Tiny House Blog

Your in the process of designing your tiny house and one of the issues you must decide is how to heat your small space. “Normal” central heat or wood stoves, etc. just produce to much heat for your small space. So what are some of your options? Following are some ideas for using wood, gas, propane and electric heat.

Wood

The original Very Small Woodstove is the Jotul 602, from Norway. This model is a mere 12 inches wide, 19 inches deep. They are found most often in cottages and cabins in the woods, where the 602’s good looks are a highlight. It’s been around almost forever. Although very small it can heat amazingly well.

Jotul 602

12 x 19
$700
Available from Jotul

The tiniest very small woodstoves are those built for boats. These are designed for very tight quarters, and often have a railing on the top to keep pots from rolling off. Here is a typical one from the Canadian coast measuring all of 12 inches by 12 inches. They are made of cast iron and porcelain and are so cute and enchanting, folks have thought of getting a sailboat just so they need one. You can use one in your tiny house just as easily.

Sardine

12 x 12
$650
Available from Marine Stove

Gas/Propane

Propane is also popular in tiny houses and Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Tiny House fame uses the Newport Propane Fireplace. This lovely little heater/fireplace. Ideal for boats up to 30/32 ft. The combustion process is completely isolated from the inside of the boat by the unique, direct vent design. A built-in blower provides good heat circulation. Heater is sold with all accessories including a stainless steel backing plate and 28″ of flexible, double stainless chimney. Safe, easy to use and extremely economical.

Newport Propane Fireplace (P9000)

17 x 9
$1044
Available from Dickson Marine

Gas is also an option and Woodstock Soapstone Company has the perfect little stove for tiny spaces called the Cottage Mini Soapstone Gas Stove.

It’s 8,000 BTU heat output is perfect for a cozy, intimate area
It takes up little space (it can be installed on a stand or wall- mounted shelf)
It’s a handsome design
The Mini Franklin will bring warmth, grace, and style to any room setting. Its small fire will add ambiance and though it is just 17″ tall, it will produce almost 8,000 BTU/hr!

Cottage Mini

17 x 14
$1049
Available from Woodstock Soapstone Company

Electric

There are many small electric heaters that will work extremely well in your tiny house. Following are a couple examples available at your local Walmart. Electric heaters cost much less than the above wood stoves and propane or gas stoves. If electricity is easily available this might be your most affordable option.

OIL- FILLED RADIATOR
De’Longhi EW0715W Safeheat Oil-Filled Radiator features Patented Easy Snap Wheels, Adjustable Thermostat and Three Heat Settings

$39.87
Available from Walmart

Titan Ceramic Heater with Thermostat #TCM16W-U
Compact yet powerful, this ceramic heater sports a thermostat that lets you choose how much heat you want.

$18.44
Available from Walmart

Toe Kick Heater

Qmark QTS1500T Electric Kickspace Heater (120 Volts)

$156

A toe-space heater will fit where no other heater will. It can be recessed into toe space areas under kitchen or utility room cabinets or into the soffit area above them. 

It can also be recessed into the risers of a stairway or under the vanity in the bathroom. It is convenient for checkout counters, ticket or toll booths and many other places where no other heater seems to fit. 

Hopefully this has been helpful in giving you some new ideas on how to heat your new tiny space.

Featured at the Dwell On Design Conference, the V2 Prefab Microhome is designed and built in Phoenix Arizona by V2 World.

The 384 square foot model below is the smallest version and units can be added or modified in size. The welded steel frame can be modified in 4 foot increments.

Imagine being able to design your dream home in harmony with its location.

Price is approximately $200 per square foot. Now you can live simply and energy efficient in a modern prefab microhome.

Visit the V2 World website to learn more.

Also watch the ABC News special featuring the V2 and other microhomes.

Kitchen

Living Room

Bedroom

Exterior 384 sq. ft.

The Folding and Transportable Home. The Habitaflex is another tiny home on wheels. Along the lines of the Tumbleweed Tiny House and the Martin House-To-Go.

The Habitaflex expands or folds into a much larger living space yet folds down to a very small footprint so you can take it anywhere.

Habitaflex

Here is a quote from the Habitaflex website.

An entirely factory-built and innovative solution to temporary and permanent accommodation, this home can be unfolded, transported and relocated. Its rapid and easy installation can get this home up and running in a few hours only! Thanks to its clever opening mechanism, Habitaflex deploys virtually effortlessly and, in no time, reveals a complete and comfortable home comprising: a kitchen, living room, bathroom as well as 1, 2 or 3 bedrooms. Its plumbing and heating systems are fully integrated in the wall cavities so you can be operational and stay in your new home the very same day of your installation!

Following is a sequence of photos showing the setup of the home. Make sure and visit the Habitflex website.

The Tiny House Blog has been ranked #1 in the new TrafficJam Home & Garden Blogs for the day February 21. Let’s see how long we can stay up there.

TrafficJam has been created to help you sort through the massive amount of information available on the internet through blogging. Here is a quote from there site:

What Is TrafficJam.com? TrafficJam.com was created to filter much of this information for you. It will save you hours of your time and it will expose you to fantastic content from across the Web that you would never be able to discover on your own.

So do yourself a favor and try them out today!

Luke Sheneman from Idaho has been building a timber frame cabin for the last year and a half and has been documenting the progress at his blog located at: timbercabin.blogspot.com. I recently discovered it and Luke has given me permission to share a few of his pictures and share some information about his cabin with you.

The cabin is still in progress similar to Mark van Roojen’s project in Wyoming that we covered on an earlier post.

Luke started his quest back in September of 2006 when he began collecting information and also lumber for his timber frame. Most of his wood he is using is from downed trees in his area that he has collected and milled. If you click through his blog you can view this process.

In late April of 2007, Luke attended a timber framing workshop at Grand Oaks Timber Framing near Paris, Tennessee. Where they built a timber frame similar in size to what Luke planned to build. When he returned he fine tuned his plans and started milling his lumber.

August 2007 was the raising time for the frame and Luke gathered his friends and family together for an old fashioned cabin raising. Click here to see more pictures and a couple of videos.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT4Uk5FlkaY

Since than he has enclosed the and roofed the cabin and is waiting for spring to come so that he can put the finishing touches to his cabin. In the mean time he is working on furniture and doors, etc. so that when the snow clears he can add these items to the cabin.

Please look through Luke’s blog if you are serious about timber framing. It is very educational and the pictures speak a thousand words.

Timber Framing seems to be very popular in the tiny house blog. What other tiny house information would you like to see covered?

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Hurricane Katrina played a major part in Julie Martin’s move from specializing in restoring historic homes to building a portable, affordable, well built vision on wheels called the “Fresh Start.” Julie lost everything in Katrina, but gained a vision on building small homes from the experience.

With the initial guidance of Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Tiny Houses, Julie has started a new company called Martin House-To-Go

with the goal of making an affordable tiny house that can be easily moved from place to place on a trailer. Or if you prefer to leave your house in one place it can be removed from the trailer and put on a foundation.

With 2008 comes a new model called the Fresh Start. With an introductory price of $29,900, all you need to get one of your own is a 3/4 ton truck with a 2 5/16th trailer hitch ball and a spirit of adventure.

These tiny homes can be used as a primary residence, for vacation and travel, a vacation home, a mother-in-law house or a private guest cottage or spare room.

With a full bath, kitchen and loft and quality throughout, I would put this tiny house high on my list.

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Dr Roger Doudna outside his home made from a converted whisky vat at the Findhorn Community ear Forres, Morayshire, Scotland – 1989

Here are some great examples of old time tiny house living. Get some new ideas for your own tiny house. From a whisky vat a houseboat and a Horsa glider fuselage, enjoy some neat history.

Eton Rural Council has banned a number of newly built houseboats from the Grand Union Canal at Iver, Buckinghamshire. This one has been occupied temporarily by the owners until the Minister has considered an appeal against the council’s decision made by the houseboat builders – 1964

The fuselage of a Horsa glider – the type used by airborne troops in World War II – is being converted into a home for a London businessman by Mr. Arthur Bedford, a building contractor at Southbourn, Bournemouth, Hampshire. The glider-home will have three rooms – a bedroom measuring 10 ft by 7 ft, a living room 15 ft by 7 ft, and a kitchenette 8 ft by 7 ft. If the experiment is successful, the builder will convert more gliders. People baffled by the housing shortage will be able to have these homes built quite cheaply on their own sites. Photo shows men working on the exterior of the glider-home – 11th June 1947.

There’s a great article in the Oxford Mail about Maud Starkie who lived in a converted Horsa from the 1940s until she died in 2000 at the age of 99. The Mail says: “She built a shed-like structure over it for weather-proofing, but inside it was still like being in a plane.”

Thanks to Alex at Shedworking for pointing these out.

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Most of the tiny houses represented on this blog so far have quite a high price tag to get started.

Through my research, I have discovered several people who have found cheaper ways to make a tiny house, simply by doing the work themselves and finding a plan that will fit there needs. I want to feature Lamar today from Utah.

Visit his Simple Solar Homesteading site and read how he has built his own tiny cabin which is 14 x 14 for less than $2,000, and later added porch.

He used new materials only and bought everything locally. Below is a quote by Lamar from his site:

I built this cabin by myself from new materials for under $2000 (not including windows, doors, and porch). I live in this cabin year round.

The cabin is 14 x 14 and aproximately 400 square feet with a full loft. It includes a kitchen, dining area, bathroom and living area downstairs and a large bedroom and office upstairs.

My electricity comes from the solar panels you see on the roof and a small backup generator. This power runs all my lights, water pump, tv, computer etc. My heat is primarily from direct solar gain through the south facing windows and I use propane for a backup furnace, fridge, stove, and on demand water heater. My propane bill for last year was less than $200. I use a tracfone pay as you go cell phone for emergencies.

My water is from a free flowing artesian well and I also collect rainwater for gardening. My septic system is a solar composting toilet that i designed and is about two thirds more efficient than standard designs. I grow a garden, fruit trees and raise chickens and black dogs.

Because I have no house payments or monthly utility bills I can live very inexpensively. I own a small business and now I can work when I want as I want. I only work 9 months a year and spend winters on other projects.

My goal is to live simply and do as little damage to the earth as possible!

Lamar has also written an ebook with plans and directions to build your own cabin and live simply like he is. This book is a bargain and I would really encourage you to buy it as the information is worth way more than the low price Lamar is selling it for.

To view more pictures and read more about Lamar’s tiny cabin and buy his ebook click here.

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Sherpa Cabins in Thomson Falls, MT is a tiny house worth looking into. According to Kris Anderson the owner and builder of these fine little cabins quality of construction and customer satisfaction is the number one priority for the company. Here is what the Sherpa site has to say:

Sherpa Cabins, Inc , founded in 1999, is a small privately held corporation located in Thompson Falls, MT.

The first Sherpa cabin we designed was intended to be an answer to an out-of-state landowner’s need for a roof overhead until eventual retirement to Montana. Or, the weekend get away spot for the city worker wanting to spend some time at their mountain property.

Unlike a trailer or RV, we felt a Sherpa Cabin would appreciate in value while providing a beautifully handcrafted, aesthetically pleasing home for the insightful buyer.

After building the shop located in Thompson Falls, Montana we rolled out our first cabin in the spring of 1999. As only previously dreamed, the first actual buyers were racehorse breeders from Florida who recently purchased land in Montana. Many, many cabins later one of two cabins built for a retiring Intel engineer was photographed by Sunset Magazine’s Norman Plate and featured in the July 2002 issue.

Sherpa Cabins is owned and operated by Kristin Anderson since co-founder Dennis Roberts’ retirement in 2003. In January 2003 our first cabin was delivered out of state. We now have cabins in Idaho, Washington, Colorado, New Mexico, California and Montana. We were granted a Trademark by the U.S. Trademark & Patent Bureau in March of 2004.

Although our horizons are continually expanding we are stubbornly remaining a very small business. Besides Kristin, there are only two other carpenters. We build one cabin at a time, with an average construction time of 7 weeks from start to finish. Our goal continues to be to build and deliver the best small cabins in the industry. As we so often hear, “this cabin is a work of art!” In a world that seems to continually lose its appreciation for quality and craftsmanship we strive to maintain our own in each Sherpa Cabin we build.

To listen to an audio interview with Kristin and to see more pictures of the Sherpa Cabins click here.

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