Tiny House/Small House Resources

All the different ways of solving the shelter problem. To be static or mobile? Roots, legs, or wheels?
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jennypenny
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by jennypenny »

I like this one (pic below). There are several cool tiny homes featured on the site.

Image

prognastat
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by prognastat »

Tiny houses have always intrigued me, but it always seems that there are some problems for it to work in my situation:
- My wife.
- Despite being cheaper than the average house they always seem to be extremely expensive per square foot if you buy one rather than building it yourself/from a kit.
- Hard to get permits for it unless you move out to the countryside away from civilisation.

I love the minimalism though and if it wasn't for the above three reasons I would be perfectly happy living in a tiny house myself.

The second of course can be mitigated by doing much/most of the work yourself.

Jason

Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by Jason »

I could never live in a tiny house. I'm afraid of dropping acid in a big house and having it appear to shrink.

But I watch the docs and enjoy the vicariousness. I guess my issue is why do they take pics that make it look bigger than it actually is? It's just another form of marketing. I'm not saying to put two people in it with steak knives at each other throats but maybe include an average sized human to show people the scale.

jacob
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by jacob »

Might not be deliberate. To capture as much as possible requires a wide-angle lens which inherently stretches out the depth-perception.

@jp's most recent post looks suspiciously like one half of a double-wide mobile home(?) which they might be using as the basic template. In that case, it would be around 12x40some sqft or ~500sqft i total.

It's interesting how "tiny homes" both in practice and by definition have grown in size over the past few years---maybe ever since they got popular on HGTV :-P. Tiny now seems to refer to homes around 500sqft... or about the size of an average house from about 100 years ago, whereas the original tiny houses are now called micro homes (~90-120 sqft). Even the tumbleweed models are 2x+ of what they started out as.

BWND
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by BWND »

Perhaps these have been linked to before:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gall ... n-pictures

And the truly terrifying:

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gall ... n-pictures

It is interesting that a lot of tiny house focus seems to be on building a tiny house rather than sourcing something that might already exist. They are far less idyllic I suppose, but might suit someone on the journey to FI. There's no way I could do the second link unless I was forced to under the circumstances.

Jason

Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by Jason »

I believe you are documenting why the East does not always take to the West's idea of simplicity. The pictures you are posting are based on want not on decision or an anti-consumerist "showing off how I am rich without showing off."

BWND
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by BWND »

MMM put up a post on a tiny house he built, along with a list of costs. Use was office not living.


https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2018/06/30/tinyhouse/


Apologies for the lack of link. I just can't seem to get it to work.

Edit: it seems that the hyperlink function messes it up, but just pasting the link in as text works!

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jennypenny
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by jennypenny »

I love this one with a sliding roof and greenhouse enclosure ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZbOR4s2Jms

I've spent the last hour trying to figure out if we could do a rolling cover over the greenhouse part of our home.

Jason

Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by Jason »

I mean it's really cool and everything but all I see is "You forgot to put the toilet seat down" at a whole other level.

theanimal
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by theanimal »

I've been looking at a lot of RV tiny home conversions lately. It seems to make a lot more sense from a practical standpoint. The structure is already there and designed to be mobile. As a result, costs appear to be far less than what most budget for tiny house. From the few resources I've seen, sub 10k seems to be the norm. The only major difference seems to be the outside aesthetic. A tiny house has more charm.

The only hangup I have if I were to do it up here is insulation. RVs aren't designed for Alaska cold. I guess I could strip the whole thing down and add insulation. It wouldn't be any different than having a tiny home with insulation. Although, I think I'd be limited by the studs since they're typically smaller than in regular homes? Another concern would be windows and the door for the same reason (cold).

Here's a couple that I liked.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcjbUcxW0tU Family of 5 (!!!) in ~180 sq ft

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9F04VQm7Y9s

sky
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by sky »

Another problem with RVs is that the "appliances" are installed in a non-airtight way. The RV furnace leaks air into the cabin, as does the air conditioner. Cold outside air comes from underneath my three way fridge of which the back side is entirely vented to outside air, meaning the interior walls around it are cold. The cookstove ventilator leaks air. The roof vent doesn't close completely.

I don't complain too much about these air leaks because most of the time I want as much fresh air as possible. If the RV were airtight, after about an hour one would start to notice a need for fresh breathing air. But from a heating perspective it takes a lot more energy to heat the RV in a cold environment.

sky
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by sky »

I have my eye on a tax sale parcel. If I get it, this is my plan:

Build a conduit geodesic dome with an 8 foot radius, 197 square feet, so just under the sf requirement for building codes.
Phase 1: Cover it with sheet plastic and use it as a greenhouse.
Phase 2: wrap the north half in chicken wire and drape cement slurry soaked burlap over the north half of the dome. Throw or spray a thick layer of aircrete over the north half, 0.5 to 1 foot thick. Replace the plastic sheet cover and use as an insulated greenhouse.
Phase 3: Build a wall of aircrete bricks down the center of the greenhouse, enclosing the insulated area. Add a sliding glass door, roof air vent and stovepipe opening in the roof. Waterproof the roof with plastic sheet or latex paint mixed with cement. The insulated area could be used as a sleeping shelter.
Phase 4: build additional greenhouses for food production.

EMJ
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by EMJ »

Build a conduit geodesic dome
Why a dome?
Once a geodesic dome advocate, Lloyd Kahn now favours hand-built, simple homes
https://aeon.co/videos/once-a-geodesic- ... mple-homes

sky
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by sky »

They are cheap and strong structures.

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jennypenny
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by jennypenny »

I want to be this woman when I grow up. If I was alone, her lifestyle would be my goal.

Retired Woman Builds Her Own Tiny House for Affordable Living
(video)
Brigitte is an inspiring woman with a wonderful outlook on life. She built herself a tiny house with the help of a contractor and she has been living in it full-time for 5 years. She's a retired teacher who now grows and preserves a lot of her own fruits and vegetables, she carries her water into the house by hand, she gets around with an electric bike rather than a car, and she makes time for volunteering, book club, learning piano, friends and family, meditation, and more!

7Wannabe5
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Image

@jennypenny:

Your post made me think of this poem, because it was included in a very popular 1960s book on the topic of how to be a good wife. The author admonished that this was the sort of fantasy women often had when they didn't include their husband in the picture :lol:

sky
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by sky »

That is a very nice setup, simple enough but luxurious in a way.

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jennypenny
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by jennypenny »

I like this video of Icelandic turf houses. What I really like is how they link the houses with hallways under the turf (starts @8min). I'd love that kind of set up regardless of the type of tiny house.

We're planning some pretty big renovations to our own house so I should really be watching videos related to that, but I keep getting distracted by the tiny house videos that pop up in my feed. :oops:

Riggerjack
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by Riggerjack »

@ jp
I like the turf houses on video, but the reality is much different.

As he went into in the video, they have to be taken apart, and reassembled every few decades. It's a nice design, in that all the parts are locally available.

Still, untreated wood, sawn from driftwood and shipwrecks, in contact with soil, is going to rot. Yes, it was clean and neat as a museum on display in a video. But living there, no ventilation, no real drainage system, no heat; well, it beats a tent, I guess.

I'm a big fan of Earth sheltered homes. But old designs are really optimized for using local materials, rather than the best materials available.

Here's a video of legendary underground home pioneer, Mike Oehler, late in life. Note the condition of the houses.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8B6xR3T37gI

(Not being the crazy old shoeless hermit mumbling about aliens in my self made catastrophic architecture, became a much higher priority for me, after that video... :ugeek: :shock: :geek: )

These are places that need constant upkeep to keep entropy at bay. I love alternative housing concepts, but traditional building is more appealing to look at in the summer, than live in, year round.

chenda
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Re: Tiny House/Small House Resources

Post by chenda »

I was at an event recently where they talked about cob houses, of which there are apparently lots of here. Many of the cob walls were later concealed between brick walls, so people don't realise they are living in one.

Much of the technical expertise to build and maintain traditional building methods were lost in the twentieth century and are having to be re-leaned through experimentation. Builders can easily damage an historic building by applying inappropriate modern techniques.

See https://historicengland.org.uk/research ... ction5Text

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