Dan Phillips: Creative houses from reclaimed stuff

Relax............If this is not news what is it?

It is news to me.

I am trying to break into alternative building, but the recession and lack of imagination seem to keep the stasis quo.

Alternative homes are pretty nice I would have one myself. I wonder about the cost since it is a sort of "custom built" it may be more expensive to build.

They are not more expensive; as he pointed out in the video, raiding the trash pile saves the cost of new material and the time and expense of bringing it to the job site. One of the best ways to save money in building is buying proper lengths of wood. Instead of designing something that is 9 feet long or high, 8 or 10 feet means you will not have to precut your wood. So by intuitive design and thoughtful shopping a ton of money can be cut off of material and labor on any construction site.

I wish the video addressed the building code. I assume these homes meed all of the codes.

I am sure they meet most and certainly the most important ones. Building codes are mostly good but some states abuse them to sell their buddies stuff. (special fasteners or a certain type of insulation) Most alternative buildings exceed building codes to overcome stupid building inspectors who only understand what they learned in a book. Earth bag building is inexpensive, strong, well insulated, and uses nontoxic materials. The houses in the video look pretty standard to me with mostly different materials being used for the finished look. (aesthetics )

I agree, but we always must be aware of representation by government agencies for one thing or another. I do not have experience with building inspections but I was under impression that every new home must meet building codes.

Your right, but it still boils down to "county personal" here in Oregon. It is not consistently applied throughout the country. If you are building a subdivision some where you may be able to bribe the official to be lax. In my experience, inspectors never check everything. There was an incredible amount of shoddy work in the housing BOOM that was overlooked in the madness.

You are right, and of course how could I forget, it is all about who do we need to pay.