home :: cost

How big is that house on the TV?

05 Aug '07 from steve.hussey

(Sung to the tune of "How much is that doggy in the window...)

I have been watching the building of Kevin's green home in the Building Green TV program and had a few questions:

What is the footprint of the house & garage in square feet?
What is the total area of the house including both floors?
What was the per square foot cost of constrcution alone?

Thanks to anyone who can help me...


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Size

On August 6th, 2007 Kevin Contreras says:

The interior living space of the straw bale house is 4000 square feet, including both floors.  When I gave the design to our architect I was shocked to find out that we have almost fifteen hundred square feet in walls.  Since every exterior wall is close to 30 inches thick, it makes sense. The footprint is about 3500 hundred square feet, and the construction cost of the house was $290 per square foot.  In our area contractors quote no less than $450 per square foot and regularly charge $800.  It is an expensive place to build.  We also wanted to show the community and nation that a straw bale house can be quite elegant and doesn't have to be rustic by any means.  Thus, more money was spent than necessary, finishing the house with fine details. 

Regarding the size of the house, that is the thing we would do differently next time.  It's harder to be green when going big.  Then again, this is a party house and not a cozy retreat.  It was built to entertain and encourage people who are going to build homes of all sizes that alternative materials should be used any time they can.

Thanks for the interest,
Kevin

Size - does it matter?

On August 6th, 2007 steve.hussey says:

Here in the San Juan Islands I thought it was bad - until I read your building costs! ;-)

Here $200 per SF gets you a bare cabin, $300 to $400 SF is a more typical cost. An inland 5 acre parcel might cost you $300K but sea view parcels will cost you closer to $1 million. There's a dearth of affordable housing up here - the median house price is about $625K. There is also a lack of market rate affordable aimed at middle-income families. There's no lack of million dollar plus homes here but most are occupied only 8 weeks of the year as summer residences.

One of the problems here is lack of water, we have low rainfall (where I live 18 to 21 inches pa), low aquifer recharge rates from rainwater. My work is to educate people into building homes with a smaller footprint, that is encouraging multi-story homes, tucking the garage underneath etc. Then mitigate the effects with Low Impact Development.