Occurs right after Each Future Builders Crash Course
Factor e Farm, Maysvile, Missouri + Kansas City Area, USA
Build Your Own House in 6 Weeks Under Our Expert Guidance
Take advantage of a unique, one time opportunity that you will not find anywhere else. Right after the Future Builders Crash Course – we are offering 6 spots for teams to build their own 720 square foot, expandable starter home – which will be transported to your site on a 40′ trailer – which you can have at the cost of about $25k-$50k of materials. This 720 square foot unit is shown within the red line in the picture above. Materials cost depends on the options you choose. We will have an indoor facility which can house up to 6 home builds like this.
We are making your ability to build your own house absolutely real. We are launching a limited-time opportunity called the Financial Independence Package. It is a 6 week build session at our facility where you build your own home just like we will build in the Builder Crash Course – at the cost of materials + a reasonable fee – and take it home with you on a trailer. We have 6 spots available – by application only.
See more details here.
To begin your application, start a conversation with us. Email us at info at opensourceecology dot org – with Financial Independence Package in the subject line, and we will set up a video call to find out more about your situation.
Have questions or want to apply to build your own home? Email us at info at opensourceecology dot org – with Financial Independence Package in the subject line.
How is it even possible to build a full starter home in only 6 weeks? In the Builder Crash Course, you will go through a complete build. In the 6 weeks – you and a partner have about 600 hours to build the 720 square foot starter home – roughly the same amount of time as we will spend building during the Builder Crash Course. This is a realistic level of effort possible from a committed team of 2 people – working full days for 6 weeks. This takes stamina. If you bring more friends or family members with you – the build is easier and completely within a time budget. This does require your full time commitment and focus – so you would have to be fully dedicated to this build. If you do not finish – it is your responsiblity to do so after transporting your house to a site. Getting the framing and closed-in shell finished is completely realistic – the question is how much interior finishing will be left for after the program. So if you can bring more people with you – such as a family of 4 – this is completely realistic without requiring a super-heroic effort. But gauge your expectations – construction is brutal hard work. That’s why we are doing everything in our power to make it easier.
What is the best and worst case scenario that you can envision for participants? In the best case, you had an amazing experience learning during the Builder Crash Course, of finishing your house in the 6 weeks, having learned an incredible amount of hands-on skills, tools, techiques, design aspects – and met many new friends aligned with the promise of human freedom – on top of building a brand new, expandable, appreciating home that you know how to maintain and expand for a lifetime of potential use. In the worst case scenario, you found the build so challenging that it took much more time than expected, and you have a lot of finishing work to do back home – though you did finish the shell and you are safe from the elements destroying your build in mid-process. In both cases, you still learned plenty of skills, your capital outlay was minimal for the incredible results attained, and you have had an overwhelmingly positive experience no matter what happens.
What if I don’t finish? Towards the end, you will have to wrap up and prepare your house for transport – so you need to make sure this is possible and all the structure is in place to load the house on a trailer. You can always do finishing work once you move your house. You can also hire some of our apprentices for paid work at a reasonable rate, as shall be determined in your application process. We will discuss and develop your build and finishing plan with you in detail in your application process to help you succeed.
Is 6 weeks the absolute max? Yes, as we will have a new cohort of builders right after, so you need to make space available to the next team.
What preparation do I need to ensure for a successful house build? You must have land and a foundation prepared to accept the finished home. We will work on making sure this is in place with you.
I would love to build my own house, but I don’t even have land or money for materials. Do you have financial assistance? Yes – indirectly. If you are a yound person with a full life in front of you – but don’t have land or money for materials – you can study with us in the Future Builders Academy apprenticeship – and when you graduate in 4 years you will have an opportunity to learn sufficient skill and make sufficient money (through work study) to build a house and acquire land. This is not easy – but doable for anyone who commits their full energy and brain power to solving the single largest cost of living in their life. This is as good a social security as anyone can offer! On top of this opportunity, we are experimenting with a program where all graduates are invited to a 2-for-1 ‘Tom’s Shoes for Housing’ experience: upon your graduation – we will work with you as a 24 person swarm to build 2 affordable homes – where we allocate the revenue from one to purchase building materials and a lot for another: a home for you. This is the type of earned value model that we are exploring to transform the economy to a paradigm of abundance. For the Future Builders Academy – there is a tuition cost – but you can offset your tuition through work study – so you end up with education that pays for itself – but this is a long term commitment of 4 years. If you choose 3 days of work-study per week, you can easily grow into earnings that can cover not only tuition but allow you to purchase materials. How can this be? Because part of our work is building access to materials production machines: heavy construction equipment, sawmills, CEB presses, concrete and gravel production – which we avail to our graduates and to anyone who is trained to use and maintain them. This translates to a $20k cost of a home – see House Cost Reduction. We effectively help you reach financial independence – and pay you while you do this so you to do this full time without taking out loans. The theme of bootsrap funding is persistent in our work.
Tell me more about your bootstrap funding model. Finnacialization is a serious problem in society. The theme of bootsrap funding is a solution and is persistent in our work. For example, the tuition for the Future Builders Academy can easily be offset by work-study – for anyone with limited resources – so that students do not end up with schooling debt. As another example – the revenue model for the Seed Eco-Home construction enterprise is designed to be completely self-funding – such that if a person learns to build a home – no finance capital is needed. This can be done through house pre-sales – which pay for materials – which enable zero financing startup of a home building enterprise that can scale to 50 house builds in as little as 2 years. To achieve this, part of the Future Builders Academy is access to workshop space for enterprise startup – as an incubator. This is part of our strategy to develop Universal Basic Assets.
What kind of foundation do I need? You can do various foundations depending on your requirements and zoning. You can do a concrete stem wall, slab on grade, helical piers, concrete piers with wood beams, or others. The Builder Crash Course build will teach you how to do a ‘stabilized subgrade modified shallow insulated footer concreteless foundation’ – at about 1/3 the cost of a slab-on-grade. We are working on producing engineer-approved reference drawings, and are looking for a professional engineer to help us do this. We have not found an engineer yet, so please suggest one to us if you know one who could do this. The issue is that not many engineers are comfortable with producing open source reference designs for transparency.
Who are your competitors? We are not aware of anyone else providing any similar service.
What is the daily schedule? Your schedule is up to you. We recommend balls out until you finish.
Do we need to bring our own tools? Open Source Ecology will provide all the core tools required to complete the build, but you should bring your cordless drill and cordless tool set, tape measure, and hammer – because additional tools are always handy. Bring your own work boots, gloves, eye and ear protection.
