The salient point of today's discussion revolves around the intricacies of building a tiny home, particularly the guidance provided by Damon Deschamp of Trailer Made Custom Trailers. He elucidates the process of constructing a tiny home, whether through their services or via DIY kits that are equipped with essential materials and expert advice. Throughout our dialogue, we delve into the evolution of housing from primitive shelters to contemporary sustainable solutions, emphasizing the importance of meticulous planning and informed decision-making in the tiny home movement. Additionally, we explore the various pathways one might consider when embarking on this journey, highlighting the significance of understanding local regulations and building codes that govern such constructions. As we navigate these topics, we aim to demystify the often overwhelming process of tiny home ownership and encourage a thoughtful approach to achieving sustainable living.

Takeaways:

• The podcast emphasizes the importance of understanding the foundational principles of tiny home construction.
• Listeners are encouraged to research and verify information before investing in tiny home projects.
• Damon Deschamp's company provides resources and support for those interested in building their own tiny homes.
• The discussion highlights the evolution of housing from traditional structures to modern tiny homes and their sustainability.
• A key point made is the necessity for prospective builders to consider local building codes and climate when planning their tiny home.
• The episode underscores the significance of community initiatives, especially for vulnerable populations such as youth aging out of foster care.

Links referenced in this episode:

• trailermadecustomtrailers.com
• stardustbuilding.org
• tinyhouseexperts.com
• idealhomeimpovementaz.com
• https://mrelectric.com/phoenix-metro

Building a tiny home sounds exciting, but where do you even start?

Today on Boxcar Universe, I'm talking with Damon Deschamp of Trailer Made Custom Trailers about how they can build your tiny home for you, or if you're a DIYer, give you the kit, materials and expert guidance to build it yourself.

So if you're a DIY fanatic, this is definitely an episode you're not going to want to miss.

Since the dawn of time, mankind has searched for ways to shelter themselves from the elements.

Over the centuries, these shelters have evolved from bamboo huts to concrete towers.

The last few years, there's been a push to save the planet.

Are you ready to embark on a more sustainable lifestyle?

Look no further.

You're about to enter the adventures of Container Home Living.

And now, contractor, radio and TV personality and your host for Boxcar Universe, Steve Dubel.

Hi, I'm Steve Dubell, host of Boxcar Universe, and here's what's coming up.

Today on this edition of Boxcart Universe, we are joined by Damon Deschamps, general manager and chief operating officer of Trailer Made Custom trailers.

Trailer Made actually is the nation's leading manufacturer of engineered trailers for tiny homes, custom mobile structures and specialty applications.

And one of the things that we always try and do here on the show is we always try and have the cutting edge information when it comes to container Homes, tiny homes.

And for those of you been following us for, for, for many years now, I actually contacted Damon regarding the work that he has done and he's got some great, great information he wants to share with all our listeners.

For anyone interested in tiny homes, this is the show for you.

And always remember, we are the cutting edge information and we are the leader in showcasing sustainable lifestyle living.

And we want to welcome all our listeners to the show today.

Again, a very special show that we want to showcase tiny homes.

And Damon's company, as I said, is the nation's leader in manufacturing engineered tiny homes and he's located in Colorado.

And we want to welcome Damon into the conversation right now.

Damon, thanks so much for being on Boxcar Universe today.

Thanks for having me, Steve.

It's a pleasure to be here.

It's great to have you here.

And you know, we were talking before the show.

You know, summertime is, is a rough time for us because that's our, our heat time and you know, we're under a heat advisory.

How hot is it by you?

It's only about 10 or 12 degrees cooler than there.

I'm from the Valley actually, so I moved up here to find winter Again.

Oh, you mean you just didn't want to go, you just didn't want to go to Flagstaff?

Well, you know, I, I remember driving on, on Christmas Eve or something from, we lived in North Phoenix and driving my kiddos up the, up the freeway in our board shorts and flip flops and changing in the parking lot at Snowball to go snowboarding for Christmas and then coming home and.

Yeah, quite a, quite a different, quite a different lifestyle than here in Colorado, for sure.

Oh, my God, absolutely.

It's.

And I know some friends up there.

And before, you know, I just want to let everybody know.

I remember.

First time I went to Colorado, I had to go to Denver for a seminar.

And I couldn't help notice like, when I flew in and we were taxiing down.

No, actually, before we got to the airport, we were, I must have been in, in a, an Uber.

And I'm noticing that they have this fencing alongside the side of the freeway on the way into the airport.

And I'm like thinking to myself, you know, that looks like a lot like the fencing we used to see out in New York on Jones beach, because they tried to, used to try and block the sand when the wind blew to blow the sand in.

I was like, what is that doing here?

And when I asked somebody, I said what it was, they told me exactly that, but it was for snow, to keep the snow from drifting over onto the highway and stuff like that.

So I was just like, yeah, it's just amazing the things that we have to adjust to in the different parts of the valley or actually different parts of the country that we live in is just pretty amazing.

Sure, yeah.

But David, tell our listeners a little bit about you and how you got started with your company.

Sure.

So.

I grew up in Missouri and very close to the trailer industry.

You know, my little town in Missouri, it was kind of a, a busy epicenter, you know, sort of a hub of, of all different types of trailer manufacturing.

So it was always, you know, in the, in the background.

And I, I, my, my stepdad did the, did the accounting and the books and bookkeeping for a lot of those companies while I grew up and later on in life after a career change for me, I was in the car business for 22 years and needed something different to do.

So what we decided was I was going to build trailers.

I, I built cars most of my life and sold them and, you know, it was just, it was time to try something kind of out of the box.

And the trailers were what that was going to be.

But we sort of struck a chord with the oil and gas industry, quickly becoming known for building trailers and equipment that it was pretty hard for their guys to tear up out in the mud.

So we built a pretty durable thing for people in oil and gas and built our name that way in our reputation.

I'll leave that there.

He had moved from Florida, excuse me, from Hawaii, and was wearing his Hawaii attire when he met me.

And he said, I heard you built custom trailers.

And I said I do.

What energy company are you with?

And he said oh no, I'm a, I'm a retired yacht builder from Kauai.

And I said, well, welcome to Colorado.

What brings you here?

He goes, I'm going to start building tiny homes up here near Rastas Park.

So that gentleman's name was Byron Fears and he started Simplicity Tiny Homes the same time I built my first tiny house trailer for him as a client.

So the story goes, he and I started in this industry together back then and I think he's sort of semi retired now.

He's getting up there in age and just he doesn't really have to work as hard anymore.

I'm still hustling, but yeah, it started with that one trailer and I thought, sure, if you got the money, we got the time, we'll figure it out, we'll build it and we'll wave it on down the road and we'll probably never see that thing again.

And in the custom world that was kind of the norm.

You know, you haven't seen anything twice, you know, until you've been doing it long enough.

And we were pretty new, so this tiny house trailer thing, we thought it was a one and done.

And Steve, a month or so later after we delivered this first trailer, a couple of young kids come in, some 20 somethings, and they pop their head in our office and said, we heard you guys built tiny house trailers.

And I said, how did you hear that?

They said, well, we saw it on a message board from some guy up in Estes park.

It builds tinies.

And he was telling everybody where to come get a tiny house.

Travels fast.

Oh boy.

So we, we found ourselves from, from a working prototype one and done to probably about 10 or 12 standing orders.

Within 60 days, it just took off like, like a, like a wildfire.

No pun intended.

Okay, that's, that's pretty, that's a great success story.

Really.

Yeah.

The right place at the right time with the right thing to bring to the public.

And, and yeah, it's, it's been the industry standard since.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, because there are, like I say, there are a lot of different companies around, around the country.

I mean, just some of the people that I've spoken to that, yeah, they, they do it, but they have, they different methods, different some.

And different materials.

And that's some of the things that I want to get into today on the show.

Sure.

You know, because a lot of times, you know, I've seen companies actually, they get into building tiny homes and they, they use wood, whereas you use metal.

I, I personally think metal coming, coming from a construction, you know, background, I think metal is really good in the way of doing a tiny home because it's obviously less of a fire hazard.

God forbid that there's a fire, you know, and that's the last thing you want to see, you know.

But then on the other hand too is it's, I think it's structurally sound.

Wood might be easier to handle.

I know I've built out, I've built out a 20 foot container into just a modest office space with an arcadia door in it.

I mean, it's not that big of a deal, but yeah, metal, you know, when you start getting into metal and framing and you know, a lot of people, you know, and I'm sure you've seen this where you could see somebody online and they, well, I got this container, they dropped it in my yard and I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.

And he's trying to do this big story, you know, and that's the problem.

People that think that they can do something, they get online and they want to be a movie star on YouTube.

And the problem is that when they go on there and they screw it up, it's like people, some people don't know that it was a screw up.

So then they just perpetuate the screw up.

I mean, it's ridiculous.

So you got to be very, very careful of what you watch.

That's why it's like, you know, the old Ronald Reagan method of trust and verify.

Where you go, you go back and you, you know, hey, this guy said to do it.

Let me see if other people are doing it this way.

And, and what are the benefits of doing it either way.

And I think that's so, so very important because, you know, people, I sometimes I think people are just too fast to spend their money.

I agree.

Have you found that to, to be, you know, they see an idea and they are so emotionally invested in the idea that, that they don't do their due diligence to put it all together and say, okay, I'm going to spend this money, but what am I going to get for it?

Sure.

And they don't compare apples with apples.

No.

Well, a perfect example of that, Steve, is on our YouTube channel shameless plug, the Tiny House Experts YouTube channel.

We have a viral video series called the Hundred Million Dollar Tiny House Scam.

And that is a compilation of people who have been victimized by Ponzi schemes or otherwise bad actors in the tiny house industry who, like you mentioned, did not do their due diligence before handing over tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, never to be seen again.

It's heartbreaking, but it's important to have that story and that message out to the public because that's $100 million worth of people's money stolen from them that myself and my colleagues in this industry that do do a good job, we didn't have the opportunity to help and build a home for.

And that's heartbreaking for us too, for a lot of reasons.

But the victims of it, it's real easy to let the excitement override the logic and you forget to do your due diligence and like you said, check and verify, you know.

Yeah, I mean, I mean, I think that's just so important.

You know, we all work hard for our money and there are a lot of different things that people need to understand before they even open up their wallet and doing their due diligence.

Now, how many years has your company been in existence?

So this year begins our 15th year in existence, July.

So yeah, this is July, barely still.

So we, we just clicked over 14 completed years.

This is our 15th year in operation.

Wow, that's really a credit to, you know, how, how you started and how you jumped in on it.

I know a lot of companies, sometimes they turn around and they say they have problems with finding qualified help.

Is that, is that a problem up in Colorado where you are?

It's a problem everywhere with the trades.

We talk about this a lot and have a heavy involvement in, in CTE education, that's construction trades, education at the secondary education level, high schools and post secondary junior colleges and trade schools and things utilize Our tiny house kits as a, as a curriculum, sort of a fixed curriculum that's on site, you know, with the kids that want to learn how to build homes.

They're either building a home at school or they're leaving school to go be where a home is being built for that education.

So that creates logistic issues and things for the kiddos, and it diminishes the amount of time that they can spend in the education part of it.

Right.

So several years ago we started sending out, started in Kansas and it spread to probably 20, 22 states, I think somewhere in that neighborhood.

Not quite half the US uses our tiny home kits as their construction trade education curriculum.

So the kids show up, we show up with the tiny house kit sitting on top of a trailer and the thing is bundled up and the teacher's all excited because he thinks he's got the next four or five weeks of class ready to kind of lay out for the kids and start framing this house by lunch on that first day, when he sees the roof going on this thing, you can see the panic set into the teacher because he doesn't know what to do with himself or the kids.

For the next month, he's got four weeks set aside for framing in this module of the semester.

And now they're going to be done framing this thing before 3 o' clock that afternoon.

And he doesn't know what to do with 30 kids now.

So the skill level varies from the DIY kits that we have engineered and we put out into the retail public today.

So the kit that you could build is that easy.

You know, so easy.

A 10th grader with no experience could read the directions and assemble a house very much like Ikea furniture.

You might have watched the video that I shared with you that talks about the Sears and Roebuck Craftsman home kits from 80 or 100 years ago.

You know, I found that to be sort of an inspiration for what we do today.

And my job wasn't to necessarily go out and try and find the highest skill that I could find, because that's very difficult.

Kids don't want to work.

Kids want to be YouTube stars, right?

They don't want to learn how to be electricians or plumbers or welders or, you know, that's true.

So, you know, we, we push the trades because they pay well.

And just take welding, for example, in that way.

I do have a hard time finding good quality welders.

And here's a statistic that'll make you shiver.

You know, I'm in my 50s in the next 10 years, me and a quarter million other welders, us old timers that have been doing this for 30 years are going to be leaving the industry.

And there's only about 10 or 12,000 kids enrolled in construction and trade education taking those jobs when we leave them right now.

So there's a huge disparage between us leaving the industry.

Welders are just one example.

You know, quarter of a million of us are retiring in the next five to 10 years, and only 10 or 12,000 welders are in training right now to take those positions that we're going to vacate.

Well, I mean, that's just amazing, you know, I mean, that's, that's the problem.

I know we run into it, you know, with regular traditional contracting here because,.

You know, all the trades suffer this.

Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, framers, you know, and I think a lot of happened when, you know, when the world collapsed in 08 and everybody, you know, especially in Arizona, they started, they just like took off in all directions because they, they were looking for work.

And you can't blame them.

I moved to Colorado.

Yeah, well, see, now, you took you fleet.

I was, I was that statistic.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, you know, but, you know, hey, you know, everybody's got to survive, you know, and that's, that's important.

So.

But we're going to take a short break.

When we come back, we got to get into some of the nuts and bolts.

No pun intended.

As long as we're talking about no puns today about, you know, the quality and what goes into building a tiny home in the way that Damon's company makes it, which is it's the right way.

You know, actually, what's that, what's that saying, you know, it's the right way or the wrong way or the trailer made way like that.

See, I come up with those, like, I mean, it's just part of what they pay me for.

It's under my pay grade, though.

Anyway, everybody stay tuned.

We'll be right back.

You're listening to Boxcar Universe.

This is Steve Dubell from Boxcar Universe.

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Hit TV show Tiny House Nation.

Now, people all over the country are downsizing.

The tiny homes are all the big rage.

But remember, even tiny homes need repairs.

And left unattended, those tiny problems become big problems.

Don't let that happen to you know, what makes your home kick.

All right.

We are back and you are listening to Boxcar Universe.

And today's topic is Tiny Homes.

And with us, in case you missed the first part segment, Damon Duchamp, who is here from Trailer made custom trailers and up in the beautiful state of Colorado.

And we want to get into a little bit about the nuts and bolts, as we say, of how they're built.

But let's start from the beginning.

Like for instance, when you have someone come in and we would like to do a consultation, what kind of things?

Like what's some of the, what are some of the things that the listeners should be aware of when they're starting to put together thoughts about getting a tiny home?

Sure.

There's a, there's a kind of a three way fork in the road that people can go down when they start this process.

When you take the journey to build your own home and you build it on wheels or even off wheels, how you go about that is everything.

So for example, a lot of people we ask in our kind of a consultation, like how much are you going to move this?

You know, do you have a truck that would move a big tiny house if you're going to build a big one enough that, you know, you maybe have to hire somebody to move it for you when you do want to relocate it?

So you're trying to ask questions about their lifestyle, what their relocation frequency is going to be like, how often do you plan to move around?

And you sort of, kind of a lot of these clients that call us have been investigating this for six to 12 months before they pick up the phone.

And oftentimes, like you mentioned earlier, people tend to perpetuate bad data and they call us fully prepared to have a conversation built around bad data that has Been perpetuated by people who may know a thing, but not necessarily everything about building a tiny house on wheels.

So we have to kind of dissect what is good information that they've come to us with and then fill in the blanks of what they were, they were holding bad information and make sure that they've got good data going forward all the way through.

You can do it basically in two or three different ways.

You can do it as a tiny house on wheels, which here in Colorado we have a pathway to a certificate of occupancy for so on wheels.

It can be a tiny house, stay on the trailer, or it is built on the trailer, can't come off the trailer.

That's what kind of makes it a tiny house on wheels.

And Colorado then adopted a similar code.

We helped write that code with them and the state.

It parallels the modular home code.

Colorado has a factory built structure guidance code.

So that's what we adhere to.

And that would be essentially IRC or residential construction code for modular homes.

So Colorado builds that into their tiny house code.

And then there's the way that most people have done it for up to this point, which is like a DIY RV of sorts, if you will.

So a camper trailer or a park model rv, those two are designated by whether or not they have holding tanks in them.

So your camper trailers or your travel trailers have holding tanks.

So they take water and waste with them and those have to be filled and emptied.

Those are under a separate RV code, different than what most tiny homes are, which are Park Model RVs.

And those are hooked up to site, you know, shore power, shore water and sewer and don't move very often.

You know, they do generally stay on wheels, but they're skirted and they're set more like mobile homes or modulars would be.

And then your third path is a modular home.

We have a hybrid design where the vehicle is for all intents a tiny house on wheels until you take it off those wheels.

And the way it's taken off the wheels is it unbolts from the trailer.

The whole house, the trailer goes away.

And the house is set on an engineered foundation, uses our floor system to span that.

So it's all a sort of a pre engineered floor system that counties and states approve all the time, give you a certificate of occupancy after you're done and allow you to build so you get it permitted and you can use that, that third system.

A lot of people that are tiny housers today want to eventually put it on land and improve that land and make it real estate.

So about five years ago, we came up with this hybrid chassis to be able to allow a tiny houser to do that without it being this heavy modification or fabrication project.

And we didn't want it to be a bunch of brain damage for them to go back to the county that, that, that their jurisdiction is and say, hey, I'm going to take this wheeled vehicle and put it on a foundation.

Is that okay?

Because in a lot of states and a lot of counties, that's not okay.

They don't want you to do that unless it meets a very specific set of guidelines like modular homes do.

So we give it the widest net cast possible.

So the eventual homeowner has multiple options of how they want to live.

Tiny, whether that's keep it on wheels and move it around and kind of boondock, you know, that's off grid.

Living is one of those pathways.

Don't ask, don't tell is one of those pathways.

You know, a lot of people would much rather beg forgiveness than ask permission.

I don't judge that statement before.

Yeah, so.

And then some people, you know, there's a lot of people in the newer.

The newer movement is, you know, I'm in my 50s and we have kids in our 20s, and some of those kiddos are coming back home after college with a lot of debt and a lot of debt service and not a lot of job opportunities in their degree field right now.

So boomerang kids are coming back and living and moving into ADUS behind mom and dad's house on the family property.

And that's quickly becoming a big segment in our industry.

Not only the boomerang kids, but also aging parents and in laws because it's cheaper to put mom or dad in the backyard and have them age in place, close to their loved ones than it is to ship them off for nine to twelve thousand dollars a month in a nursing home or a care facility to, you know, just kind of forget about them until they're gone.

So there's, there's a strong familial movement back to, you know, aging in place and let's take care of our elderly like we do in other parts of the world.

And that's really caught fire here in our company.

For, for that reason, people are, are calling us for a granny pod, you.

Know, A granny pod.

I like that.

Yeah.

Any pod.

Okay.

I have to use that.

All right.

Do I have permission to use that?

You absolutely can use.

All right, we're going to.

All right.

I always go out and tell people that they need a granny pod.

That's right.

They'll probably look at me like I'm some like, strange person or something.

They're definitely going to ask you to.

Elaborate, explain that statement or granny pot.

No, really.

But no, seriously, no, it was only, well, you, you know, you were from here.

They only came, they only changed the law here about three years ago, three and a half maybe, about allowing a secondary dwelling on, on your property.

So which, which opened up a whole new world because, you know, I remember back in, when I first started getting interested in, in container homes in 22, that it was, you know, when you, you bring a set of plans to the city that had to do with containers, they looked at it like you were like alien, like, what is this?

You know, because they hadn't seen it before.

And, you know, that's the one thing about, you know, the cities, when they, the reviewers, if they haven't seen it before or if they don't have any codes for it, they look at it and they stamp it.

No, you know, denied.

The default answer is no.

Yeah, yeah, that's the default answer because they don't know.

But after several years of it starting to come back around, you know, and you know, like, you know, and again, the verbiage that you use to be able to go in and get permits are so, so important.

You know, you can't, some, some places you can't use the word container home.

You've got to use modular home.

You got to see modular home.

I mean, for us it's, it's almost the same thing, but for them it's like, oh, okay, you know, I dance around.

Yeah, we dance around 40 or so states worth of code.

Yeah.

In that way.

And it's every time you get on the phone, it's like this high stakes game of Scrabble or Words with Friends.

One wrong word can blow the whole thing apart.

Now you gotta, you got to call your client back and say, listen, I know you wanted to move into that county, but maybe the next one over is a better option for you.

I think so.

That's right.

Yeah.

They, you, you've, you actually displaced them when you didn't mean to.

But that's right, you got to watch that.

You got to watch out your, how your verbiage is.

Oh my God.

It made it like words have meaning.

You know, like we always say words have meaning.

And.

Yes, they do.

Yeah.

I mean, and, and the other thing too is for all our listeners, again, I can't Stress enough, like with what you do with all your educational material is that the reviewers, a lot of people that work for these municipalities throughout the country, they're not educated in that area in that particular like modular home or a tiny home or something like that.

And it's almost like you have to, you have to play mother and you nurse them along.

You're 100% right.

Yeah.

I mean, state of Colorado.

We had to explain to them how to underwrite their code because like you said, they just don't know what they don't know and they're stuck in this one mode with blinders on from whatever field they were in.

Tiny house code.

We don't need, we don't need an R60 in the ceiling in a 200 square foot dwelling, do we?

No, no, I don't think so.

I don't think so.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

Well, you know, again, it's.

As long as we, everything that we do has progressed along the way and I think, you know, we're, we're always evolving and I think we've evolved enough to where it's almost tolerable.

Depending on.

That may be the wrong word to use, but at least it's.

Maybe it's acceptable that we know where the reviewers are and we know what we need to give the client.

It's a catch.

Can't.

Because obviously that has something you have to explain to the client.

Well, they're looking like you say, is it going to be moved?

Is it going to be stationary?

You know, what, what do you want to put in it?

You know, you know, what kind of products and stuff do you want to put in it?

You know, how many people are going to be living in it to make sure they're not trying to jam too many people in it.

You know, there's only so many seasons.

That they're going to live through.

Yeah, exactly.

And then obviously, what part of the country, where are you going?

Because you ship all over the country.

What part of the country is it going to.

You're going to build a house maybe for Michigan, slightly different than you would build one for Arizona.

Totally different.

Yeah.

Because it's living in a different environment.

Right.

So.

But again, you know, what would you do if they told you that they were going to move throughout the country?

How do you attack a problem like that where they're, they're going to be mobile, they're going to be moving like just say for X, say for instance, every six months they're going to be moving to a different part of the country.

How do you build something like that to be able to withstand the different areas and temperatures and the weather around the country?

That's a great question because it's a real challenge that we deal with on a daily basis with our clients because there is a segment that is nomadic and they do, you know, they do the snowbird thing that goes somewhere warm in the winter and then, you know, they'll, they'll go somewhere less, less nightmarish in the, in the colder months.

But you know, for say let's, let's talk about Arizona to Colorado because that's a, that's a pretty common back and forth.

We have people that are, that are nomadic that way.

They do seasons here and there.

We would probably build it.

Well, not probably, we would build it to the higher, more strict Colorado code, the IRC zone.

So for your listeners, IRC is international Residential construction code.

IRC has different zones or sort of grades or classifications of climate zone.

And the milder the climate, the lower the number.

So Climate Zone 1, for example, might be somewhere near Phoenix where there's not a snow load, there's not, you know, appreciable moisture and condensation and humidity in the, in the, in the air where that might impact building material choices and things like it's pretty easy to build something that will last 75 years in Arizona, for example.

So climate zone 1 1A, 2, 2A.

That's kind of where the state of Arizona lives in that scale system.

Now Colorado starts at 5A, so it's all the way up north of the middle of the road of that spectrum, from easiest to survive to harshest environments to sustain in.

It starts at 5 and goes up to the max of 8.

Zone 8 would be Alaska, you know, Juneau, Alaska, something like that.

You know, the north, the top end of the Cascades, the San Juans, the Rockies here, Leadville, Colorado at 12,000ft elevation.

That zip code, that's definitely climate zone eight for IRC because it's 60, 70 mile an hour winds when it blows.

It's not inches, it's feet when it snows.

And the temperature differential, it gets, you know, well, well, well below theoretical zero.

So things like mini splits, heat pumps, those don't work after about 25, 26 degrees Fahrenheit when there's no hot outside, it will not pump any hot air to the inside.

So at those climate zones, a homeowner always has to have at least one backup source of heat.

We tell them to have gas and electric.

And then just for good measure, you know, a small manual fire starting source wouldn't be a bad third option if you're going to be up that high in altitude in these small homes.

Just like being in a cabin, you know, so your cabin in the cabin in the desert doesn't have to be nearly as insulated as it does in the mountains.

In Alaska at 10,000ft in elevation with 6ft of snow sitting on top of it.

Very different cabins.

Yeah, I mean it's those, all those things you have to take care of.

So I guess if they were moving around the country, you'd probably build for the worst.

We do, yeah.

You're going to build for the worst and they're going to spend for the worst.

Right.

That's going to be the most expensive version of that build as opposed to something that wouldn't need a lot of that in Arizona or warmer, milder states.

And that's.

It's not a bad thing to take that extremely overbuilt house out of that harsh environment and put it somewhere mild.

It's not going to perform poorly in that way.

It's just the cost to build, the initial investment is higher if you're going to travel like that.

Yeah.

So think words of advice and things that you need to consider in the way when you're thinking of, you know, what your particular situation is.

If you're going to do a granny pod, I mean, granny pod built in Arizona is going to be different.

Like you say in Colorado, Michigan.

I mean, up in, up near Chicago.

I know I lived in Chicago for six years and you know, that's when I had a whole closet full of tundra clothes.

I used to live in Glenview.

I know that when.

I mean.

Yeah, I mean, I.

Two years.

Two years.

It was almost to the exact same weekend in February.

I remember when I lived back up in there around 83.

It was.

84, But it was 83 below wind chill factor.

And people just.

When you say that, they just can't.

Unless you've gone through it, you can't fathom how cold that is.

I mean, I know when I was married back in the day and I had moved my new wife up there and she actually talk about a transition change.

She, she was from New York originally.

She lived In Arizona for a while.

So I moved her from Arizona to Chicago.

And then we had these really cold days, like these two weekends.

And I went down and I took the batteries out of the car and brought them upstairs because we lived in an apartment.

She's like, why are you doing that?

I'm like, because if I don't and I don't go down, like Monday morning, I had to go down and hook both batteries up together and then start one car and then put the other one in the other battery in the car and start the other car.

I said, otherwise we'll never get to work.

Won't get to work.

Yeah.

I mean, it's crazy.

Oh, my God, it's terrible.

But build for your climate.

That's what's so, so very important.

But we're going to take a short break.

When we're going to come back, we're going to just talk about some smart buying techniques and looking ahead and what to expect in your future tiny home.

So don't go away.

You're listening to Boxcar Universe.

What's the weather like out there?

It's hot.

Damn hot.

Real hot.

Hotter than this is my shorts.

I can cook things in it.

Little crotch pot cooking.

It's damn hot.

You can be a little thing.

I saw it so damn hot.

I saw one of those little guys.

In the orange row burst into flames.

It's that hot.

You know what I'm talking about.

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All right, we are back and you are listening to Boxcar Universe.

And before we continue on, a little I want to make a announcement and I had mentioned this at the last show, for those of you out there who are contractors, DIY junkies and all that kind of good stuff, you can find a lot of what I have done over the years and some of the media work that I do.

We have our own Roku channel and fire TV channel called Home Renovation IQ where we showcase our flips that we've done and have some panel discussions about products and services and the things that you need to know.

As I always say, you need to be an educated homeowner.

So you could check that out for our listeners out here and viewers here in the Phoenix metro area.

Arizona's Family 3TV and I are putting together a segment on their morning show called your Life Arizona, where we're going to be showcasing a lot of the same things that I had just mentioned throughout the course of the month.

And starting in, we're shooting for September.

So make sure you put that on your, on your most watched list because you can catch us in a lot of different ways.

And, and, and again, if you're a podcast junkie, you could always catch Boxcar Universe on any podcast channel throughout, you know, the Internet.

So make sure you check that out.

Keep an eye out and I will make an announcement about your life, Arizona.

And you know, I, you know, Damon, you know, talking about, you know, where we lived and where we moved, you know, I moved here to Phoenix in 91.

And you know, people say to me, well, where are you from?

And I'm like, what do you mean?

I, I'm from Phoenix.

And they say, no, you're not because you have an accent.

I said, no, I don't.

I just, they, they, you Know, they always could say, you know, the New Yorker could leave New York, but she could never take the New Yorker out of the New York.

Right.

And that's just, you know, it's always a little bit of that New Yorker in me.

You know, like I still say coffee.

You know, some people make fun of that coffee, but I, but in one thing, I lived up in Boston for a little while too, but I do not pack my car in the Harvard yard.

Ah, you don't, you don't spend a dollar to pack the car?

No, no, that's very good.

I like that.

No, you don't do that.

But they do have great seafood in Boston.

I love it.

It's really good.

Yeah.

But anyway, let's get back to what we were talking about.

Let's look ahead, you know, and obviously we had mentioned it in the first segment about, you know, using spending your money wisely.

And you know, now we've gotten to the point where I think our listeners have a good idea of the questions that they need to ask based on a particular situation.

So what are some of the good things that they need to actually do to Buy Smart?

Just, just bullet point some of these for us so that this way then, in case they're taking notes, they could just jot some of these things down.

Sure.

I think, I think Buying Smart is sort of a moving target because it's not just about spending the least amount of money, is it?

If that's your goal, then, you know, you're going to want to shop at the Ding and Dent stores and the, you know, the discount warehouse outlets that have, you know, B grade fixtures and faucets and sinks and dings and dense stuff.

You know, that's all for saving money if that's your plan.

But that's not everybody's jam, is it?

They, no, you know, we deal with a, we deal with a client base here regionally that are on a, on a very exclusive private golf course.

And we build tiny homes for their lots while they're waiting five to 10 years for the big house that they eventually want to enjoy to get built next to the small house that we can build much quicker.

So that gives them a handful of years to enjoy their golf club membership in a high end tiny home or adu, whatever you'd like to call it.

It's, it's not an ADU if there's nothing else sitting on that land.

It's just a tiny house.

But eventually that one will kind of become the guest house or the smaller.

But some of those Are well north of 300, $320 a square foot by the time you amortize the cost of them.

Stainless, high end appliances, granite countertops, salty O tile floor.

Some of these are 500 square feet and are a quarter of a million dollars and up.

And that's crazy to some, but that's very plausible to others.

It's all relative, isn't it?

So buying smart it is also.

It's all relative.

You know, I think for, for my clients, the smart buy for them is a house in a box.

Like we put together a kit for them that is sort of, you know, we're here to help you get through that thing.

It doesn't benefit us to not see you finish it with building a house.

Right.

We want to see you over the finish line and we, we're here to answer, you know, the telephone.

We have about a 12 hour turnaround.

If you catch us after hours, if I see an email with a question, I'll pick up the phone and call you because I know you're stuck and you can't build your house right there until I answer that question.

If I'm not available, somebody else is.

So we really support the client that way if they want to build their own home.

And I think that's an extremely smart way of buying and building a home by having an expert that's just a phone call away kind of built into the price of it.

We don't charge extra, we don't charge by the hour, we don't charge you per service call or something like that.

We just want to make sure that you know how to build a house the way we designed it to be built.

When you're done, you can move into it and say, I did that.

So I think that's probably one of the smartest ways to buy in my mind because you're, you're going to come out ahead with the sweat equity component of that if you build your own house.

You know, it's kind of like the best of both worlds.

You're not paying somebody else to build it, but you're also not paying that tuition of making a bunch of mistakes by not buying the right stuff to build a house with.

We kind of give you all of that at once.

Yeah, well, you give them a roadmap so they know exactly what they're doing and they have, they have a qualified expert giving them that advice and roadmap.

So as long as you're, I mean, you don't have to be a general contractor.

I mean, you just, just have to know the difference between the tools and follow the instructions and you could actually build that.

I mean, I know when I built my first custom home from scratch, it was.

I mean, I didn't put a nail in every lumber, but I supervised it and managed the subs and got it all done and had it done to my specifications.

I mean, there is no greater feeling of achievement when you get that CFO in your hand and like, wow, I really did this.

And that was one thing that was on my bucket list from years ago that I always wanted to do, you know, so in.

And I always felt that it was important to whatever, you know, gifts that God has given me that I could share those with other people so that they can have their dream as well.

Because it's all about.

It's all about helping other people.

So it's.

It's just so very important to do that.

It is talking about helping other people.

We talked a little bit during the break about some of the community stuff that you guys do up there.

Tell our listeners a little bit about that.

Yeah, so our, Our.

Our youth program is.

We have a sort of an apprenticeship program for.

For youth who are aging out of the foster care system and don't really have a life plan ahead of them and other than surfing the couch or their friends and neighbors or family members until they find themselves in trouble or on the wrong side of the law or whatever that might be.

So we, we've sort of, you know, put an alternative pathway in there in the middle.

We.

We work with a local casa, special advocacy group of this judicial district here in Colorado for youth.

So moms and dads who maybe don't get along well or there's some.

Some abuse or violence or some things like that that have gone on in the.

In the history of the child's life.

They have to.

They have to set up visitation and re.

Establish contact with the kiddos through casa.

So CASA is the.

Is the.

They are the protectors of the kids, if you will.

And several years ago, we started doing business together with them, building tiny homes for some of their homeless.

And fast forward now we're in the same location.

We're both here in Montrose.

And Carlton Mason, their president, spearheaded a project to build the village of San Juan, which is transitional housing for not only those kiddos that are aging out of the foster care system, but also for seniors who are not able to sustain on their own.

Maybe they've become housing insecure or their food insecure or, you know, whatever the.

The situation might have become for them.

So with an income, you know, based rent system there, that project allows us to take a kiddo and put them in the house, put them in a single bedroom, tiny house there for the period of time they do an apprenticeship with us while they're learning how to build a tiny house.

Once they're done with that apprenticeship at our shop, they've built a tiny house and we give them that tiny house to live in and they sign an agreement that they're going to stay, you know, with us and they're going to keep doing the thing.

And so it's, it's, it's an apprenticeship in kind.

It's not paid up front, but it is paid in full.

It's just after the completion of that apprenticeship is when you receive the keys to your new house.

And we've done that twice now and we're working on our third one in as many years and the program's been pretty successful.

We're really, we're excited to see what it is capable of doing and we want to see more and more communities take a, take a page out of this playbook and do the same thing because we've proven that it's sustainable.

Yeah, I mean it's so very important to be able to, to and gratifying to be able to do that type of program.

I know I, I always share this with everybody and I know my listeners know.

One of my things on my bucket list is I want to be able to go back and find investors that see the vision I have about building container home communities for homeless veterans.

Because yes, there's, there's no, there's no reason why an American that has given up, you know, so much to serve our country, to come back and be stuck on a street corner with a cardboard sign.

You know,.

We did some work similar to that with the Veterans community project.

So VCP started out of Kansas City and we built 11 homes for homeless vets there in Kansas City from some land.

It was donated by the city and they, VCP has since moved to more multiple, multiple cities.

They're here in Colorado too.

They've got a huge community in Longmont, Colorado of about 60 homes that they've built for vets there.

So for your listeners that want to support that advocacy group for, for our veterans, the Veterans Community Project is one of the programs that we've been behind for 12 years now.

Yeah, so that's, it's so very important.

Damien, how can our listeners contact you?

Our website, trailermade trailers.com.

We also have a new website that we're in the process of finishing up.

It should be live here in the next week but it'll be, it's, it's what most of our social media monikers are.

Know us as the Tiny House Experts.

So if you go to the Tiny House Experts, make sure the.

Is on the front.

The tinyhouseexperts.com that takes you to our website that's still under update.

We had a, it was a little outdated.

We had some, had some new photos and things.

We wanted to just put some more modern stuff up there and like that hybrid chassis.

Just a lot of things that we, we've quietly been developing in the, in the laboratory but we haven't been able to put out in the public eye.

So we decided it was time for a refresh on that website.

But you can always reach us at trailer made trailers in the meantime and on our social media, YouTube in particular, the Tiny House Experts give us, Give us a follow and a like there if you would.

We'd love to see you there.

Watch the videos that we have up about building your own home and what are the laws around it.

And you said something about buying smart earlier.

There's a, there's a video there about what the real costs of building a tiny house are so that people can get their head around.

Like if I go to Home Depot and I pick everything off the shelf, what's that going to cost me to build a house?

So that's a, that's a good watch.

If, if your listeners are interested in kind of seeing that all come together.

It's a quite a shock to the system what it really costs to build a house.

Sure it is.

Not to mention, not to mention the average person who maybe this isn't their forte and they say, oh well, you know, that's the one thing I always tell people is sometimes, you know, and, and men, it, men, I, I say, I have to say are probably the, the, the people out of looking at men and women that are the, they want to be able to go out and, and say honey, I could do this for you, no worries.

And they may not have any clue what's going on.

I mean I know I had a customer once turned around and he, he just wanted to do the same thing.

He, he told her honey, I'm going in the garage.

I have to fix this, okay?

And she would turn around and hand him the phone and he said well why are you handing me the phone?

She turns around and looked him straight in the eye and said call Steve.

Yeah, call Steve.

Don't Even try.

Because, you know, so a lot of people, you know, like always say a homeowner with tools could be a dangerous thing.

And sure, if you're not adept in, in even a little incapable of doing this, I mean, make sure you're honest with yourself.

And if that's the big one, yeah, you got to be honest with yourself.

And like I said, if, you know, you get in touch with Damon and maybe you're, you're thinking of doing a DIY and, you know, dig down deep and be honest with yourself.

And if you don't think you could do it, because if you, if you try and fake it, you know, like that old saying, fake it till you make it.

There's not, in construction, you cannot fake it till you make it.

Because unless you have a lot of, you have deep pockets because you're going to spend a boatload of money trying to fix these things that you're going to screw up.

So the nice thing is, the thing about that, Steve, we don't, we don't give them that room to screw it up.

We take all of that excess slack out of the decision making process with our tiny house kits.

And it's really just paint by number.

You know, that's, that's what I think a lot of my novice DIYers really appreciate about our tiny home kits is.

That.

Just because you know a thing doesn't mean you know everything about building a house, right?

Yep.

And when it comes to an IKEA piece of furniture, you don't know how to, you don't have to know everything about building a piece of furniture.

You just have to know how to follow the steps that IKEA gave you.

And just have a lot of patience.

Yeah.

And don't lose that little silly tool.

Oh, my God.

That was unbelievable.

I had one person come to me one day and I did a kitchen remodel and the designer was hell bent on buying IKEA cabinets.

And I'm like, why?

Because it had to assemble everyone.

And like you say, don't lose that special tool, otherwise you're going to be lost.

You lose your mind.

But that's a, that's a topic for another show.

Okay, sure.

Damon, thanks so much for being on the show today.

We really appreciate it and I want to thank all our listeners for listening to Boxcar Universe.

Remember, we are your source and cutting edge information on remodeling, renovating your home, container homes, tiny homes, container pools.

Make sure if you're living In Arizona, it's 114 degrees today.

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So container pools can be done.

And if you have haven't seen one, please check out our website.

Our good friend Matt up in Vegas makes those and it's contain your contain and then the two letters you are pools.

And you get some interesting information about that.

You could always email me if you have any questions at all regarding any of the topics on the show or anything that you would like to share.

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Sa.