Owen's Photolog

Building a tiny house in New England means anything short of a tornado is by necessity “on the table” to be a workday. Speaking of a tornado, there was one in the Boston area on Monday. While it didn’t hit our town, the accompanying storm got the best of our tarp setup and caused some water damage to one section of the sub-floor, so the plywood will now have to be replaced. Another delay.

Yesterday, we had an 8am delivery from Home Depot of wood we’ll need for roofing (1/2″, 3/8″ and 3/4″ plywood, 2x4s), with light rain the whole time. Our yard is in a stage of what Owen is calling “the part of the entire building process that has the most lumber in the yard”. Hopefully this is true because space is hinting at getting tight. Nicolle came over and she, Owen and I arranged some of this wood in such a way that the completed walls were not on the trailer, so that we have room to build the Starboard wall there. Then Nicolle took inventory of already-cut wood.

Despite our New England hardiness, the rain got to us so we wrapped up work early.

Water

What kind of water system should we have?  It turns out this needs to be decided sooner than originally planned because at least one possible choice means a change in the structure of two walls, notably, adding a dormer to the port side, a dormer which would need to be framed before the roofing.   Right now our options are:

1. What seems to be the most common model for Tiny House plumbing is putting a tank on the ground floor, and using a 12-volt pump to move the water around the house (to the sink and shower).  Usually the tank is in the corner of the house under the kitchen counter.  This would mean running the generator any time running water was wanted, and that’s something Owen would like to avoid.
2. The second option is building a gravity-powered water system.  This would avoid using a battery-powered pump, because the water pressure would be created by THE MASS OF PLANET EARTH.  But given the small size of the loft area, this would require adding a dormer to the port side to house the water tank.
3. ???

Questions to ponder:

How exactly does new water get added to the system?  We have a garden hose but where does it hook up?  How often would this need to be done?  And then there’s the problem of getting new water up into the tank.  Hand pump?  Twelve-volt pump only operated when the tank is empty?  Bicycle-powered flywheel?

Is there enough water pressure from a lofted tank to trigger the tankless hot water system and provide a decent shower?

Is there any risk of this system freezing in winter?

How can the system be built so as not to cause an overflow everytime the lofted tank is filled?

Is this system tedious to use?

 

Thoughts and opinions on this are welcome!

 

Today Owen finished framing one of the long port walls. The long length of the wall posed some new challenges, documented in this video.

He also made some modifications to the wall, demonstrating the need to plan for interior details while building the exterior. While the Tumbleweed plans specify a marine boat heater for warmth, we’ve heard a few reports that the boat heater just doesn’t cut it in a New England winter.  An alternative we discovered is the Hampton series of propane stoves, one of which is small enough for a tiny house but puts out much more heat than the marine heaters.  Because of its larger size and clearance requirements, Owen needed to study the floor plans carefully to find a place the heater could fit.  Moving one of the windows freed up the right amount of space, and that required changing the framing of the port wall.

Mike, Lea and Nicolle were over to do some more wall assembling, and to do the next step before framing can happen: setting up a tarp.  This will protect the wood from water damage from rain that may happen before the roof is complete, as that will be a process we cannot possibly do all in one day, and New England means rain.  Well, what we have to work with are our “regular” house’s deck and one tree.  We are going to create something akin to a carport.  Because there aren’t a lot of place to tie a tarp, we’ll be creating a support arch for the bow side of the Tiny House out of PVC and rebar, according to Mike’s experience.  More on that to come!

 

After some vacation time away from home, we’re back.  Owen is happy to poke his head through Bay Wall 1, and another wall (the bow wall, which will be for the kitchen and bathroom) in which the pieces of wood are drilled together but the resulting frame still needs some metal reinforcement materials added, a strap and two holddowns.

Owen adds:
Astute observers will see that the Bay Wall is a little strange — normally the header would also be supported by a jack stud so the force goes into the ground through wood and isn’t born just by the screws — however that’s what the plans show, so that’s what I did.

The weather was once again perfect, so we cut more wood to make the next step of the framing process, the sills.  We have to work on improving our squaring process (aka, getting things perpendicular that are supposed to be perpendicular) before we make much more progress on actually constructing the first wall, though.

After fielding questions from many people who are curious about this project, I have compiled this FAQ:

 

What is the Tiny House?

It is a liveable house, 7’ wide, 18’ long, and 14’ tall, that is about 140 sq. feet — 10% the square footage of our “normal” house.  We are building it ourselves with the help of friends, based on a plan from Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, directly on a trailer.  It is designed to be a functional yet charmingly detailed home.

 

Are you going to live in it?

Probably not.

 

Where are you building it?

Next to our “normal” house in Medford, in our “backyard” which is actually on the side of our house.  The back of the Tiny House faces the street.

 

What do your neighbors think?

Neighbors have been supportive and are always welcome to come by and ask questions.  We explained our project to adjacent neighbors before starting to make sure there were no major objections.  One of our goals is to keep the construction noise within reason.

 

When will it be finished?

Definitely not 2014.  The goal is to have it in a livable state by fall of 2015, though it’s likely there will be finishing details still to do at that time.

 

So what are you going to do with it?

Keep it where it is being built for a while, make sure our friends get a chance to stay in it, possibly AirBnB it.  Years from now, we hope to move it to the Berkshires near MassMOCA.  This means logistics such as finding land and a vehicle that will be able to haul the finished house.

 

What rooms will it have?

Main room, kitchenette, bathroom (with shower stall & composting toilet), lofted bedroom (accessible by built-in ladder).

 

Why are you building a Tiny House?

Owen is interested in the Tiny House movement and small spaces, as well as creating something physical with his own two hands.  Char likes the challenge, is persistent at finding ways to get things done, and likes positive drug-free activities to keep her off the streets at night.

 

How can I follow your progress?

www.ywwg.com/wordpress

What if I have questions/useful information/complaints?

email: owen@ this domain.

Friends new and old came over to put their building skills to work on our tiny house today.  The weather was perfect.  I’ll just post a bunch of photos here and thank Nicolle, Mike, David, Andy, Justin, Eric, Natalie and Ryan.

 

These pink slabs are custom-cut by Owen first, so they fit, with a little bit tucked under the black metal rail.  There will be a can of gap filler used later today.

The pink material is high-grade insulation that took longer than expected to both locate a seller and then to order and have delivered.  It has an R-value suitable for cold New England winters.