Tiny House Blog

Moonlight in Vermont? Sunlight might be better for this tiny solar powered home built by Alex Carver and Christopher North of Northern Timbers in Vermont. The Burlington Microhome is a 100 square-foot modular house that is off-grid and ready for additional modules to be added to it if needed.

Northern Timbers built the microhome with design help from landscape architect and metal artist H. Keith Wagner.

Much of Northern Timbers’ work reinterprets the traditional Vermont vernacular by introducing new applications of diverse materials into the residential setting, resulting in homes with a practical yet creative aesthetic. Continue Reading »

The other day I showed you Mike’s Micro House which he has been building for under $3,000.

Mike is also quite an inventor and is interested in solar and wind energy. He has created a simple hot water heater that I think would be useful for a tiny house or a large home. I asked Mike to share the details on how he creates his solar hot water heater.

Solar water heater. Sun during the day preheats the water in a 30 gallon water tank, prior to it being sent into the on demand water heater inside the house. This solar heater has preheated the water up to over 100F more than once when the outdoor temp was in the 30F range.

This simple setup works great, and is pretty much maintenance free. Just keep the glass clean, and you are good to go. If it starts to warm the water to hot during the summer months, just cover a portion of the solar window, to lower the sunlight bombardment into the solar chamber.

The solar water heater is simply a standard water heater (preferably one that was electric not gas powered).

Here’s what you do:

1. Peel off the outer sheetmetal skin of the water heater, and cut off the foam insulation in order to get to the internal steel tank.
2. Remove the electric heating element if needed and replace with a simple pipe plug fitting if the original element was bad, causing a leak.. Otherwise do nothing but remove all the electrical wiring to the element and the thermostat controls.
3. Verify that the overtemp/pressure valve operates and looks to be in good condition, otherwise replace it, so you have a safety feature if the pressure were to build up to high from the heated water.
4. Paint the water tank, “Flat Black” in order to help it absorb more of the sun’s energy.
5. Build an insulated enclosure that the water tank can fit into, with a window on top at roughly a 45degree angle.
6. Place the tank in the enclosure so that the southern sun exposure will shine directly onto the water tank inside.
7. Plumb the cold water going to your existing home’s water heater to the input of the solar water heater, and the output of the solar water heater to the original cold water input of the original home water heater.

Now when the sun preheats the water in the solar water heater, it will be feed into your home’s existing water heater as hot water, therefore your now backup water heater should not work nearly as hard to provide hot water for your home.

To view more of Mikes inventions check out his flickr site here.

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Walt Barrett from China Depot and the Micro-House builder featured in a previous post is now offering off the grid electric systems designed just for tiny houses.

There are three different packages that range from a 10 watt system, a 20 watt system and a 40 watt system. They range in price from $100 to $275 for a package.

Walt Barrett is offering real low prices to help people get started using solar in their new micro/tiny homes. I have a few pictures here showing you the different packages. Custom sizes are also available.

You can get all the technical information on the China Depot website.

Photo Credit: China Depot (sorry low quality images)

20-watt-system

40-watt-system

China Depot is also offering a new set of plans for $99.95 on  CD ROM. The full set contains every last detail including all saw cuts, angles, and a complete bill of materials.  The math is all done for the DIY guys and they will save the $99.95 cost in lumber wasting mistakes.  They are also reducing the 8 x 16 plans on CD ROM to $99.95 also. A couple of sample shots of the plan are shown below. You can order the plans at China Depot if interested.

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I am very lucky to be living in Northern California where there is a lot of tiny house activities going on. Besides, Jay with Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, Bill with Tortoise Shell Homes and Stephen with Little House on the Trailer, I am just 45 minutes from Hopland and the flagship Real Goods Store and Educational Center.

A few weeks ago I was on my way to see my folks in Ukiah and pick up Max our dog and decided to take some time to stop by Real Goods and photograph their tiny houses that they have scattered around their property.

I have stopped in at different times as they were constructing the homes, but never had my camera with me. This time I went prepared with the idea to share with the Tiny House Blog readers what Real Goods has to offer for examples of tiny homes.

I have attached a lot of pictures to this post and have put brief descriptions under the photos. So take your time and enjoy. If your ever in the area, reserve time to visit Real Goods, you won’t be disappointed.

Here is what Real Goods has to say about themselves:

We’ve been busy getting stocked up for the holiday season and fine-tuning displays to make them educational and exciting — emphasizing product groupings like “Relocalization and Peak Oil,” “Biofuels and Alternative Transportation,” and “Green Building.” We’re also revamping our Renewable Energy Department, where we’ve seen sales numbers double annually in response to worldwide global warming concerns. Our sustainable living library contains more than 2,000 titles on subjects including organic and biodynamic gardening, cooking, natural and green building, renewable energy, intentional community, permaculture, politics, alternative fuels, electric vehicles, sustainable outdoor projects and much more. You’ll also find new men’s and women’s organic clothing (from basic to hip) as well as healthy body care products. And for the little ones on your list, we carry dozens of educational and solar toys. More than half the store’s products cannot be found in this catalog, so we invite you to stop by, browse and experience the future, while you check out the wonders of the Solar Living Center. The Hopland Real Goods store is open every day (except Christmas Day) from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Go and visit the Real Goods Website and if you are in the area be sure and stop by and check everything out yourself.

Straw Bale Welcome Building

Inside of Strawbale Welcome Building

Colorado Yurt Company Dwelling

Straw Bale and Stick Built Garden Shed

Straw Bale Residence

SIP Building Example

YurtBoy Yurt

Straw Bale Bathroom would make a cool tiny house

Windmill and Giant Solar Panels

Cob Well House

Tepee Residence

Straw Bale and Stick Built Tiny House

Back of Straw Bale and Stick Built Residence

Painted Storage Container

Solar Option for a Tiny House

Portable Solar on a Trailer

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Building houses from shipping containers is not new, but I think this might be the first company I have seen that builds smaller homes that are environmentally friendly and can be secured tight like a tiny little bunker.

Ecopods are built from recycled 8×20 steel shipping containers transformed into living, working and high end display spaces. The Ecopod is a transformed, designed built, multiple use, eco-friendly, building that promotes the best use of portability, off grid power supply capabilities and low environmental footprint.

The Toronto based company wanted to go even further with this ethos, so they incorporated rubber flooring recycled from shredded car tires into the design as well as an entire range of off-grid options including a solar-powered refrigerator, XM radio and 12V lighting and wall outlets powered from a roof-mounted solar panel. Even the composting toilet requires very little maintenance and costs a fraction of the traditional septic bed system. Download a PDF of the Ecopod brochure here.

Matthew Davies, the publicist for Ecopods.ca includes the following:

The ecopod started its life as a shipping container and traveled most likely half-way around the globe before being converted into the Ecopod. When the added hinged deck is raised the Ecopod maintains both the strength and proportions of its predecessor. It was our intention for the Ecopod to work ‘off grid’, although you can use it either way.

We first cut one twenty-foot side out of the shipping container and re-manufactured that steel wall into a deck that was then hinged back to the unit with six custom-designed offset hinges that allow the deck to lay flat and fit into its original position when closed. The deck is fairly heavy, so we engineered a 12V winch apparatus that has a lifting capacity of at least 4000lbs – its 12 volt battery takes its power from the solar panel. If you are leaving the Ecopod for an extended period of time, you can close the deck by flipping the electrical panel switch to supply the power to the 12 volt winch and the door closes by means of a handheld remote control. It takes about a minute to close and with the back doors locked, the pod is again returned to the form and strength of the original container.There is no conventionally-constructed building on the market that can compare to the strength and durability of the Ecopod.

Maintenance on the unit requires very little effort. The original steel walls and frame are made from a product called corten steel. Corten steel has a natural rust inhibitor that stops rust at the surface. The interior and exterior floor surfaces are covered with a product that looks very similar to cork flooring but is made from recycled car tires. This product has excellent interior and exterior performance qualities and is both impervious to water and easy to keep clean. The entire wall and ceiling cavities have been spray-foam insulated with the latest environmentally-friendly soya insulation available on the market today. It is a rigid ‘closed-cell’ insulation,’closed-cell’ meaning there is no moister transfer. All interior walls come clear-coat birch finished with a hidden fastening system and trimmed with aluminum. There are no visible mechanical fasteners in the wood finish. The front sliding glass doors and front glass side panels are double-glazed thermal pane units that allow you to enjoy all season weather conditions. We have equipped the pod with two electrical wall outlets that can supply power from the 12 volt battery through the inverter or are switchable to 120volts should you have access to either house or generator power. An 80 watt solar panel and 12 volt battery are included in the basic model.

Our intention was to give someone the option of enjoying a recreational property while creating a very low environmental footprint. The Ecopod can be used as a stand alone unit working off the grid or in conjunction with established building or cottage sites.

The Ecopod comes complete with all above-mentioned conveniences and finishes, all for a price of $26,650.00 CDN dollars.

What attracted me to the Ecopod was that it was not too expensive for a heavy duty self-contained space, and that you can completely close it up to protect it from animals, weather, vandalism and break-ins.

For Tiny House Blog readers who live in the Toronto area, you can view the Ecopod this month at the Green Living Show on April 24-26.

By Christina Nellemann

Photos by Ecopods

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Some days, don’t you feel the world crumbling around you? Financial crises, world hunger, war, poverty. It seems unending. Some people may feel that one way to escape is to have a small, comfortable place to come home to. A home that is like a hug, warm and alive.

Some people have found that feeling in a cob house. A hand sculpted structure that curves and comforts like the earth it is made from. The House Alive! company is offering workshops for 2009 on how to create your own small structure.

House Alive!, which was started in 2001 by Coenraad Rogmans, James Thomson and numerous volunteers, teaches workshops about natural building, natural design and appropriate technology. They also offer consulting services, do presentations and seminars and work to promote natural building as a real alternative to conventional construction methods.

Cob is a building material that is made of a mixture of sand, straw and clay. The materials are mixed wet, by foot or with a tractor or mortar mixer. The word “Cob” comes from an old English word meaning “Lump” or “Loaf.”

The wet cob mixture is used to build thick earth walls; the building technique is very similar to sculpting with modeling clay. Because cob building requires no forms, you can build your walls into any shape you choose. Curves, niches, arched windows and built-in furniture are common features in cob buildings.

Because cob can be labor intensive, it is best if a cob structure be kept on the small side.

House Alive! will be offering a workshop in May of 2009 on how to build a complete shelter. Participants of the workshop will leave confident that they can design and build their own natural home. The building techniques will include:

• Making cob by foot
• Rubble trench foundations
• Stem walls out of recycled concrete, earth bags, and stone
• Natural sub-floors for earthen floors
• The materials sand, straw, and clay: How they work, what to look for, where to find them
• Wall building: tapering, keeping it plumb, trimming, shaping
• Electricity: How to put in wires, how to build a circuit
• Plumbing: Water and gray water systems
• Windows, doors and hanging cabinets and other things on cob walls
• Hybrid buildings: The interfaces of cob with other materials
• Earthen floors
• Earthen finish plasters

Lectures and demonstrations will include

• The economy of building
• Passive solar design
• Natural design
• Composting toilets
• Solar hot water
• Solar electricity
• Codes, hybrid buildings and natural renovations
• Straw bale construction
• Light straw clay, adobe brick and waddle and daub.
• Roofs and roof insulation
• Simple living and community

One thing that cob building lends itself to is cohousing. Cohousing communities attempt to be as self-sufficient as possible, by building their own homes from sustainable materials like cob and straw bales and by growing their own food. The Emerald Earth Sanctuary in Mendocino County, Calif. makes decisions by consensus, and they value direct, open communication and conflict resolution. They also offer work parties, natural building workshops, and a work trade program.

If you are interested in learning more about cohousing, the 2009 cohousing conference will be in Seattle, June 24-28, 2009.

By Christina Nellemann

Emerald Earth Sanctuary

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If you’d like to save money on your fuel bills at the same time as doing something to help the environment, switching your home over to solar energy may be the solution. But how should you go about it?

Aren’t solar panels expensive and difficult to install? What if you live in a rented property? What if you live somewhere where the sky is always grey?

The good news is that, with the range of available products continually expanding, there are now solar energy solutions suitable for almost everybody. The cost of using solar energy has dropped considerably as devices which used to be a specialist concern have gone into mass production.

With a seismic shift in public attitudes to solar energy, everything is changing. Big business is aware of the demand for solar energy options by people like you.

Government solar energy initiatives are also helping. If you own your own home, you may be able to get a grant or loan to install solar panels and educe your carbon footprint. Some jurisdictions will allow you to write off the cost of installing solar energy devices against tax.

Installing these devices is much easier than it used to be, with easy home kits available, so in most cases you should be able to do it yourself.

If you live in a rented home, you can alert your landlord to the financial incentives available for installing solar energy devices. Alternatively, you can obtain lightweight solar panels which are designed to be fixed to roofs on a temporary basis.

You can even get solar panels which you can attach to windowsills so that they hang beneath your apartment windows generating solar energy for your use.

The improved efficiency of modern solar energy devices means that they can now be effective even in cloudy environments where direct sunlight is rarely available.

Solar energy has become so easy to access that it’s mazing more people don’t realize how they can take advantage of this great source of free power. Get ahead of the rush and convert your home to solar energy now. You’ll be doing the planet a favor – and you’ll be doing yourself a favor, too.

One person who has applied this to his tiny house is Lamar who built a 14′ x 14′ cabin in Utah. See this post on Lamar.

Lamar has written a book on his own personal experience and he explains in his from his site for $5 and he explains how to build a solar system for a small house for less than $1000. Check out the Simple Solar Homesteading website.

Battery Array

Charge Controller

400 watt Inverter for AC power

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