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Comment by rada | Hacker News Reader

We could end up with a house under $10,000 that could be placed anywhere in the world.

Average U.S. construction prices per square foot for apartment buildings start at $130 per square foot, depending on location and material/fixture quality. New York is the most expensive at $230 per square foot.

So at 36 square feet, this dumpster home would end up at what... $270 per square foot? That's way more expensive than an actual apartment building, and that's before appliances and shared spaces such as bathrooms/laundry rooms/kitchens, not to mention the shipment costs which have got to be significant.

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Are cost per square foot comparisons meaningful between buildings of very different size? Many of the costs are going to be for things that do not scale linearly with building size.

For example, consider a single room building with a square floor plan. Suppose this building needs an electrical panel, and it needs an outlets every 10 feet along the walls. Suppose an electrician costs $100/hour, takes one hour to install a panel, and 15 minutes to run wire to an outlet location and install the outlet.

For a 10x10 (100 square feet) building, it would cost $200 for the electrical work, for a contribution of $2 per square foot to the building cost.

For a 100x100 (10000 square feet) building, it would cost $1100 for the electrical work, for a contribution of $0.11 per square foot to the building cost.

I'd expect a typical building would have a lot of sub-costs that are either independent of the building size, or scale with the perimeter length.

That doesn't necessarily tell the whole story of the house for under $10,000. Technically, yes, it might be more expensive per square foot, but you also have to account for the self-sufficiency of the house in not incurring other costs. Furthermore, as far as I know, you can't purchase and own housing in quantities of 36 square feet, so you end up paying for more space even if you don't require it. I think owning a fully functioning living space for under $10,000 definitely has it's merits, though it's definitely not for everyone.

"...you can't purchase and own housing in quantities of 36 square feet..."

And in most of the US, you still won't be able to do so. Or, more correctly, you won't be able to place the dumpster-home in a desirable location and use it as a permanent residence.

Most municipalities have minimum house sizes as part of their building code. You could potentially put the dumpster-home on wheels and get it approved as a mobile home, but you'd still be limited to areas that allow mobile homes.

It's not a fully functioning living space. It's a small bedroom with underfloor storage. There is no toilet, no water supply, no perishable food storage, no washing station.

And in its current incarnation, you have to have air conditioning or a roof that's open where you have to be constantly on the lookout for rain.

It's a cute project, but it's not a fully-functioning living space.

Edit: Also, introduce a second person (most cultures are into pairing off as a social norm) and you need to pretty much have the entire floor as a bed, meaning no floorspace to store the bookshelf or plant, and having to move the bed every time to get at storage. Maybe some sort of sliding bed/couch thing, but those aren't particularly cheap.

> So at 36 square feet, this dumpster home would end up at what... $270 per square foot?

Yes, but an actual apartment building would cost a fortune and be very difficult to build, while you can get started with dumpster-homes for a few thousand dollars (which is what a homeless person might rack up in one or two emergency room visits) and don't seem too difficult to make. The fixed costs are very different, even if the apartment building has economies of scale.

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