There’s a craze going around in the “sustainable” world of climateers and greenies about “Tiny Houses”. They tout the “smaller carbon footprints” and in one video saying ” …tiny house living can lead to a more ethical relationship with the environment, and might possibly lead to a mitigation of climate change.” Yeah, sure.
The two most common benefits often listed by Tiny House proponents are:
Environment-Friendly
– Since your Tiny House is going to be small, you can make a lot of it out of recycled, repurposed, and salvaged materials. In addition, to make your house look cool and unique, it also saves the number of new materials from being made.
Energy Efficiency
– The energy needs for a tiny house are much smaller than the energy needs of a traditional home. Smaller appliances and a smaller space use less power to heat and cool the air.
I don’t think I’d ever be ready to move my entire life into a tiny space like this, nor do I think I’d want to live in one that looks like it was salvaged from a scrap pile…
But, I can think of one good reason for having one in my backyard: extra relaxation space doubling as a guest house.
Plus, guess what I found out? You can purchase all the parts and instructions on Amazon. It reminds me of the way Sears-Roebuck used to sell entire kit homes shipped by rail during the early part of the 20th century.
This one looks pretty cool, and it is said you can assemble it in about 8 hours.
In the description, the plans say that this kit house can be built in less than a day – about eight hours, when two adults team up for the job. Well…. maybe, assuming the instructions aren’t written in Sanskrit. That also doesn’t include pad preparation time.
But, you can probably pull it all off in a weekend. It can also be a studio, sun-room, garden house, pool house, mother-in-law sequestration facility, or truly anything your heart desires.
There’s no HVAC, electricity, or Internet to this DIY home, you’ll need to do that yourself. But that’s all pretty easy. I can see solving the HVAC problem with one of these roll-around heat/cool units once you get some electricity, and you could probably get WiFi or wired Internet using either a power line LAN extender or a WiFi extender.
There are other models too, ranging from a traditional log cabin look to an external office style.
I can see adding a tiny house to extend the American Dream of “living large” in your backyard, but not for a primary domicile.
Plus, imagine the looks on the faces of your green oriented friends when you tell them you are now a tiny house owner, but you had it shipped to you (using fossil-fueled transportation) and added it to your existing home.
The result: schadenfreude, via priceless political incorrectness.
Use an RV roof A/C and heat unit. Supplement with an electric baseboard heater. The roll around units get in your way.
Actually, funny enough, an external enclosure for a standard window unit is an excellent system. You can install it just like an external “trailer” air conditioner with a return duct and everything except in this circumstance you can put the return duct high and the cold air low and get the best efficiency out of the unit as well as keep the heat of the exchanger off your wall and the vibration of it all away from your structure.
You would be STUNNED at how quiet even 40 year old mobile homes are with external ground units.
I just had a crazy idea. Could a in window air conditioner be used and during winter simply reverse it and use it as a heater?
I believe so, just so long as “outside” isn’t so cold that it shuts down.
I think that’s the core function of ground/air source heat pumps. In summer, you cool the inside, and heat the outside. In winter, they flip around (internally) and cool the outside by heating the inside.
Units in Australia are referred to as “Reverse-cycle AC/heating units”. Of course, it never gets cold enough in Aus to freeze it up
there are window mounted heat pumps, heats or cools, has electric heat backup
They are crazy!
Far better to build dormitories with shared bathroom and eating facilities. Something similar to this was used under Chairman Mao and enabled them to run the economy a little longer without starving too many citizens.
Don’t these people read history?
Cheers
Roger
http://www.thedemiseofchristchurch.com
Read history? No! They rewrite it.
Kibutz?
The Spartans were big on this sort of thing as well
That’s right, when Spartans went to war, the women told the warriors: “Come back WITH your solar panel, or ON your solar panel.”
Kibbutz, monastery, workhouse, plantation, gulag. All efficient and environmentally friendly.
Welcome to Silicon Valley:
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/11/04/worlds-largest-dorm-style-co-living-apartment-building-coming-to-san-jose/
Didn’t Ted Kaczynski live in a tiny house made of repurposed materials?
The huts in Hooverville during the Great Depression were small too, and very close together. We are going full circle, and losing our minds.
Prophecy?
Malvina Reynolds’s song “Little Boxes,” … Pete Seeger had a huge success of his own with the song, which ridiculed the harmless citizens of Daly City, California, and gave us the word ticky-tacky. No less a man than Tom Lehrer was to say that it was “the most sanctimonious song ever written,”
Slapped down by the square mile after the war for people whose expectations were shaped in the Depression. Great improvement when people ten years earlier might have figured their first two years of married life would be in an uncle’s spare bedroom.
Grew up there. Nothing wrong with it. “Sanctimonious” is a start….
The only thing liberals were ever masters of, was looking down on people who viewed life differently than they did.
And those little boxes, aka “zipper houses” on the hills of eternally foggy Daly City now sell for $1.5M. So much for “Tiny” houses in CA … where … there is a critical housing shortage in leftist NIMBYland
Kenji
Spot on. The “one-and-a-half” story post war houses built in the Waterloo area by the thousands came in a kit delivered by truck. Due to shortages of things as basic as spruce 2×4’s, they used larch and anything else that could be sawn.
There were a few variations on the floor plan but NOT MUCH. They cost a few thousand dollars and had poor insulation. There are masses of them in Kitchener. 900. Sq ft footprint.
The main thing is everyone could afford one if there was any form of steady work – a single working parent was adequate.
Now the “minimum home” is far beyond the reach of many working couples. Even a fifty year old condo with a crap kitchen cost 60 times more than the original story and a half did. Wages didn’t go up 60 fold.
My next door neighbour has a “tiny house” but it is not as tiny as those featured here and it has wheels on it. It does have multiple bedrooms, TV, Air con, skylight, full plumbing and a proper kitchen.
The “real tiny house” market sells to single women over 55, the great majority of the time. Some are really nice. If it is what people can afford, why not have them? The madness of over-building is not an environmental issue, it is a waste of time to clean it and insure it and if you are living on your own, what the heck.
If you have more money, buy three – one for the lake, one for town and one for the micro farm. In Botswana it is quite common to have three homes. One is at the cattle station.
“The “real tiny house” market sells to single women over 55, the great majority of the time. Some are really nice.”
The women or the houses ???
“The madness of over-building”
Why do you feel the right to define what is the right amount of house for everyone?
She was at least prescient about the nowaday kids going to college and exiting all the same.
The tune is very close to a song from much earlier, and vary familiar to Heinlein readers: “There’s a pawnshop on the corner in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.” It was Lazarus Long’s “absent minded happy song” and, by that point in the future, was said to have more than 10,000 verses, some of which were clean.
Here’s it is from 1952:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYeCwknuW_g
===|==============/ Keith DeHavelle (@DeHavelle)
Boy! I remember that song, though I never knew who the artist was. It was rather popular at the U. of Chicago when I was there in the first half of the ’60s. We all used to sing it, rather mockingly, when we passed the “Crackerboxes,” which was a row of 2-story “modern” flat-roofed row-houses on 55th Street, just a couple of blocks north of the main Quad but quite a bit closer to the Lake. They had tiny, tiny front “yards” and they really did resemble cracker boxes. Salerno saltines, I’d say.
Thanks for posting!
I bought one of these at Home Depot and store my lawnmower and garden tools in it. Certainly wouldn’t consider it 1st world living space.
https://www.homedepot.com/b/Storage-Organization-Sheds-Garages-Outdoor-Storage-Sheds/Large-(-%3E101-sq-ft)/24-or-Greater/18-24/N-5yc1vZbtz2Z2bcu8xZ2bcu94Z1z0o6jn?NCNI-5&storeSelection=1407,1412,1401,1402,8919
Our local Home Depot has one with a footprint just a bit smaller than this, but it’s two story, out in the parking lot.
If I remember right the price is about $40K.
Footprint? Build your mansion on pillars, and no greenie can put you in the pillary for printing your floor plan on the ground.
Or, as an alternative, make TinyMan. TinyMan has a very small footprint, and no great agility, and can in fact be hunted by large rodents. Any SUV can take a huge number of TinyMan, though the driving needs to be a collective effort, but that’s what Brave Green World is all about, isn’t it?
Or simply do as the ballet dancers, and stand on your toes. Nature and physiotherapists will love you. Toeprints for climate!
which entirely!!! misses the point of them.
as did Anthony
there are far too many people who will NEVER be able to afford a home, even a ratty fallen down fixerupper unless its slumland Chicago etc with serious risk to life n limb.
we have similar issues in Australia as well since they sold off the public housing they claimed ost mega mil to maintain..and from having lived in when younger saw very very little in the way of maintenance if you didnt do it yourself, Govt made billions selling to developes via sale on fees and charges to set up new estates. the poor ended up in caravan parks or rented rooms at best. homeless at worst.
Your comment about loking like salvage….is NOT fair.
there are people who do NOT have the tinist hope of buying materials new..and the cost above of 40K IS OUTRAGEOUS.
the premise was intended for those who still had a car and could buy a trailer frame/ruined caravan to get the base maybe to be able to have a small safe and mobile place , not a damned tent under or on a street at high personal risk and n privacy, facilities etc
a show on abc radio on homeless issues was eyeopening. if your local councils etc do NOT provide Public Toilet facilites? then how the hell are people going to handle the basicslike going to the toilet? let alone a tap to try and keep clean?
even the smallest rural town in Aus have a public toilet open to all till at least 11pm and often 24hrs
and its not just the homeless its tourists also who need facilities available. and it sounds as if very few are available nationwide?
I am one of the luckier, now older women whos marriage was a dud, but managd to buy when the market was at rock bottom and 18k got me fallen down ruin i then rebuilt over 16yrs.even with a good credit rating I had to beg to get a palty loan. many women didnt/dont have the option to do what i did and the ability to render plumb reroof etc i chose the area and council with lowest regs and charges and oversight.
i sold at market high and got another lousy house but a lot more land;-) again fringe dweling rural.
again that option just isnt possible for most singletons aver 40. if youre renting a flat or even a caravan site the rent means you cant save 10% deposit now required as a minimum for a loan. and thats on a wage avg aus around 800 after tax IF youre lucky, rent would be around half your wage, and most women are in pt time/casual and dont ever see that sort of money.
for many of us a roof that doesnt leak, some basic facilities and some security of tenure is the best we could hope for, all the mod cons bells n whistles are simply for other people. If you cant DIY and as we age thats less possible, we’re stuffed, as labour costs for a basic handyman in Aus are now 45$ n hr just to cut wood mow lawns tradies are so expensive you do without that”whatever” thats broken. I can no longer safely get onto the roof to nail down lifting tin as an example which i used to do after storms. you “blokes” cos it is blokes in the main here need to step back and imagine you lost everything including your job andyou have no savings no super no family and imagine trying to get by.
I do not have ONE single item in my home bought new every stick of furniture is dump salvage or opshop , all my clothes and appliances are opshop or thrown out by someone on the verge. I dont want or need nor do I ask sympathy Im doing far far better than many and my bills are paid and I eat and so do my pets. but do NOT knock those who dont have pretty tidy new etc. YOUR criteria are not ours!
and dont think that the majority looking for a tiny home also hold the moronic green views, thats the least important thing to them.Its just another cash in BY the wamrtards using the meme.
Get out of the city. Both house and land prices drop dramatically.
A year ago, not to far from here, there was an ad for a fixer upper, 4 bedroom, 2 bath, 1800 sq feet on 5 acres with a lake view, for about $85,000.
That’s what’s known as a “summer-house”, and it’s been a thing for a very long while.
> There’s no HVAC, electricity, or Internet
Or plumbing, come to that.
I’ve never understood the tiny house craze. It strikes me as another looney leftist virtue signaling meme.
Meanwhile, those puppeteers who are behind this nonsense, are gloating at how many people they have tricked into biting into the tiny house concept.
Mobility, lower cost. Beats renting or living on the street.
If my choices were living in a tiny house or the street I would take the tiny house, no problem. As for cost, my understanding is the mobile tiny hoses can be up to $60K to build.
Buy a used motor home for cheap. Works great as long as you live where it stays reasonably warm.
I see it as a propaganda/social training method to convince people that they are not poor, impoverished and screwed over by the financial system, but saving the planet and therefore brave, forward-thinking heroes.
Otherwise the muppets might realise that needing two incomes but still failing to earn sufficient to live is actually a miserable life, and serves no useful purpose. Some f the tiny home movement is people choosing not to play by the rules and not be a wage slave, and for that I applaud them.
Ethical or a circumstantial or quasi-religion.
If we chase the horses out of their loafing-shed, add a floor and windows, and hang a solar light or two, we could move in – – almost.
Now, about the water, sewer, tie-downs, building inspector’s sign-off and a few other things — I like the log one.
What’s to worry about the sewer? It was a horse shed, so what’s so hard about shoveling out the muck?
Cramped living for small minded envirocultists. Make the units connectable like Lego and voila! more room for the rest of us.
“mother-in-law sequestration facility”
You mean you are going to stay out there when your MiL is visiting.
It ain’t perfect until it has a beer/snacks fridge and a suitable flat screen.
Toilet? Wash basin? Ice box? Grill? A backyard tv watching room is not a “home” and a home is equipped with a minimum of facilities. A tear drop trailer RV would be more home like.
The articles I have read suggest that the tiny homes are mobile and have no utility bills. Nowhere was it explained how they manage about sewage.
If they are like most liberals, they’ll just dump it on someone else.
Usually dry composting toilets.
Can be perfectly sanitary and you get fertiliser.
Sewerage is most dangerous when turned into a liquid slurry and moved around.
They always show them with trees or bushes around. Just sayin’.
These are the same groups who want to redistribute wealth, especially the wealth of the top 1%. They are also globalist.
Well, according to this website, http://www.globalrichlist.com , if you earn more than 32,500 USD per year, you are in the top 1%, globally, based on earnings. You will be taxed accordingly (~90%). So if they achieve their dream, everyone, including us, will be living in third-world tiny homes (and forget about adding electricity, indoor plumbing, hot water, AC, heat, and internet). I guess ‘tiny home’ makes for better marketing than ‘shack’.
But remember, it’s to save the earth, and think of the children…
“and think of the children”
Which you won’t be allowed to have.
“Tiny houses are great” said the one per cent – “We bought one each, for our children to play in”
My trying to move into one of those things would end my marriage and would have no effect on global climate. For a home owner who things that the use of fossil fuels is bad, a simpler approach is to turn off the main breaker to your house and turn off the gas hookup as well and leave them off. Also do not use your car. Remember that it is you money that keeps the fossil fuel companies in business.
– Since your Tiny House is going to be small, you can make a lot of it out of recycled, repurposed, and salvaged materials.
And what prevents you from building a larger house from the same materials?
– The energy needs for a tiny house are much smaller than the energy needs of a traditional home. Smaller appliances and a smaller space use less power to heat and cool the air.
Probably untrue. You won’t be able to heat the Solvalla house (the second illustration) in winter. Eight tiny houses need eight times more energy than one tiny house. One house twice the size has eight rooms but only four times a heat loss. There are very real economies of scale. Learn basic physics.
“…you can make a lot of it out of recycled, repurposed, and salvaged materials”
Say, isn’t that what they do in third world slums?
How valuable is Joe Biden? Even Bin Laden warned against targeting him.
Of course if you want to use it for someone to stay in there may be those pesky zoning laws and permitting issues in the way.
Perhaps they should try for, “And he Built a Crooked House” by Robert A. Heinlein.
LOL! I want voting back. Invite your Green “friends” over for a house warming, walk outside, one swift kick to just the right corner…
There was a story, almost certainly untrue, that RAH wanted to build the floor plan when they moved to Ojai, but Ginny overruled him (being the better mathematician of the duo).
Believe me…after I have finished dusting, vacuuming, painting, repairing, mowing, trimming hedges…I am thinking I want to move into a hole-in-the-ground. I think the Neanderthals had it right – who needs a stupid house when nature builds you a nice cool cave.
This little house, with some blinds on it, might make a decent latrine.
Bag End would be fine.
Yes! From memory: “This was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”
But I’m darned if I’d give my spoons to Lobelia Sackville-Baggins!
Why don’t you get a hermit to live in your ‘Little House on the Patio’? Not only would you get someone off the streets (multi-bonus points there), but you could consult him for his wisdom concerning the burning issues of the day? This used to be very popular with the aristocracy.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit
You were presumably being sarcastic, and I don’t live on the street but I would be totally willing to provide you with counsel, advice and a false sense of superiority, if you provide a decent tiny house and a stipend. Have we just created the next Uber?
Without my using a ‘/sarc’ tag, you noticed! Well done…
If you want to see an eclectic collection of these ad hoc “tiny homes” drive through Skid Row or many areas of urban areas where the drug abusers and bums live.
We used to call them slums, now it’s Tiny Houses. Ok, whatever 😉
If you liked living in a cramped college dorm you’ll love one of these. Except in college there was a cafeteria. And showers. And toilets. And an activity room. And a laundry. And you didn’t have to mow the lawn. Or shovel snow.
I can see living in one of those in places where everything is too expensive, such as California. But with a few caveats. First, it needs a full separate bathroom — shower, sink, and toilet. I do not want a house where I have to put up a murphy bed to answer nature’s call and get clean. (I don’t know about you, but nature calls me at least twice a night.) Second, it needs a full kitchen. Third, I have to be able to stand up in it. Fourth, it needs heat and cooling.
I can definitely see myself living in a house like that, because it will have less maintenance than a bigger house. I never understood the fascination of working all your life for a large house and the associated taxes and fees to impress people you don’t like and don’t really know because the only time you are in your large house is to sleep. Give me a smaller house with no homeowner’s association. That way I can have a small garden and a clothesline because, believe me, bed sheets smell better when hung on a clothesline. You get your big house, give me a house I can own free and clear with working my fingers to the bone.
‘…with working my fingers to the bone.’
‘…without’?
Pedantry: perfect when you’re too stupid to come up with valid response.
No. I’m curious as to what he meant. Either alternative makes sense. I merely ask for clarification that the strkingly unusal usage employed is or is not an error. Someone more observant than yourself might have deduced this from my use of the question mark.
My grandparents had a tiny house in their back yard, but they called it “the wash house”. We and our cousins also used it as a play house when we were there in the summer.
I actually put this house in my Amazon shopping cart yesterday, teasing my wife that I was going to push the button to buy it. I would love to put this in my back yard for a small studio office. Then again, my oldest would want to use it as a bedroom or move in it when he graduates from high school.