wrote in message
ups.com...
0tterbot wrote:
recently, for reasons which are actually irrelevent now, we were looking
at
what sorts of kit homes etc one could buy. it was often the case that the
more pleasant, smaller, subtle houses did not represent "value for money"

Most kit home builders have 2 bed (or even 1 bed) 1 bath designs. Try
finding a 2x1 house anywhere else.

sorry, by "small" or "modest" or whatever i said, i meant, "has three
bedrooms (or two BIG bedrooms, like a proper old-fashioned house), but no
"rumpus room" as big as a football field, or "parent's retreat" or any of
that crap they come up with. kwim?

http://www.ezyhomes.com.au/manadalay.php
http://www.beachlifehomes.com.au/kit...kitplans_id=58
http://www.kithomes.com.au/326-budget.html

those are cute. i did see a lot of cute, little ones. but we're a family of
4. i (at the time) just wanted a normal-size little house. there wasn't
enough that was practical & modest.

House construction definitely falls into the "economies of scale"
syndrome. For instance, the kitchen and bathroom are the most
expensive rooms in the house, and the cost of a kitchen or bathroom
is the same irrespective of the total cost of the house. Then you have
to get the trades in - it is cheaper to get in one electrician to wire
up a large house than to wire up two houses half the size. These
things are fairly self-evident, and if there is not much demand for
small houses it is because customers aren't prepared to pay a
higher price per square metre. It isn't really the builders' fault.
They just want to sell houses. Customers want environmentally
sound houses until they have to pay for them.

"environmentally sound" does not equal "ridiculously expensive" (nor even
"more expensive") and i think that last sentence of yours isn't quite
correct anyway - the ostentatious brigade don't give a shit, & they
evidently(?) comprise a fair segment of that market, _if_ the market is
genuinely supplying what people "want". i understand your points above -
some costs are fixed & that is that, but it's nevertheless true that an
unfortunate majority of these types of things are just ostentatious crap
which ALSO represent an overly-expensive product which just isn't good value
:-) of course there are good ones - but they're far too rare. there should
be more in the middle - not a granny flat or weekender, but not an
ostentatious piece of rubbish which takes several hours just to vacuum. and
that's all i'm saying :-) you'll have seen yourself there's just a gap in
that middle section of the market.

only a few small, nice ones. not enough companies had passive solar
design or inclusions like solar, or solar hot water, or such as that. it
was
disappointing to say the least

Much of the passive design involves correctly orienting the house
on the site. Most builders will let you move windows and modify
window size at little cost, and passive design largely involves
relatively minor customisation to suit the house orientation.

one should not have to customise to fix designers' ignorance or mistakes. it
is they who should be making as good a product as possible, because that's
(supposed to be) their job.

Most
kit homes are lightweight framed construction, so not suited to
thermal mass principles, but you can pack plenty of insulation
into the frame/ceiling/floor. As far as your water heating goes,
a kit supplier might offer a particular solution as standard but
you are free to install something else.

same as above. i fully realise they're not all awful. i'm bitching because
too many of them are awful, the "norm" for kit homes is, in my opinion,
awful :-) i gave up & was going to get a converted container (or two), but
at any rate it didn't matter in the end.
kylie