When the tiny house movement first began around two decades ago, it was pioneered by people who wanted a way to live both more affordably and less wastefully. Many of these early adopters were also blessed with the skills and means needed to build their own homes from scratch, and so they did.
As the movement started to pick up steam, more people from different walks of life discovered that the tiny house lifestyle appealed to them. Whether it was to have a permanent tiny off-grid retreat, or to have a traveling house they could take with them on a nomadic journey, they wanted in.
The problem was that many of these newcomers to the movement did not have the experience needed to build their own houses in a way that would stand the tests of time, weather, and the law. How could they possibly get around these barriers?
What is a Tiny House Shell?
Enter the professional builders. Seeing an opportunity to serve a previously unknown market, many construction industry professionals started providing entire tiny homes, built to code and fully fitted-out with all the amenities needed for a comfortable life in a small space.
The problem was that this caused the cost of a typical tiny home to balloon far beyond what was originally envisioned by the pioneers who wanted to live more affordably and sustainably. It even frequently put tiny homes out of reach for those who could most benefit from them. It was more like buying an RV, and in many cases, that’s exactly what it was.
The solution was an elegant compromise. Professional builders could construct tiny house shells which are an empty shell of a house that consists of walls, windows, doors, floor, and a roof and leave the rest up to the owner. This option provides prospective tiny home dwellers with the safety and security of a professional structure, and the pleasure and savings of a fully customizable interior that they would have to finish on their own.
What are the Benefits a Tiny House Shell?
By starting with an empty shell, tiny home owners can skirt around the most intimidating tasks of building a home entirely from scratch. They can benefit from some professional construction where it matters most, while saving on the interior design.
Building a house is not something that you can just wake up one Saturday morning and decide to do. Well, you can do that, technically, but unless you have advanced construction skills, the chances that it will go well when you actually try it are… low.
To build a safe and sturdy house, it’s absolutely necessary to have both knowledge and experience with the principles of construction. You have to understand the kinds of materials to use and how to attach them to each other properly.
Especially now, in the modern era, a familiarity with building codes and vehicle safety regulations (depending on the type of tiny house you have in mind) is a must. It does you no good at all to know how to build a house that turns out to be illegal, and therefore uninhabitable.
If you have all of these skills and knowledge bases, though, then you’re indeed in a great position, much like the original pioneers of tiny house building. You can save an enormous amount of money by designing and building your own tiny house from the trailer up.
For those who don’t possess this precise combination of skills and understanding, however, there’s still a way to get yourself a tiny house without breaking the bank, and that is by starting with an empty tiny house shell. Just four walls, a door, a roof, and some windows, on a trailer.
What Does a Tiny House Shell Include?
In many cases, the walls of a tiny house shell will only be the exterior walls and wooden frame. The interior is left completely exposed and empty, often without insulation. This generally makes it easier to install the house’s utilities exactly where you need them, though it can still be a challenging task.
Given that the chief raison d’etre behind tiny house living is simplification, though, starting with an empty shell is a fantastic way to discover what your true needs and priorities are. The most basic one is shelter from the elements, and the shell itself takes care of that.
What else do you need? A bathroom, of course, but if you’re trying to save money and space, does it need to be an electronic porcelain throne that analyzes its contents and sends the results to an app, alongside a separate glass-enclosed shower with built-in automatic shampoo dispensers?
OR… would a basic waterless composting toilet and a simple showerhead sharing the exact same space satisfy your basic needs just as well?
Likewise, you can design a highly efficient kitchen space that takes care of your basic cooking and cleanup needs and provides adequate storage space, without consuming the entire square footage of your tiny house.
When you have to decide on what’s truly necessary for a comfortable life in a limited space, it puts a lot of things into perspective!
What Does a Tiny House Shell Cost?
Depending on the exact amount of preliminary work you want done by professional builders, and on the type and size of your trailer, a tiny house shell is likely to cost somewhere in the range of about $22,000 to $75,000.
Obviously, that’s a pretty big range, so let’s break it down a bit.
Using the pricing schedule offered by MitchCraft Tiny Homes as an example, we can see that for just $22,000, what you’ll get is a basic 8’ x 16’ bumper-pull trailer with the barest necessities built on top of it. That includes floor insulation, framing, a roof, and windows, but no wiring or plumbing of any kind, nor wall insulation.
By contrast, for that $75,000, we’re talking about a 32-foot-long trailer with a gooseneck extension in addition to its base length, and that comes fully insulated, with complete plumbing and wiring setups installed and ready for fixtures.
All the in-between options are priced accordingly. Every two additional feet of trailer length results in about $3,500 in additional costs.
Other companies, such as Wind River or Tiny House Basics, offer tiny house shells for a bit less, topping out at just around $45,000 for one that’s ready for you to finish. And some companies even offer the option to choose between a shell known as a kit, or, for even less, a build-your-own package where they provide a trailer and plans, and you do the rest.
Another great way to save as much money as possible is to build your tiny house on a foundation instead of a trailer. This opens up significantly more design possibilities, and allows you to more easily make use of recycled materials.
All of these budget-saving possibilities still have one thing in common, though: They still require some degree of technical expertise to finish fitting them out.
At the End of the Day, Why Use a Shell?
That expertise that you need to properly finish a tiny house shell can be half of the fun! Suppose you already have the technical construction skills necessary for a properly completed job. For once, you get to build something that’s for you, and not just for a customer! That can feel immensely rewarding.
But say you don’t have those skills yet. Are you stuck? No, not at all! Because the tiny house needs to be done right to be safe, up to code, and approved by the locality where you’re planning to install it, you’ll need to take the time to acquire those skills through patient study and practice.
In other words, building your tiny home from a shell is an exercise in education. It’s more time-consuming, no doubt about that, but it can be very much worth the time.
By starting with a tiny house shell, you’ll not only save money compared to buying a traditional home or even a ready-built tiny house, but you’ll gain incredibly valuable experience in a useful skill. You’ll be able to apply your newfound construction skills to other projects with confidence.
This option may not work for some people, though, and that’s okay. In fact, it happens often that new tiny home owners get into a project by going the shell route, only to discover that it was way more challenging than they had anticipated.
Mistakes will be made, but they can be corrected. The important thing is to carefully evaluate the choice and decide according to what’s right for you and your family. If time is of the essence, starting with a shell could cause intolerable delays and frustration. In those cases, go ahead and consider a fully-built home.
If, however, you find greater value in the journey of learning by doing, you may find that the delays are a feature, rather than a bug. A tiny house shell is a home that gets you started with something, but still lets you pour your own soul into its construction.