Slashdot Mirror
How To Build an Open Source House?
An anonymous reader writes "I'm starting a project that I hope that the engineers, makers and general DIYers in the Slashdot crowd can help out with. The full story's on the website, but the short version is as follows: my aim is to make a cheap, recycled, sustainable building, to document the process fully and to release anything that would help others to do the same. I intend to use an old train carriage as the shell, but the ideas should extend to shipping containers, aeroplane fuselages or anything similar. I know I'm not the first to do this, but I can't see anyone else who's provided a detailed step-by-step account of the build, complete with plans and the rest. Before I start, though, I'm trying to draw on as much collective experience as possible, and to head off mistakes before they happen. My question to Slashdot is simple: what do you think I need to know before I begin?"
I am in the process of building my own eco-house. The first step is to get some land outside the "rubber-stamp" "where's your permit" world because when the inspector shows up he will take one look at your creation and since it will not fit neatly in one of his stacks redtag it until it does. What we did was buy unimproved land a few miles from an unincorporated city of a few hundred people. The only regulations we are under are county which deal with water and septic, which is good all the way around. As for anything else.. I could build a match stick house on a gasoline foundation with a blowtorch door bell and no one would say squat.