Sometimes the best way to find cheap land for off-grid living means buying land unsuitable for traditional home construction.
Properties on a hillside or a creek bank may be too costly for traditional home building but ideal for a tiny home! We have some ideas for building your tiny house on a hillside or other difficult-to-build areas!
A tiny home can be constructed on a slope using the cut and fill method, where part of the slope is excavated and the material used to level a portion of the slope for building. It can be built on stilts or natural anchor points such as trees, rocks, or nestled into a hill.
Tiny homes do not require as much space or have as much weight and traditional homes. This means tiny homes can often be built in areas that would not be considered for larger homes. Even though you can build in unusual locations, you still need to comply with safety principles for your tiny home to ensure it will be standing for generations to come!
How To Build A Tiny Home On A Hill
This is not a license to do your own thing and build a structure that does not comply with sound structural engineering principles. It does mean that there may be more options open to you in the way you can construct your home and the materials you use to do it.
Several methods can be used to build your tiny home on a sloped parcel of land.
To find cheap or free land for your off-grid tiny home please check out my helpful article here.
Scott Boyd
Cut and Fill Technique
This method involves cutting into the hillside and using the material you cut out to level off a slope section. This creates a level piece of ground on which you can build. This method requires machinery, engineering, and retaining walls to hold the fill in place.
Partial Stilts
With this method, one end of the house is built into the side of the hill with standard foundations, and the forward part of the house over the slope is supported with stilts. This method is faster to get your house built on a slope and requires less equipment and engineering work.
A Tiny Home On Stilts
In some instances, the slope is such that the entire home must be supported on stilts. This can be a construction choice or one that is dictated by the lay of the land. With this method, the entire home is built on stilts, with the height of the stilts varying to compensate for the slope of the land.
Incorporating Natural Structures
This method is when parts of the landscape are incorporated into the anchoring design of the home. Trees and boulders can be used as supporting structures instead of stilts and traditional foundations or in combination with normal foundations.
Partial Underground Structures.
Using unconventional materials and designs can allow you to use unique methods to anchor your tiny home on the slope. A shipping container can be used as your home if you dig out part of the hillside, bed the container in place, and use the cut-out material on top of part of the container to make the home become part of the hillside. In this case, the part of the container protruding into space over the slope may not require support from stilts due to the strength of the steel structure.
Cheapest Way To Build A House On A Slope
If you need to build your tiny house on a slope and have a tight budget, this may dictate your construction method to complete your home.
The construction methods that require cut-and-fill building techniques are the most expensive. This is mostly because of the labor and machinery involved in excavating a section of the slope and repacking the fill to support the structure.
The two cheapest methods for constructing a tiny home on a slope are building a home that uses stilts or natural anchor points such as trees and boulders, or a combination of these two methods.
The stilts take less work to build, and establishing a sure foundation for the stilts as an anchor point is a much less complex engineering undertaking than using cut-and-fill methods.
Incorporating natural features into the construction of the home can reduce costs even further. The natural structures of large trees and large boulders provide the necessary foundation, so you only need to anchor your floor platform securely to these structures.
Cost Of Building On A Steep Slope
The steepness of the slope can compound the costs associated with building on the land. The steeper the slope, the higher the costs can be to put up the structure.
For the cut-and-fill method, the steepness of the terrain makes it difficult to get equipment onto the slope to work excavating material from the hillside. The amount of earth required to be cut and filled is also greater, which increases the associated costs.
On the stilt method, extra-length stilts must be used on the lower part of the slope, which may require more intensive engineering to ensure a secure anchor to the steeply sloping ground. Foundations need to be made deeper due to the risk of possible movement of the upper ground layers because of the steep gradient of the slope.
The building requirements in some locations require that the hillside visible under your stilts be screened to make your structure on the hillside more visually appealing. This may require the planting of local trees and vegetation to limit the visual impact of your tiny home on the hillside.
Tiny Home On Stilts
One of the more common building methods for a tiny home on a slope is using the stilt support method. I am using this approach to build my own off-grid 8.5-foot by 14-foot tiny home.
My construction uses a combination of stilts and natural materials as anchor points for my home. At the front, my home is supported by two large trees, and at the other end by stilts supported by rocks in a creek bed.
Conclusion
Cut and fill methods can be used to build a tiny home on a slope, but this method is generally only suitable for gentle gradients rather than steep slopes, and it is costly.
A cheaper method and one that makes steep slopes accessible for a home is building on stilts. Incorporating natural parts of the landscape can further reduce the costs of construction.
A tiny home on a slope is not only possible and cheaper than building a normal home but you are rewarded with spectacular views of the surrounding countryside!
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