Tiny House Advice Needed

Do you worry more about heating or cooling? The Dog trot concept was mainly for cooling, the kitchen was on one side and the bedroom on the other. In the worst heat you could sleep in the breeze way. Having the kitchen in the main house building is better if your biggest problem is staying warm. You can cool a shed your size with a window air conditioning unit and heat it with a very small wood stove. You probably wouldn't need a wood stove on the kitchen side.

If you're really going for cheap and reducing debt buy a used rv or trailer and park it under a shed, you can build a nice deck outside for more dog-trotty type space. I know several people who have done this out West.

For instance right now i'm helping a friend get a motor running of a 32 foot motorhome, 25 years old. Inside has a few rips in upholstery but woodwork, appliances etc all in good shape. Selling it for 3-4000$.

Lots of cheap motorhomes, past their driving prime per engine perhaps, but still fine as a rolling house. If you can get it into place and park it, no need to run the engine ever again really--my granparents did this with a motorhome on their lake property. Just need to keep the weather off the roof.

Re heating, one neighbor I had had a trailer inside a pole barn, she had an old woodstove she ran in the pole barn, also a bathtub next to the trailer in the pole barn. She heated bath water on the woodstove, cooked on it etc.

Right now my water heater is out while I fix the floor. I've been heating my water for bathing/dishwashing on the woodstove. It's no pain at all, and it's so easy and cheap etc I might not hook the new one back up!

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5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

PS ie if the rv has a crap motor, even if you get it into place and have to abuse the engine and it limps along and seizes up forever when you shut it down you still have a home with "appliances"

lots of people do this sort of thing, and are "debt free"

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5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

That is very doable. Place all the water fixtures as close as possible.

I've been living in a 12x24 with wood heat for at least 6 years. It is tight and I'm tired of it.

I'd pour a single stem wall foundation all at the same time. Put in all water and waste requirements prior to pouring concrete.

Being that far apart you will need a separate septic system.

Just wanted to add that the lady that lived in a trailer in the pole barn with a bathtub was a research doctor in epidemiology and tropical diseases at OHSU. She left to go head up a program in Uganda. SHe lived in that big shed/old trailer with no power or running water to both keep her hobo skills sharp, live simply/low cost and to never lose sight/appreciation for how many people live.

Not meant to be a poke but just a very cool lady.

She also drove a beater small pickup--bet that drove the other docs in their boxters nuts ha!

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5-star double-rated astronavagatrix earth girl

Having designed and built two homes (NY) a few tips. Place the plumbing back to back for kitchen and bathroom on INSIDE walls ( no freezing of pipes). Two separate areas are hard to heat, as noted. Have a "winter" area" and a "summer" area. The winter area: kitchen, bath, SMALL LIVING ROOM ( GO VERTICAL WITH BOOKCASES, STORAGE), good fold out couch for extreme cold weather. Summer area (warm winter weather): larger living space, bedroom, etc. We have an earth wrapped home, passive solar, heated by wood. The bedroom in the back always is 5 degrees cooler.

you need to put the bathroom in with the other "wet" areas to save a lot of $ on plumbing..you should always back your kitchen, bath and laundry facilities up to each other to lessen plumbing if you can..but otherwise sounds really good.

also , the closer you can put things together the easier to heat...so consider keeping the hallway very short..and maybe wider than a normal hallway..so that it transfers heat well..you might even make the "hallway" into a smallish room with a drop down desk or line the walls of it with bookshelves so it would be like a walk through library..that way you get USE out of it although it wouldn't be full of furniture to obstruct traffic.

If you are still capable of climbing you could use a loft area for some storage or guest sleeping also..that also reduces the heat loss thru the roof area..

You are best to put your heat in the non plumbed section..as the plumbed section will be a sort of heat source..as your kitchen and bath will be there which will add some heat.

buy stackable washer and dryer and put the dryer on top..make sure both doors swing the same way..that is useful..we did that in our first home which had a tiny laundry...try to locate it so that your dryer and your range add heat to the house in the winter..but have venting for heat removal in the summer.

look in trailer supply warehouses or rv or camper warehouses to find smaller than usual appliance as well. I have a wall hung pull out "butler" that has wooden dowlels to hang clothes on..and then I have over door hooks, that I can hang hangers on..and I hang up all of our laundry except for sheets and blanets and towels..inside the house that way in a very tiny laundry area.

remember to make sure furniture does dual duty..I have a coffee table for example that has two drawers and 4 cabinets in it..and I totally love it..and it is on casters so it moves easily. benches with storage, footstools with storage..and floor to ceiling book cases are the best things to have in small homes

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Brenda Groth
http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/

I highly recommend the mini-split systems. They are SO quick and efficient that you really only need to turn them on if you're hot or cold. They circulate the air in the room so they don't need to constantly pump hot/cold air into the room to get the temp to change.

Our current home is 1,200 sq ft so we put one in the front of the house in the livingroom and one in the back in our bedroom because we didn't want to be left hot or cold if it wasn't as great as they said it would be because the models we got were rated for 1,000 sq ft. Well getting two was total overkill. One unit could easily heat or cool the whole home. The only upside is that we can close the bedroom door at night and still be comfortable.

We have Mitsubishi Mr. Slims so I don't know how other models compare but ours is almost entirely silent. The only thing you hear is the movement of the blades if you set it to oscillate.

We do however have heated tile floors in our little bathroom because it can get unpleasant to shower when it's really cold.

I agree that there are cheaper ways to build a living space than 2 sheds plus an addition.

I guess the thing that got us started was the fact that the OP is already starting with one shed that they already own making that maybe 1/3 of the package already there. If that were removed from the situation, something like you suggest would be a real easy way to make something happen fairly cheap.

It might even be worth the OP considering just using their current shed as a shed and doing the living quarters separately. There are just so many possibilities, all the way from an even larger barn / garage / shed to an rv. Hey, I live in an rv fulltime right now. There's something to be said for being able to pull the thing in, all ready to go, kitchen, bath, bedroom, appliances, heating/cooling... And it doesn't have to be terribly expensive. My wife and I lived fairly comfortably in a 32' trailer we paid less than $5k for for over a year. And we sold it for around $4k when we were done with it. Doesn't have to be a $20k or $30k or $40k proposition. Just saying...

i knew some people that built a pole barn and lived in it..but it does also have some drawbacks..as polebarns, esp with metal roofs tend to be leaky and drafty no matter how well you insulate them

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Brenda Groth
http://restfultrailsfoodforestgarden.blogspot.com/

Really check what kind of water you will be putting through a tankless water heater. Our well here is slightly hard, little iron but loads of magnesium and it is not workable at all. Reputable installers won't install them here. I know many people that have submersible well pumps completely seize to the point that they have to have a new well dug. I am going with a non-submersible pump myself.

I had a friend who did this for awhile. She had a large opening or doorway, cut into both buildings, and had the two buildings connected, which gave more of an open feel to it. For the sleeping room, she bought used "French doors" and hung lace panels on them, so she could open them for air flow and close for privacy when needed. I don't care for the dogtrot idea, as it would make it much harder to heat and cool, unless you put a wood stove in the dog trot, and insulated the heck out of it. I definitely agree with the above posts, that all plumbing should be located as close together as possible. Plumbing "joints" have gotten ridiculously expensive. My friend also found a large arched window at a "salvage" place and put it in the sitting area. It made it so much more light and less "closed in" feeling. She eventually added a 3rd yard barn, and the place was really cute when she got done with it. Hers sat on a large concrete pad, but up on dry stacked cinder blocks with skirting. She had a small soapstone woodstove in one corner of the sitting room and blocked up under the floor and added "backer board" for strength and fire safety, and tiled it. It was warm and cozy in the winter. In the summer she used her ceiling fan and had screen doors so she had good air flow, except when it got really humid and hot, then she had a "window" air conditioner installed into a wall. It kept it cool with just the one air conditioner because she insulated and caulked it very well.

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Pro Libertate!

About 15 years ago, I had a shed company build me two 10 X 24 sheds with the intention of putting them together with the long sides facing. They were built so that the roof was sloped one way on one shed, the other way on the other shed and would form a nice peaked roof once the two halves were put together. The walls that met to form the center wall had two very large door openings in them which made it feel quite open inside and it was quite roomy. It served me very well as a workshop, especially after I insulated it.

I know prices have gone way up since then but it was only something like $3k at the time. I did all of the foundation work myself, which wasn't all that extensive, really. It was a foundation of railroad ties and gravel made in such as way as to be LEVEL. That was the requirement that the shed builder had, that it have a level place to put the thing, and I can understand that.

Had I wanted to, I could have added on a small bathroom, added heating and cooling, electrical and plumbing... and it wouldn't have been bad at all. Actually, it could have been quite nice. (A move of over 1200 miles, a divorce and a lot of upheaval in life at that particular time prevented me from doing more.)

I've thought about that quite a bit and had considered doing something similar at some point with a more permanent foundation, probably a full basement underneath. I've since built a number of large sheds and do know how to do a lot of things myself. I've done pretty extensive home remodels, including bathrooms and kitchens. I've done some roofing and siding. I'm not exactly without skills or knowledge. So it's on my "bucket list" that someday I would kinda like to build my own house... small, simple, yes, but build it myself.

Small and simple really don't have to be terribly expensive. And I think I can build something cheaper than I can buy it most of the time with some thought and planning. The OP might not be up to those kinds of projects, and that's understandable.

Over the long term I think you're going to be faced with a lot of maintenance cost. The cost of heating and cooling is another big consideration.

We built our tiny cottage (252 sq-ft) for $7,000 in materials with us doing all the labor. It is masonry (block with cores filled with rebar and concrete) and an insulation envelope outside that and then parged with fiber cement (like adobe but more durable in our wetter climate) on the outside.

We're in zone 3 here in the mountains of northern Vermont and it only takes 0.75 cord of wood a year to keep our cottage nicely heated. In the summers it stays nicely cool. The high thermal mass makes a big difference. In your more temperate climate this should work even better. This saves a tremendous amount annually on heating, cooling and electric use.

We have a full bath with tub and shower, a bedroom downstairs, two lofts, 12' ceiling in the middle, kitchen and dining area as well as desk area and pantry. We grow much of our food, can and store.

See pictures here:

http://SugarMtnFarm.com/cottage

We did a floating slab on a pad of gravel. We're sitting on top of bedrock here on the mountain so a basement is not an option. It was $500 for the five yards of concrete. Add a little for steel reinforcement and 4" of pink foam under the concrete. You might not need the insulation in your climate. We also put a vapor barrier sheet of plastic under the concrete.

We have a conventional water heater because I want to be able to utilize heat from the wood stove and solar thermal loop. The on-demand water heaters are supposed to be cheaper to operate long term. Put all your wet stuff tight together to minimize plumbing, heat loss, costs.

Have big eaves to protect from the summer sun. In Zone 6 I don't think our house would need any additional heat. An air earth exchange or water earth exchange heat pump could do any cooling I would expect to need. Orientation, shade, curtains are all important to minimize the need.

Excellent. Makes a lot of sense. If you are handy then do the work yourself and then it is just materials cost which is fairly trivial. This is not hard nor is it rocket science. Get a basic plumbing book - look at Home Depot or on Amazon.

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SugarMtnFarm.com -- Pastured Pigs, Poultry, Sheep, Dogs and Kids

There's an article in the current issue of Fine Housebuilding that shows how to make a small house look bigger. I haven't read all the responses, butu someone local bought a prefab house from an Amish builder and had it delivered to his property. Another local had the Amish build his custom home.

Look at the article for the tips they have and then look for an Amish builder. You might get a pleasant surprise.

You may want to look at the yard barns made by heartland that lowes sells. I use to install the piers for them. I think you can get a two story 16 x 24 for under 10k built on your property. Back when I was doing it they were 7k. This would be a good shell to start with. Then you finish the inside how you want. We did a similar build here its a 1.5 story 20 x 24 A frame. We got it under roof for less than 4k doing all the work our selves. My biggest regret was not having a crawl space. We wanted the floor from our camper to line up with the "house" floor. The inside is still not finished but we have lived here for five years now. So its home. lol

Larry
A World Away

You may need one of these if you are too far to get enough slope in your septic line. Place right outside your cabin and pump to the septic tank....James

http://www.ebay.com/bhp/sewage-grinder-pump

I like the concept of a tiny house, I particularly like the more recent design iterations that utilize a tall architectural design ceiling. Compared to some of the original tiny house designs with a flat ceiling/roof the taller ceiling really helps to make the tiny space more open feeling. Even better is the roof designs that incorporate small windows at the top of the walls on one or more sides of the tiny house. Of course there are trade-offs with everything and windows may be a penalty or bonus energy wise depending on ones situation, but I've found from living in an RV that the more ambient light I can get into the structure the better, particularly for the winter months. Personally, I'd likely be willing to trade off a little heating efficiency for some more light.

Also, some counties calculate the square footage of a structure for purposes of valuing it (for taxes) using the exterior roof dimensions. If property taxes are an issue you should make sure you know how your county calculates the 'size' of the structure before getting to far in the build/buy process.

Finally, you mentioned that you and your husband were senior citizens. It's probably a good idea to take into account the possibility of future issues related to the aging process, like limited mobility. This may be in the form of a cane, walker, scooter, wheelchair etc. Or even such issues as needing grab bars (to get into/out of the tub or off the pot) or other assistance devices around the house. Navigating some of these tiny houses in this situation could end up being an exercise in frustration if not downright impossible at times.

Assessing a structure is done by measuring the footprint, deciding on a quality, then multiplying those numbers with how many stories it is. So, a two story home is going to price out higher than a one story home with the same footprint. Having a basement, crawl, or slab will also work into the calculations. A two story home will price out lower than the same living space on one story, because the foundation is smaller and the roof is smaller.

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Nothing is as strong as gentleness, nothing so gentle as real strength - St. Francis de Sales