Last week I spent a couple of hours with Jim Groveau, head designer at Advantage Trailers, a small trailer company in Carol Stream, Illinois. Jim and his team will be building me a 32 foot gooseneck trailer the same size as this one, though it will look very different. They can start construction as soon as I pay them $26,000, which is half the cost for this phase of the Vehicle.
I read enviously of people who are able to build their tiny homes for under $20,000. They are able to use scavenged wood, standard plywood and propane for heat and cooking, all options that are closed to me. Instead, I will have walls of aluminum, and heat my house with a solar powered mini-split heat exchanger and a $4500 virtually smokeless wood stove called the Kimberly. Advantage Trailer will install my water tanks and lines, build in a whole series of external access storage lockers, including one for my solar batteries and install a drop down deck with an electric strap system to raise and lower it. Once they get started, it will take about 10 weeks to finish. After five years of feeling like this project was creeping along, suddenly it's zooming!
I read enviously of people who are able to build their tiny homes for under $20,000. They are able to use scavenged wood, standard plywood and propane for heat and cooking, all options that are closed to me. Instead, I will have walls of aluminum, and heat my house with a solar powered mini-split heat exchanger and a $4500 virtually smokeless wood stove called the Kimberly. Advantage Trailer will install my water tanks and lines, build in a whole series of external access storage lockers, including one for my solar batteries and install a drop down deck with an electric strap system to raise and lower it. Once they get started, it will take about 10 weeks to finish. After five years of feeling like this project was creeping along, suddenly it's zooming!
 Meeting with Jim at Advantage Trailers. | I am also in conversation with Marc Rudnick, of the Cambridge based Community Builders Cooperative, a worker owned construction co-op. Right now Marc is advising me, looking at drawings of the interior, and waiting until I'm sure what I want, before we get formal about his building it for me.  Community Builders Cooperative |
Now it's time to reach out widely and let people know what I'm doing and why
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