Tiny House in a Landscape

Walt Barret's wood working shop

Walt Barrett, who has shared several stories about the tiny homes he has built and lived in, sent this photo of a tiny house he forgot he had. I’ll let him tell you more. I don’t know why I never sent this photo to you a long time ago. This … Read more

Walt’s Micro Home Plans

Walt Barrett, who has designed and built a micro home and also guests posts here on the Tiny House Blog has recently made available his Micro Home plans and is letting me sell them to you on the Tiny House Blog. The plans are for a micro home that is … Read more

Locating Your Micro Home

Guest Post by Walt Barrett We need to tackle this land, and location problem head on because next to raising the money for the building materials it seems to be the most difficult problem based upon the feedback that I am getting. There are two separate paths to choose from … Read more

Maintaining Solar And Other Storage Batteries

Guest Post by Walt Barrett A few weeks ago I was visiting a US Coast Guard Station where I looked at small solar battery charging installation. It was built to government specifications, and was an excellent example of a perfect solar installation. One of the companies that I have owned … Read more

My Parent’s Micro Home

Guest post by Walt Barrett (Be sure and watch the video at the end of the post)

I have been writing about micro homes, solar, and energy efficient homes for 35 years. People never really paid much attention to any of it, and my Internet Blogs have gone virtually unnoticed for years. Recently, however, I have started receiving email from people who have read my articles about solar powered autonomous micro homes. Many of them are simply looking to down size, which I happen to think is a great idea, unless you have tons of money to save towards your future. The other people that have written to me have no place to call their own at all, and very little money either. All of these people are seeking as much information as possible about building micro homes, and also the support systems needed to make them a comfortable place to reside.

When you build a micro home the savings really add up quickly. First of all, if you are handy enough you may not need a mortgage. That alone is huge! A tiny well insulated home is less expensive to heat and cool, another major savings. Because of the LED lighting systems we have developed, solar lighting is relatively inexpensive. The electricity saved on lighting enables you to downsize the number of solar electric modules needed to power the home. Believe me, this is not rocket science as some people would like you to think. I like to keep things simple.

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