1) Indoor kitchens. STUPID IDEA. You basically pay to heat your house up and then pay to cool it back down again, in the summer time. We don't have AC in our apartment, so we can't cook unless it is very early in the morning. In this house, we will have a tiny wood burning stove for winter, which will heat our house and our food. In the summer we will cook outside under the awning (crock pots, toaster ovens, and open flames).
2) Plumbing. It generally does not work well. Drains are always getting clogged, and are very hard to unclog without invasive measures or harsh chemicals. The kitchen sink is the most disgusting thing. Flush toilets use perfectly fine drinking water, and a lot of it. In this house, we will have a separate building nearby with a composting toilet, a grey water sink, and an outdoor grey water shower. For next winter we will build a solar-heated bath house for bathing in the winter time. We will probably have an old-fashioned chamber pot for midnight pee pees, inside the house.
3) 2nd stories are generally poorly designed. They are a big trap for hot air. You have to pay tons of money to keep your 2nd floor cool in the summer. This house has windows which vent open at the top of the angled roof. The high ceilings also keep hot air out of the main living space in the summer time.
4) Few windows come with most conventional homes. You have to pay for light, which is free. You have to pay for cool air to circulate through your house, which is free at night in the spring, fall, and summer. More south-facing windows would allow the winter sun to heat your home for free as well. This house will have more windows than is pictured. And not the crappy kind that are very hard to open and close! The old fashioned kind that swing open and latch shut.
5) Most conventional homes have more space than you need. This leads to people spending half of their time either cleaning or maintaining some aspect of their home. Most people work long hours to pay for a huge house they don't need. This house is 12x12x12 (local laws allow buildings this small to exist without permits).
6) Most homes are made of cheap, toxic, ugly materials. This house will be made of local, rough cut lumber, light clay slip straw walls, recycled windows, doors, and broken concrete.
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Our budget is $2000. No rent, no mortgage!!
Hi Giovanna,
ReplyDeleteI really love the design of the house, and agree with your learnings! My wife and I are also planning to build a tiny house somewhere in California, and we both love your design. Is there a chance that you could send us the Sketchup/Autocad/Revit (not sure which) file?
Best,
Eric and Zelda
Question: does the 12' include the porch? If the porch is extra NC would hassle you with it…the same with the roofline. I recently built an 8x8x8 shed style roofline in VA that is a great retreat on an unvisited mountaintop. I am planning a set of 12x12x12 cabins (1.5 story) on a property in NC for family members to beta test. Each houses/sleeps 2 comfortably (3 in a pinch) and the grouping provides privacy while close access to family members. With Gambrel style metal roofs (well insulated) and careful passive solar design, heat, cooling and water harvesting are easy to take care of. Also I use a large portable solar panels and deep charge marine battery for backup charging of my computer (I prefer candlelight so the power is for electronic charging). I do like having an extendable opening counter on which to cook inside/outside using a small propane burner…when I am not using my rocket stove fireplace combo most of the year. I do like your clean design…simple to build.
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