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I don't know about the rest of you but I find the tiny house movement fascinating, especially in what I believe it can tell us.
I believe taking some of the Tiny House architecture techniques(the hidden spaces) into the commercial housing industry will work wonders. Notably, talking to a homeowner to create a minimalist aesthetic in practice will create untold peace and productivity as well. Add a little bit of natural human chaos and you have a real positive architecture movement taking hold.
Sorry, I just can imagine a very positive psychological effect from this taking hold.
Comments
Many, if not all, of the
Many, if not all, of the techniques used in 'tiny houses' have been used for a long time. They just seemed to fall out of favour (at least in the US) once we started expanding more in the 20's and beyond. Murphy beds, drop down tables, spin-around (lazy susan style) cabinets, sliding bookcases (Doctors still use(d) these). In fact, the whole drop down, or in some cases _lowering_ tables (drop down coming from a wall, and lowering being dropped from the ceiling like a chandelier) are still frequently used by train hobbyists.
When I was growing up, we had many of those in our house - my father was an engineer. Almost the entire space under the staircase was used by a closet - because even a 2' tall closet space is useful, as long as you can reach it.
Look up "Vardo" or possibly "Romani Wagon". Also Travellers, or tinkers. Those still have many of those features. Not to mention the historical travelling players (Post-Dark Ages) - their wagons were not only built for living in, but many of them were constructed to become stages, and in conjunction with large groups (the original 'travelling circuses'), they could even block off large areas for things that you weren't allowed to see without paying an additional fee. (These later evolved into the snake oil salesman wagons. Think of the movies, where they show people standing on the stage, hawking Dr. Wonderful's Mystery Medicine)
The reason they don't do them now is pretty simple.
1) It requires people that actually _know_ how to do construction and carpentry to do them. Anyone can build a house, but not anyone can construct an armoire. Homeowners no longer know how to do this, on the whole. (I do, but that still takes time)
2) Labor and time costs increase. Instead of tossing up a stick built house in two weeks, they'd have to take at least four. Most people would rather pay for an extra bedroom to store crap than pay for the ability to hide it properly.
So, unless you can get rid of the "Let's hire the cheapest people possible for construction" mentality, you will _never_ be able to get those features in commercially available homes again.
(Oh. Look at the Dymaxion home. There are good pictures on the Ford Museum's web page. It had lots of hidden spaces)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
But hiding it...
Will help people be able to focus more and become more psychologically at peace, imo. Having maybe a few items on any counter top at one time is the max you should have. There's a little bit of chaos and that's about right for your chaotic need as a human.
Even when some people go tiny they have too much on the counter usually. This is part of why I think people end up dissatisfied with their tiny house.
Most people argue this is a lashback at consumerism. I would say yes and no. It's a bit of an argument on consumerism but just as much in regards to just plain redundancy and it's pervasiveness.
Interesting comments to read from you Biblio. I want to make a tiny house in a traditional Asian fashion with a bit of elements from Chinese as well as Japanese houses. The pounded dirt floor(Chinese style) with hidden storage space directly above and a thin layer of Bamboo or wood with a Tatami mat perhaps?
I'll be honest though that I'd like it off-grid, if I could place solar tiles in keeping with the aesthetic and a very small Biomass generator if possible.
Personally, even if it were a
Personally, even if it were a 'tiny home', unless it was in a stony area, I wouldn't have the house directly on the ground. Pounded earth floors were 1) when you couldn't afford to actually _have_ a floor (your house was wattle and daub, for example) and 2) require a lot of maintenance to keep the dirt from being everywhere.
Do pier and beam. Even for a small house, it helps in several ways. 1) it removes you from the ground, so you don't have a number of issues. (Heat loss from being on the ground, every critter in the world being able to casually wander in, reduces crawlies from coming up from the ground, etc). 2) it gives space to get to plumbing or wiring, and 3) gives you covered storage space for things like tools and pots, if you don't have a garage.
To be off the grid isn't as hard as it seems. We, as a society, are spoiled - most of what we use really isn't that necessary. Carpet brooms instead of vacuum cleaners is one big example. As for electricity, you have to look at your needs, then determine if things like solar will cover them. If you're in the open, put water pipes on the roof, then solar on top of those. If you use a cistern above that (a tower cistern), it'll give you water pressure, and solar heating for the water. (refilling is a bit more iffy, but you can have a filter on top for rainwater, and/or use a hand pump. A cistern is an absolute necessity. People usually overlook these, even though even for normal subdivision dwellers it can help. A 500 gallon cistern could keep your lawn alive during a 3 or 4 week drought, for example. In case of an emergency, combined with bleach and a filter, it's enough to keep you going and bathed for quite some time. A plastic one (you could build a small shed around it if you wanted to), is 4' in diameter and six feet tall - and costs $400. (The average _real_ toilet uses 4-5 gallons per flush, to give you a rough idea of how long the water could last. Yes, we did this when Ike hit. I had 150 gallons of rain water stored in barrels, and that got us through the power outages)
Don't depend on biomass to give you anything but compost. It's not reliable unless you're working with large quantities. If you don't mind the walk, a standard 'yoo-hoo', or outhouse, is perfectly good to use. You just have to dig a new hole every six months to a year, depending on usage. Keep a bag of lime handy, drop a handful in the hole after each use to reduce the odor. Keep the outhouse hole on the side of the house _away_ from the well :) (If you're digging the hole more than 4 feet deep, you must have a four holer, and a LOT of visitors) Thundermugs (guzunders) are okay for overnight usage. You can still get Victorian era wash stands with the bowl on top, and chamberpot storage underneath. Yes, THAT is what that shelf is for. It's not for toilet paper.
Don't feel that you have to give up toilets, like so many of the stories and shows seem to do. Composting toilets look good, but why go to the effort? Digging a hole and putting an outhouse on top does the same thing! Even a teeny house can have a septic system. (Unless you're in an area like here, where they forced my folks to replace their septic system with a bleaching/spraying system. 80 year old leech field and tank still worked _just fine_, but the "it's better for the environment" idiots managed to write the laws again. By the time the grass gets done with it, there's no more risk to it than tripping over the rake. )
I will say this, being off the grid is easier in the last decade. Lithium-ion batteries store a LOT more power in a much smaller space than lead acid, with less maintenance. Low (and even high) power LED's last much longer on the power produced by a days worth of solar, and they don't require any conversion between DC/AC. _Don't_ even think about compact fluorescent. They suck rocks, and unless the power flow is very good, they will burn out quickly. (I have a bathroom that went through three CFL fluorescent bulbs in the same time period as an incandescent kept working fine)
(Hmm, this is getting long).
If you want all the comforts of home, however, look into the RV market. DC appliances, low power equipment, etc. Also look at the oldest form of refrigeration (no, not IceBoxes, but rather the absorption refrigeration boxes. SERVEL being the oldest name out there). That is, a refrigerator that runs off of propane or LNG. (you can run it off of hot water or candles, if you had to) A lot of the largest refrigeration units on old office buildings use the ammonia cycle, as do the enormous coolers used by the food industry. The downside is that some/many of those fridges now, while more efficient, require some electricity to run the temperature controls/ignition systems.
Oh well - totally off topic, but I killed some time while eating dinner :)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
for me, the purge is hard
I've watched the tiny house shows on the FYI network and wish I had the courage to be able to purge enough belongings to fit myself in something that size. I could once - I spent three years of college in an efficiency apartment that had maybe 200 sq feet (including the closet and bath) - no dedicated kitchen, but a small fridge and a two-burner hotplate (this was before microwaves were common).
My problem now is mostly psychological. I know that I don't use most of my many, many current belongings, but I spent money on them that I would lose (since I assume that no one would want to buy most of the crap I have). I've made a few false starts, but then the effort peters out or else something else comes up and I never get back to it. It's very frustrating not to be able to just get the 10 or 15 yard dumpster to get rid of the crap, and donate the rest (clothing, books) to agencies who could do some good with it.
And even though I don't necessarily want to live in a < 500 sq ft tiny house, it would be nice to have a smaller living space that wouldn't be cluttered.
Items?
Knickknacks, antiques? You might be surprised what people are interested in. We have an old, old toaster here and there's no way I can get rid of it if I move to a tiny house(built before the idea of Planned Obsolescence). Most other things I would find a bit of space in the house or make an Earth Storage place for it.
a link to get this type of storage
Wallbeds Canada
They even will do custom builds, with a table in the bed [ hidden when bed open or beside the bed ]
THEY INSTALL these units included when you purchase.
I have seen some pretty sweet designs from them, they used to have a retail outlet in dowtown Vancouver BC [ factory in Richmond BC ], closed the retail and just operating from the richmond location last I checked. [ actually called wall beds canada, not same company I think. ]
Stupidity is a capital offense. A summary not indictable.
Movie
There is a documentary on Tiny Houses available on Netflix streaming for those that might be interested, but not familiar with this phenomena "Tiny: A Story About Living Small".
Tiny Homes Are Stupid
I've watched the TV show dozens of times. I've also done considerable online research and blogged about them.
1.) They're really stupid.
2.) It is incredibly hard to find a place to set one down due to city zoning. (See 1.)
3.) If you're married, you need to decide if you want to stay that way. (See 1.)
4.) If you have children, you should be shot, if you think a Tiny Home is a palatable life style. (See 1.)
5.) As mentioned, an RV (or a manufactured home) are a much better alternative. (See 1.)
I think paring away the unnecessary from your life sounds great, but I also think that was already covered in the movie Up in the Air www.rottentomatoes.com/m/up_in_the_air_2009/ It was ultimately decided at the end of the movie that life's better with some complications.
Did I say Tiny Houses are stupid?
I would be very willing to live in a house with about 700 square feet with a tiny lawn. My current home has about 4,500 square feet on three levels with a huge deck and acreage. There's just two of us, which makes us . . . stupid.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Jill - that 700 feet you
Jill - that 700 feet you mentioned is close to the average for houses in the 1930's. House sizes have grown a lot. The Dymaxion home increased the size of the house, without significantly increasing the footprint. (I _still_ think that they'd make great vacation homes/cabins. You can drop a container with everything necessary to build it with a cargo chopper, the people assembling show up on ATV's, and it's done in three days. )
Personally, I'd love a 4000+ SF home. Yes, there's only three of us, but I run a business, and I'd really like to be able to separate it better without renting _two_ properties.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Tiny Builder
I actually have a nephew who is building tiny homes for vacationers. His tiny homes are craftsman quality. Post and beam.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Yes - but what are his per
Yes - but what are his per hour labour costs compared to a standard stick build?
I don't know why people keep bringing up zoning laws. Most zoning laws just say _how_ a building has to be constructed, not how big it can be. (or small). The only time they get involved in most cities is when you're building a residence in a non-residential zone. (Houston doesn't have zoning, so I'm only speaking from what I've read and seen. Not that I've experienced)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Craftsman
He's a craftsman. He will charge a lot. These aren't for the weak of pocketbook. I keep bringing up zoning laws because there are VERY FEW places in the united states where you can have a tiny home. A lot of zoning laws do include square footage requirements. Most seem to have a 1,000 SF bottom.
Look . . . I had my tongue firmly in my cheek when I wrote my initial response on this thread. I'd love to live in world where tiny houses were a viable option. But . . . I don't. My state is fairly liberal and I found only a few counties that would allow them in very remote spots.
On the other hand the tiny house movement certainly have my spouse and me thinking about how much room we really need and what footprint we have right now.
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Hm... That sounds like an
Hm... That sounds like an excellent opportunity for a _small_ home. The main concern seems to be the ground footprint. If you built a two story house with a 20x30 floor, that would give you 1000sf of 'space'. It could even be three rooms. (Bathroom, sleeping room, kitchen/living).
I wonder how those sorts of zoning requirements came about, considering that up until the 50's, the average house was under 1000sf.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
I thought I'd toss something
I thought I'd toss something else in.
1) They aren't totally stupid. Impractical for most situations, but not totally stupid.
2) We have a number of residential lots in Houston that were diced up by Metro to the point where you can't put a normal building on them. Even if you wanted to put a townhouse on them, the bottom floor could _only_ be a garage, and you'd be backing straight into the street (if you were lucky). A 'tiny house' would be just about perfect, especially if it was two story. You could get 500 square feet or so of living space, and still be able to park one of those cars with handles. (Mini-Cooper or Fiat 500)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
you're are so correct
I have a four bedroom home and when the Kidd come home we run out of space. When our family visits they know they have a place to stay. These homes are made for the upward noble,read,read techies. They have no family to speak of and little homes are the next new fad,Arecee
Actually.
I was originally thinking of a tiny professional studio solution for doing music and talk; however, I worry that would literally require two trailers to hook together to give the proper sound dimensions for acoustics. I was looking at doing music in 5.1 or higher and thought doing a talk show mobile style would kind of be awesome.
I can't think of many talk show hosts who have done something like that or at least dynamically. It would be mainly political but I would definitely try to make it entertaining. Also, I don't plan to host it by myself.
The question is how I manage to do it live? Was planning on taking calls so a toll-free line is the way to do it.
Tiney houses saves
Lives, material property, the environment. Caution Passionate writing ahead read at your own risk.
Tiny Houses are not for everyone, and do not fit in everywhere. Big [But ] there is a growing humanitarian fire storm right here in America where there is no governmental help and a huge governmental restriction concerning housing. I had to live on the street for a time and it was not a good thing so read the rest at your own peril.
I am sorry for any bruised nerves of emotions, if any one is interested in sharing or is looking for any information concerning tiny or alternative housing please contact me I really am a nice Wolf person.
1] Tiny houses can solve the homeless problem. Homelessness is just plain stupid in this country and the Idea that the number of people now homeless all chose to be that is criminally ignorant. It is peoples lives being destroyed here and I have first hand experience with the effects this cold hardheartedness has on good people. My family was made homeless by an act of selfishness. We were evicted with only three weeks before our youngest Crystal was born. We were lucky in that we had a partially converted School bus to call home or both of our kids would have died.
We did not pollute the area we lived in, we managed well for 6 years until my ex had a long period out of work left for another state to look for work. We had a small home of only 178 sq feet to live in but we were warm and dry. There are so many single people that a Tiny home would fit the bill nicely. And even more that a slightly larger structure would suffice.
2] Since the dawn of time humans have contrived there own shelter some of which were not safe, but nether is a lot of the commercially constructed code inspected 4000 sq foot Mc Mansions. Today we have so much more knowledge to solve this problem but it has become inconvenient to allow people to “plow there own furrow “ so we are forcing them to live in the rough with no shelter, that is not a solution, it is inhuman.
3] To survive my future I have plans backed up by 3 TB of research and 20 + years of building trades experience in how to build safe sustainable housing but on a smaller scale. Our ancestress lived in as small of or just a bit larger cabins. wickiups, teepees, long houses, Crannogs, why do we deny people the right to shelter. On a scale that can be constructed by a single person or family. If you are going not to help then you lost the right to interfere of forbid.
4] If we are going to walk backwards into the future and allow the return of the cannibalistic capitalism FDR dug us out of, then stay out of my way in solving my shelter and food supply problems, as my ancestors did. Do not put me or mine in a double jeopardy of damning if we do and damning us if we don't just because it doesn’t make some one a buck that is not American and is simply inhuman.
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book
Passion
Much of what you say is true.
However . . . zoning laws are made by and for the people. Maybe I've missed it, but I haven't seen a discussion of zoning laws for tiny homes on TV. That's because they make the movement implausible.
Once or twice a month I drive by the homeless shelter in St. Paul and see roughly 150 people milling around waiting for space. My spouse and I have witnessed this social failure and had the "tiny home" discussion dozens of times in regards to plugging them into the homeless community. They would be better than what we have, but why not go with a much more practical manufactured home?
Check out tiny home zoning laws https://www.google.com/search?q=tiny+home+zoning+laws&ie=utf...
Most of these articles are about trying to scam the system. Does that really make any sense, trying to scam a way to locate your home?
Jill
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Quite nice.
I enjoyed your comments. Some spot-on stuff.
With Tiny Houses I'm wondering how someone can go almost completely off grid and still be mobile, it's part of why I talked to Biblio the idea of Biomass for energy. I was kinda thinking, for an electric car, the Kia Soul would be a great idea considering the extra tow it could provide versus the car. Couple that with creating a durable plug to charge your car while you are on the go. You would have to automate the house a bit to relegate that power exclusively to the refrigerator, with the rest going to the car while you drive.
Message me back and forth as I would love to talk to you about this.
If you go for a propane
If you go for a propane powered fridge, you don't have to have electricity for the fridge except for the temperature maintenance. You might even be able to find one that just has a thermocouple to drive the heat source, and use solar panels to drive that part. *shrug*
Kia Soul can't tow that much. Most four bangers can only tow about 1000lbs, and you have to count the trailer frame as part of that weight.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Vehicle.
Well I'm trying to think of an electric vehicle but a truck or something else that can tow more would be fine if it could actually use Biodiesel. I love the idea of being able not just to stay stationary but go mobile and be renewable.
Oh I meant to add that for the water end I was thinking about a distillation unit for the water if you can get a fairly compact one.
Any diesel vehicle can use
Any diesel vehicle can use biodiesel. You might look at some of the older VW Jetta wagons.
Sound acoustics don't depend on dimensions. There are lots of materials to adjust acoustics to whatever you need, even in confined spaces.
You're wanting a 'solar still', if you want to stay off of the grid. If you're willing to sacrifice electricity, or propane, you can get or make small distillation units that operate through boiling, rather than standard evaporation and condensation. (Despite what some of the manufacturers would claim, boiling is no different from normal evaporation. It's just evaporation at a higher temperature, thus killing unwanted organisms. No, the lack of minerals won't hurt, it just means that there's no 'taste' to the water. No, the lack of fluoride won't hurt either, especially if you use a fluoridated toothpaste. Too much fluoride mostly just discolours your teeth. It's no more 'toxic' than chlorination.)
Example of a portable solar still - usually sold for emergency boat/camping supplies. (This was in my 1980 copy of "What Will They Think of Text!" ) - http://www.amazon.com/Abandon-Ship-Bag-Supplies-Aquamate/dp/...
Bigger solar still - http://www.solaqua.com/solstils1.html - produces up to 1.5 gallons of water a day.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Since you know so much about this...
Do you also have a book on the many uses of Hemp, specifically on how to create a plastic from it?
Not as such, but they're
Not as such, but they're readily available. Keep in mind that what you're referring to isn't 'hemp plastic', no matter how much Zeoform may say. It's a cellulose plastic, one of the earliest of which is called 'celluloid'. Jojoba, hemp, sisal - any high cellulose fibre plant can be turned into a plastic. Try hempplastic.com for some basic information, but there's tons out there. Also look into Hydrous thermal depolymerization (TDP). The major sticking point on its adoption is that everyone keeps trying to make it profitable, rather than simply using it to reduce waste and expense. (That, and people keep suing the plants, claiming they're smelly - even when they're shut down for maintenance. Well, gee. Sewage treatment plants are smelly. Gosh!).
TDP isn't a miracle system, but what it does is take anything organic, and produces a natural gas, a biodiesel oil, sterile greywater, and mineral byproducts/stocks. Total destruction and breakdown of prions, bacteria, etc. The mineral byproducts can then be processed separately (mined) to turn into chemical stocks, fertilizer feedstocks, and metals for recycling. What's the real benefit? Well, you _can_ sell the products that come out of it, but it gives a way to dispose of medical wastes safely, and stuff doesn't end up in landfills. (I suspect that many toxic chemicals may stay in the water - dioxin and similar - if so, you can _still_ clean that water more easily than dumping it in the landfill)
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Playing by the rules
Although I understand what is meant by getting around the laws, it was a poor choice of words by the person writing the piece. You should always work within the framework of the system when ever possible, BUT there is a problem with the new effort to push the BOCA codes into even rural areas enforcing city mandated laws where they don't make sense, except for the profiteering of a few, The safety and health aspects of the building codes must must be adhered to, the problem surfaces when the use of the codes are for exclusion of the less well off portion of our population.
Manufactured homes are fine in many situations, there cost has become a problem for most of us. My wages as a skilled electronics repair tek were frozen at the 1980 level and in spite of my increase of skills I was not compensated for the vastly increasing costs of food energy shelter I never saw another raise for the 24 years. I was working for the same amount when I was lay-ed off in 2004 for being to old to insure. Then I was in my 50s and no one would rehire me as they were not being made to obey the law against discrimination.
Simply put we have stranded over a million people into a twilight zone leaving them no place to go or seek shelter. Tiny homes help deal with this by putting into the hands of the people directly effected a way out of homelessness. It also provides a secure lodging for single people, small families, and many others who are boot strapping there way. Retired people can also take advantage of these scaled down structures. Many tiny homes are more like park model RV tailors and have a nitch in the housing industry. The main problem is not technical but a choice to see housing and basic survival as a privilege to be sold to the highest bidder.
Tiny/ down scale housing does not belong every where, but they do belong in the places they make sense, and do not disturb the existing fabric of a community. I do not proposed we allow shanty towns or squalid run down slums, tiny house communities do need to pay their way and not despoil there surroundings. But planing for them and including them into a county or township level simply makes sense.
With those with open eyes the world reads like a book