About the heat...

Hi everyone,
Our last post about heat, or lack of, got a lot of comments. I started to write a reply comment, but decided to just make it a post. All of the suggestions we received were pretty good, but...

We weigh 7600lbs on a 7000 trailer, so things that add weight are pretty much out. Also, while we love our location, it isn't necessarily permanent, so a trombe wall is out.

Our tiny house is pretty well sealed up. This is good. It means we don't have drafts. And that means we stay warmer. But it also means that using a wood stove would be a problem. Wood stoves suck air for combustion from there surrounding area. In a house with a bit of a draft and a lot of volume this is ok. In a well sealed tiny house, believe it or not, the stove would draw the oxygen out of your breathable air faster than new air would come in. So, you'd have to keep a window open when using it. And that might not be bad, but it might offset some of the gains of using it. A wood stove is also heavy and requires a lot of space around it. I'm not knocking wood stoves. I love them. But in this kind of small mobile space keep the trade offs in mind before installing one.

Refrigerators are another example of a small space fighting to hold its temperature against a larger space. Eventually, if the refrig is unplugged, the inside temperature will match the outside temperature. So you have to run the compressor to maintain the temperature. And we have to run our little heater to maintain our warmth. And actually, with our little stove we can get it up to 65 to 70 degrees, so it is ok. We just have to run it more than we thought.

I think one of the things Arlene wants to communicate is that if you are thinking of building a tiny house, be aware that it might not hold onto the heat as well as you might think. You do have to run the heater. Yeah, you could add more insulation, just be aware of what that might mean in terms of cost and weight and such. If you are in a very cold area, it is probably worth it to add a bit more insulation than we have. But up here we only have a few months of cold a year, and it isn't as cold as, say, Minnesota or Calgary.

In terms of heating, since September we have gone through one 5 gallon bottle of propane and are on the second. I figure that isn't too bad.

Progress Update - Oct 25

In the last couple of weeks I have definitely been busy... although, at times, I have strayed from original to do list.

I have:

• finished the paneling and trim around the interior of the front door
  

• completed attaching the paneling on the new bi-fold bathroom door

• installed a shelf above both kitchen windows

• found, bought, refinished and reupholstered an antique settee (since the big toolbox wasn't really comfortable to sit on)

• made a trailer skirt out of old ikea shelf supports and leftover exterior redwood siding

• bought a few outdoor bushes and a (very) small fern for inside

• and we finally hooked up the propane since it's been getting colder recently. (For more new interior pictures, click the link that says 'More build pics are here' at the top left of our blog.)

This week, if the rain will give me a break, I'll finish the porch. I have a couple of more floor boards to add as well as a plaque that I made. On a rainy day, I will fix up an old trunk for storage under the settee. I also plan to add the rest of the interior trim and putty the nail holes so that I can paint the cottage interior the second weekend of November.

Currently, when you walk into our cottage ALL you see is wood, which is nice, but we agreed that we'd like a bit more visual contrast. Besides, the rainy season has begun so we'll have a few months of grey days. We'd like it to feel brighter when inside even if it's grey outside. The skylight has been helpful, but grey is grey. I have a no-VOC paint (Freshaire Choice). The ceiling will be 'distant star' and the walls will be 'poetic light'. Both are a creamy white with the ceiling a couple of shades lighter than the walls which, I have read, is supposed to make the ceiling feel higher. Even though it's simply visual 'space', I'll give it a try.

Since I'm winding down on the bigger things that need to get finished in order to feel more settled in our new home in a new city, this coming week I'll be making more of effort to find a job. I get quite antsy if I have nothing to do and I have been losing track of days since I don't have an office to go to. I've been working 7 days a week on finishing up the house so there hasn't been a difference between Wednesday or Saturday. I'm really ready to go back to work...

The first move

I've finished putting in the pipes for the propane system. All of the inside knotty pine is done (well, all that we'll do for now). The outside siding is done, but there is a bit more work to do on the porch. So I spent yesterday getting the tiny house ready for it's first move.



Several folks have asked us if our roll up door is tall enough to get the tiny house out of once the roof is on. The answer: nope. The roll up door is 12 feet high and the top of the tiny house, when it's done, will be 13' 6". Give or take.

Before we signed the lease for our build space we had an invitation to build our tiny house on some friend's property. But their house is nearly an hour and a half away. So we planned to to do the majority of building here, then tow the house to their place to put the roof on.



So I've screwed in some 1/2 inch, 4x8 sheets of plywood across what will be the opening up to the loft. I've also put a temporary door in place. We'll be moving the thing on Saturday.



Once the house is at it's new home, we'll put a roof on, make the door and the cabinets, and finish things off. We may not get to the painting till we get to Seattle. In fact, there maybe several finishing touches to do it once we're there.