There are a variety of home types out there. Often people ask what’s the difference between a tiny home and other homes? For ease of discussion, we define the different types of homes here.
- 3D home – Typically “printed” using a 3D robotic robotic arm extruder on-site. The arm pours concrete in a pre-designated area. Layers of concrete create the exterior walls. This process takes 24 hours. Similarly, 3D sand printing pours sand instead.
- Container home – A rectangular structure where the primary building material is one or more new or used steel shipping containers. A typical size is 8 x 20 although, high head room and longer options exist.
- Kit or prefabricated home – Factory pre-designed and pre-cut home pieces shipped to your site. You or your contractor fully assemble them onsite.
- Manufactured and mobile homes – Mobile homes were originally fabricated assembled in a factory, built with wheels and a coupler. However, those built in the 80s were under the new Housing Act an under stricter regulation. They are now referred to as manufactured homes, are built in factory, and transported to site on a chassis.
- Modular home – These homes are pre-designed, pre-cut, and partially assembled (so they differ from kit homes here) in the factory, delivered and assembled on site. They sit on a slab or foundation.
- RV – Not intended for full-time living but, where laws permit, many people use RVs or recreational vehicles them as permanent homes. RVs are fifth wheel campers, motorhomes, pop-up campers, and travel trailers.
- Shed home – Sheds converted to a livable home. Manual construction of walls and frame are not required and they are finished on site by companies or do-it-yourselfers. Main advantage is not building the shell yourself. The pre-built walls save time.
- Skoolie – A bus converted to a home. This is most often a school bus but can be other bus types. Skoolies do not need a separate towing vehicle so they have an advantage over trailer-based homes.
- Stick-built home – Built from the ground up on site, these homes include a foundation, frame of wood or “sticks”, interior walls, exterior walls with plywood, insulation, and then covered with brick or vinyl siding. Most people think of stick-built homes when considering buying a home.
- Tiny home – Tiny homes cover a variety of home types listed here — from container homes to stick-built to yurts. The common denominator is size. The average tiny home is between 100 and 400 square feet. But size is open for debate. Read more – when a home is tiny. Of interest – modern tiny homes built on a trailer have quality akin to a stick-built home.
- Quonset home – Shaped like a dome and built of corrugated steel. Originally designed by the Navy in 1941.
- Yurt – Portable, round, and typically built of wood, covered in fabric. There is no center beam. Instead, tension and compression hold it up. They originated hundreds of years ago by nomadic people.
Related
