FAQ Group: Under the Roof Quiz, 2023

What is our current build rate of tiny homes?

4 per week. While each tiny home requires about two weeks from start to finish, our 15,000 square foot facility in SODO, The Hope Factory, allows us to work on 10-12 homes at a time and about four per week are finished and moved out awaiting delivery to a new village. Come for a visit and you’ll see a dozen or so homes in various stages of completion.

welcome home message on a finished tiny home

After being painted, the final stage includes installing the locking door handle on the front door and taping the keys to the inside of the front window with a message that reads, “Welcome Home.”

What is the median length of stay in a LIHI tiny home village?

114 days. Based on current data, previously homeless residents are spending just about four months in the tiny homes we build. Tiny home residents have their own space that is warm, dry, and secure. They can lock their own door with their own key to keep themselves and their belongings safe. There are toilets and showers in a tiny home village, food in a community kitchen, and laundry facilities. Just as importantly, villages are staffed with counselors and case workers who can help replace documents, connect residents with medical care and/ or treatment options, and suggest job or education options.

Once stabilized from the trauma of living on the streets, residents are ready to move into a more permanent housing option and free up their tiny home for the next person to come off the street. At current rates, each tiny home shelters roughly three people per year in their transition out of homelessness.

Our homes are designed and built to last for how many years?

20. In our climate, water is the biggest enemy of a residential building. Our homes are designed with pitched roofs that overhang to shed water away from walls and windows; they’re topped with the same 20-year rated asphalt shingles that you might find on your own home; all of our exterior seams and nail holes are caulked with plenty of high-grade exterior caulk; and, our exterior siding is pre-primed at the factory and then finished by our painter with paint that’s both sprayed on and also brushed into cracks and crevices.

Chuck installing a new shingle roof on a tiny home

How many panels of interior plywood go into each tiny home?

13. This is a trick question! We start with large stacks of 4’x8′ sheets of 1/2″ thick plywood that are trimmed down to custom widths and lengths based on our template system. Our homes need three full sheets of plywood for each side wall and the ceiling, two full sheets for the rear wall, and 1-1/2 sheets for the front wall. The door on the front wall takes up the rest of the space. However, the trimmed-off sections are further cut down and remade as interior trim strips so that nothing is wasted.  And, the section of plywood that’s removed for the door is then further cut down into small triangular panels that cover the upper end wall sections below the roof’s peak — for a total of 13 full sheets.