One of the barriers to owning a small home is regional legislation against houses under a certain size. If you want to build it yourself, or live in a place that isn’t exactly conventionally constructed, then your options can be even more limited. Worry not, because the Tiny House Blog is here to help you find the right locale for you.
First, if an earthship style house is right up your alley, then a good resource for you then The Earthship Academy has put together a helpful infographic to narrow down your search for locations to choose from. In any of the counties marked green, prior earthship owners have done the necessary legwork to determine whether a tiny house of that particular style can be built there or not.
Second, if you want to hedge your bets, you can opt for a tiny house on wheels. As long as it’s roadworthy, your tiny house will be treated like a mobile home and fall under the same regulations as recreational vehicles. A DIY job is considerably tougher in the context, so I would definitely recommend hiring the experts to do this for you.
Finally, you can try to find a piece of land in an unincorporated rural area where you can build a tiny house and not have to jump through thousands of hoops. Every county will be different, and before you break ground, you’ll definitely want to touch base with government officials in your area to verify that you’ve got a green light to go ahead.
My favorite place to build a tiny house would be Scotland County Missouri, in an existing village of dozens of tiny houses. The village is about twenty years old and home to some fifty people of all ages. We live in homes of varying sizes and made of varying materials, from straw bales and clay to OSB and blown cellulose. Because there are no building codes in our county, we are able to live in environmentally friendly houses of our own design, often times built by our own hands. There are also two builders who live locally and can help you negotiate the procedure for building a tiny home in the area, and are available to be contracted by anyone who does want to do all the work themselves. For more information check out our website.