build three new ThinHaus models ... helping three families to find a new home instead of just one for the same money. Turns out, we aren't the only ones coming around to this way of thinking. As the third major builder of tiny homes in Arizona, we are seeing more and more interest. There will be others and that is good. We could all build around the clock and not supply enough innovation and stock. Americans with less money, less mobility and less need for stuff are finding the tiny house idea to be very appealing. Even the cities around the nation are coming on board. Something we've learned here in the Valley of the Sun ... inside living space and outside living space are very different and you really don't need that much of the former if you have tons of the later, like we do here.

There seems to be a direct correlation between comfort and cost. One can live outside here in Arizona for quite some time for next to nothing, especially in the summertime. In Minnesota ... well, one can die if not protected from the elements ... obviously. So, this "game" is one of stamina and personal choice. Go too cheap, and you are miserable or dead. Go for more shelter & comfort and your costs go up. Perhaps building your house in a warmer climate and moving it north when you are done could be a workable compromise? Maybe building pieces of it in one place and assembling it in another could work? Make a plan and be sure to be realistic on the costs or you risk an unfinished dream.

There are actually two separate and mostly unrelated issues in play here ... insulation (energy savings) and plastic disposition. Trying to "kill two birds with one stone" in this case may end up solving neither problem and might actually make things worse. Thermal transfer is a very well understood science and insulation technology is available and inexpensive. If you want to save energy, save the planet and stop putting carbon in the air, then place appropriate amounts of insulation in your dwelling. Rock wool is a terrific alternative to pink insulation ... easy to come by and not very expensive. Now, what to do with all that plastic? Well, first we should figure out how to stop needing and/or using it ... cloth or paper sacks is a nice step in that direction. Second, we need to find a efficient way to collect it and then lastly, of course, remanufacture it into something useful ... or even decompose it and return it to the Earth safely. Trying to solve both problems, one user at a time, is not going to help much ... if at all?