News & Media

Builder using tiny homes to make big contribution to Baltimore youth

 

ABC 2 News
March 25, 2015

 

BALTIMORE – There’s a composting toilet and furniture that’s built right into the structure.

There’s solar power and a roof made of latex instead of rubber, meaning there’s no oil that was used to make it.

Once the house—roughly 220 square feet if you include the loft space—is built in three months, it will sell for around $35,000. That’s around the cost of a 2015 Toyota Highlander.

It’s a new labor of love for Rodney Payne, construction manager for Civic Works’ inaugural tiny house project.

Civic Works, a Baltimore-based nonprofit, launched the project earlier this month at its Baltimore Center for Green Careers warehouse. Students from Civic Works’ job training programs are building the home.

Payne, an architect by training and longtime construction supervisor, is learning on the job, too.

“I don’t know that anyone’s come up with a definition of what a tiny house is,” Payne said. “It’s a whole new genre of house.”

The concept of the tiny house officially took off in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. People who were displaced due to Katrina needed cheap, temporary housing and weren’t thrilled with trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“They needed something built pretty quickly, so they came up with the tiny house idea,” Payne said.

Now, people seek out tiny homes for a variety of reasons, including weekend and vacation homes. A Garrett County-based company, Blue Sky Ventures, builds tiny houses in the Deep Creek Lake area. Other homes are made to be hooked up to vehicles.

Tiny house kits are also available for between $14,000 and $20,000, if you want to try building one yourself.

“Why build a $500,000 home if you’re only going to use it on weekends?” Payne said.

Most tiny houses, including Civic Works’ house, is made out of recycled or sustainable materials. At this house, all of the lighting will be LED lighting.

A sofa is built into the home, there’s a table mounted onto the wall that can be folded up and the kitchen sink doubles as a bathroom sink, because there’s only a shower and the composting toilet in the bathroom.

“They’re highly efficient. They have to be,” Payne said. “If you have a whole lot of stuff, you don’t live in a tiny house, obviously.”

At 20 feet long—24 feet long once the porch is folded down—this tiny house’s size is about average as far as the small house movement goes. Some tiny houses are under 100 square feet.

“Everyone has seen one. No one has really built one yet,” Payne said.

Including him. Payne worked in construction for Habitat for Humanity, then later started his own construction business. He bailed after about 10 years once the recession hit.

Guiding the Civic Works project has forced him to think differently about home construction.

He’s now going shopping at marine and RV supply stores for materials for the tiny house.

But this may not be the last tiny house he builds.

“It sort of depends on whether we can get a buyer and generate some modest interest,” Payne said. “We might build more of them. It’s a good thing for students.”