Pros and Cons of Tiny Homes and Regular Homes

we live in tiny and have solved some of the cons by having acreage and have separate tiny shop spaces for each of us. while tiny cleans up quickly, they just as quickly can get dirty. it’s an every day chore making sure everything is put away and wiped down. claustrophobia in winter. you really can’t do much to change the look, no rearranging. we do store art and other such in another tiny and change the walls and clutter on a regular basis.

I have both a tiny house (we call it a RV) and a larger fixed location (2250 sq ft)house. We travel & camp 2 to 10 weeks a year in the tiny house and enjoy it, but when the weather is bad cabin fever sets in very fast.

“Home From Nowhere” James Kunstler.

Impossible to recommend to enough people.

There’s one tiny point missing in the list; the need to own a car.

How can you move the said tiny house to a new location without the need of a vehicle with a Dino-Juice burning engine? All of this is beautiful but if you park the house away from any mass-transit system, you need that bloody car. This can be compounded fast if you need to make frequent trips to the grocery store due to the lack of storage.

Not a bad list,

A good point, I think a lot of people who live in tiny houses are “project oriented” people, and so it kind of begs the question, if you have a house, a workshop, a storage shed, storage under your house etc, are you really living any smaller? As well, tiny houses really are an effort to keep clean, particularly in mud season. And of another note, we still do laundry, use water, etc..and so are we simply displacing some of our own consumption habbits to our friends/public domain, for example, I do produce a lot less waste living tiny, but now I put it in public bins rather than a home based pick up bin, but that doesn’t change that it is waste.

I am living in Hawai’i now, we are a military family. When we get back to the mainland I hope to be able to buy land and have a home built on it. I am batting around the idea of having a tiny home built for my Mom. She loves the idea of a small log cabin just for her. This list helped me. Thanks again and I look forward to going on Facebook everyday in hopes that you have another tiny space for me to check out.

By the way Dan Louche,
I love the tiny mobile home you built !!!

JT

I have noticed one thing. Most of the people who have these Mobile Tiny Homes build them themselves and i think for that reason they tend to be built better than most houses I’ve seen.

The best argument for a tiny house on a trailer IMHO is twofold:
1. No property taxes. The state can never take it away from you.
2. No mortgage. The bank cannot take it away from you.

Thanks for your postings. I lived for several years in my tiny house while married (it was off the grid~ie.solar). The pros for me:
~worked when I wanted to, having no bills but gas and food
~met many wonderful people, inspired many to live more simply
~traveled to different hot springs and natural places (ie. warmer in the winter,mountains in the summer)
~realized happiness is about my heart and relationships, not the next possession to obtain
~sold the sheepherder wagon or vardo at a good price and built another one when we were ready for a new project or injection of cash in our lives.
~built a greenhouse wagon that we pulled behind us, growing mini-veggies
cons:
~was not able to put in a large garden
~was not able to have pets in such a small space and traveling
~was not as accessible to family and friends via phone
I’m designing my next house and appreciate this tiny exercise in value and lifestyle!
Happy Trails…

couldnt you have both… jst outside of the city in most areas you can find places with large lots with an existing home… i have one i paid $20,000 for in Paris texas.. its a rental… there is an existing parking place on the back of the property where the pervious owners parked their rv.. it has water and electric allready… would be no trouble to put in a new sewer line from the pad the the existing septic tank… i plan on putting a small fence between the main house and the rv pad after the current residents move out… then i will rent the main house and live in tiny house on the rv lot… not my idea btw a guy i work with at the fire station dose this as well… the renters basicly pay all his bills with their rent and gives him a little extra cash to boot… not for everyone but its an idea

I like this list JT and thanks for writing it. You make a lot of valid points. I think if I was planning a small house I would want to live on a bit of land for gardening, etc. and would want a small root cellar and shop/garage for storage of hobby items I don’t want to give up (gardening, etc.) After all, having interests and hobbies is a good thing and sometimes requires having some extra “stuff”. Getting rid of everything and then realizing I want something back is a real waste of money if I have to go and buy it again.

I like the idea of a small storage building, and although it may not be living completely smaller, at least you aren’t paying for heated storage space for your extra items (i.e. garage).

I also think it would be a good idea, if a person really wants a tiny house lifestyle but now owns a regular home, to rent out your regular home and then park your tiny house in “your” yard – you still own the home so no one can tell you to move your tiny house (depending on zoning laws) and you are still building equity in your regular house. Renting your house and having someone else pay down your mortgage is a good thing. If you can get enough rent to cover house expenses (mortgage, utilities, etc.) you’ve got a win-win. Once your equity builds up, go buy that piece of land and semi-retire. 🙂

I love Jay’s Epu but I don’t want to drop that much for a stock plan.

I love the Micro Compact Home but its unrealistic.

Is there a bridge for this?

Some cons in a tiny house:
*Temperature swings – less thermal mass – more difficult to regulate
*Smaller kitchen – more difficult to do food prep & food storage
*No/less room for guests/relatives – both overnight and other visitors. Can’t accommodate friends in need of a place to stay.
*Difficult if you have a disability/are older

Pro
Negative equity/value loss limited

Ok, Pro’s of a tiny house, If your a Hoarder, you’ll know it IMMEDIATELY! Anothor Pro, is if you
lose your keys, relax, they are almost in arms distance!

I really appreciate meatier posts like this. I try on my own blog (click my name) to try to keep what I have to say reasonably substantial (not saying I always succeed), even though it is much more work to
write such posts.

A list like this will always be specific to the person and type of tinyhouse, too. Writing a more general list would have to be an open source project or something, to harness the variety of experience. Maybe I should start a tinyhouse wiki!

Wow what a response this article has generated, I think its great. I am going to share a thought that keeps bugging me as I read all the comments, and its so silly , some of you are probably going to think I must be crazy, but as a builder of tiny houses I just have to chime in on a phrase that doesnt sit well with me, its the phrase, tiny mobile home,,,,,,, now that may not sound bad at all to most of you but to me it makes me think of a scaled down version of a flimsy 2×2 framed shell with nearly no pitch to the roof, sheet aluminum siding , thin paneling interior, set up on blocks with cheap underpinning, I guess its just the “mobile home” part of that that bugs me, and I know that is really what a tiny house is but to me “tiny house” just sounds so much better and makes me think of a scaled down version of a nice , well built home, I guess I look at it different, for me a tiny house, be it on wheels or on skids is portable by definition and therefore mobile, again I know this probably sounds absolutely silly and I do not in any way mean any disrespect to JT or anyone else, I love his post and the discussion it has created. I am ready to be beat up now on my crazy way of thinking, maybe someone out there understands what I was trying to say, and let me point out it could be where I am from, I live in the Ozarks, there are a lot of true mobile homes, trailers as they are called in my area, if I tell someone I am building a tiny mobile home I can assure you it will create a different mental image than if I say tiny house, or even tiny portable house,
Sorry to anyone shaking their head at the end of this long post, thanks JT for your article,

Scott

Scott – Yep, you have a point. I’ve lived in the great plains and Texas my entire life. Mobile homes (of whatever size) always have that stigma attached. And it doesn’t matter how nice it is or how well it is maintained. It’s still viewed as a “trailer house”.

Biggest Con for me in getting a tiny house is the cost. Building my own is not an option, and the costs of buying pre-built has become next to impossible. I was hoping this would be an option for me, and although I’m still trying to find a way to make it work, coming up with enough money is next to impossible on a fixed income.

I think the cons of a tiny house would be the lack of social living and home-life space. I simply can’t imagine a home with no kitchen table to sit down to dinner, a kitchen not big enough to cook Thanksgiving dinner, no place for my sewing machine and no table for the Scrabble board.
Alternatively, the pros are so many and so well noted above, they probably outweigh my cons.
For me, I dream of living in a small home, rather than a tiny home.

I live in a tiny home, (288 sg ft) on my own property. I have a shed for tools and building materials.
I would not want a tiny house on wheels, mainly because of finding a place to put it. I wouldn’t want to live in a campground and pay $400 or more per month, kind of defeats the purpose of saving money. Might as well have a travel trailer. They are cheaper than most of these tiny houses I see on the net.
The biggest drawback to a tiny home, for me, is having family over. During the summer it’s fine, we have lots of outdoor get-togethers here, but in the winter we can’t all cram into my house. So Christmas at Grandma’s is out!

I think that some of this boils down to your nature – are you more of a nomad or not? I know that personally the idea of not having a stable, permanent home makes me anxious and depressed. For me, freedom means being able to go off and visit many places but always having a home an place to come back to.

I love small homes and choose to live in one with family. And that brings me to another pro for a small house rather than a tiny mobile one – Family. I’m sure that some family somewhere has made it work but for most of us having kids means providing some sort of stability. Most kids need a home – small, large, apartment, house, etc. – but something that stays in one place.

So I would place

I posted this comment as a reply to someone’s reply up toward the top of the comments but decided if I wanted to see if anyone has any comments about it, I probably needed to put it where people might actually see it. Sorry for the duplication but here it is again.

While the talk of being able to just move whenever you want being a plus for the tiny-house-on-a-trailer idea, reality is a little different for some of us. I was thinking of getting a tiny house trailer, but I think I’ve given that idea up in favor of a tiny house that is built so that it can be moved but isn’t on a trailer.

I’ve come to this conclusion for a couple of reasons. I have family that I wouldn’t want to move away from anyway so why bother with a trailer with tires that will just disintegrate from staying in one position for years. The other is that I really don’t want to live in 100 sq ft and it’s a little harder to get 300 sq ft on a pickup-pullable trailer. So now I’m planning on a home built off site and moved to my (to be determined) location. The house could later be put back on a flatbed and taken elsewhere but it wouldn’t be as easy as “decide today, move tomorrow”. It also eliminates some of the cons in the list while not adding too many of the cons from the regular house list.

I hope I can find a group of like-minded people with whom to form a small community of small but not-so-mobile houses.

Gayle

i like all the responses… thats what i really like about this sight.. everyone who reads it and comments is an individual.. i think thats why we found tiny house blog in the first place… my thoughts are that you cant have a exact plan in life , the ability to adapt what we want into what is possible makes this a good place for idean and innovation.. thanks everyone

I’m an older guy who’s lived a lot of places in all manner of shelter, tiny to large. At times I’ve lived with a large family, at others by myself; commuted and shopped only by foot, bicycle and bus, at others exclusively by car; owned lots of stuff, at others not much at all.

I’ve concluded that what makes sense, dwelling wise, depends largely on your individual values, needs, responsibilities and resources at each stage of your life. Different strokes…

For me, a middle way makes the most sense. The “small house,” neither tiny nor large — say 400-700 sq. feet, give or take depending on circumstances — offers the best of two worlds. You give up some of the advantages of the extremes, of course. Like take-it-with-you mobility and enforced minimalism on the one end, and multiple-use spaciousness on the other. But you avoid most of the disadvantages too, like no room for a serious studio or workshop in a tiny space vs. the immoderate costs, dollar and carbon, of living large.

About all I’m sure of is that there ain’t no one way. To each her own.

[…] Pros and Cons of Tiny Homes […]

JT – I think there’s an important point missing in your pros and cons. You mentioned entertaining guests – but what about kids? I’m completely in love with the idea of tiny houses, and I’m all for de-cluttering, but my husband and I are on the verge of starting a family, and we both want 2 kids (at least), and you can’t raise those in the yard. Kids need space, and if the weather isn’t nice enough for them to play outside, the house needs to be big enough for them to play indoors without driving their parents crazy. Of course a smaller than average house could work, but I think a real “tiny house” is simply unsuitable for a family.

Good comments, Peter!
I’ve found that the “mid-range” works well for me (about 450 sq. ft.). But you’re right; different solutions work for different people.
And to Gayle and Kathy: YES to community! That’s what makes things possible. Our community is celebrating our 20th Birthday this year, and we’ve been able to accomplish quite a bit by working together. Not always easy, but worth the effort!

Another pro of a Tiny house is that if you get a horrible and terrible neighbor (this is a big one!), you just move away. This is a huge problem in Mexico where people are so noisy. I wish I could go somewhere else instead of having to stand such a horrible situation. I have always dreamed of having a place where I am not surrounded by lots of people; A place where I can sit and read at easy.

I think a Tiny House is EASIER for many disabled people. Indeed, my disability is part of why I want to build one.

Obviously, the loft is out, so we will have a not-so-tiny house – more like an 8 1/2 by 20-24 trailer.

But paring down belongings, getting rid of indoor stairs, using flooring instead of carpets, and just generally building so I CAN take care of most of my needs in there will be a huge advantage.

I think you still would reduce your waste and carbon footprint living in a tiny house on an acreage with external buildings vs living in a large home with garage.

I currently live (Edmonton, AB, Canada) in a 1500 sq ft home (2400 if you include the basement). It can get really cold here in winter for long periods of time so the natural gas furnace runs constantly from October until late April. During that time, I spend 8 hours a day at work, than spend most of my time when I am home in the kitchen and family room, while the remainder of the home sits unattended. My point here is that a large portion of my home is heated, unattended for a better part of 16 hours a day.

Now compare that to living in a 140 sq foot custom made tiny house. You can work all day, come home, crank up the heat and within minutes you have a comfortable living space at an extremely reduced cost. I currently store my backpacking, kayaking and ski equipment in my home which does not require heat so i could store these and several other items in a separate building without heat. However, one could have a wood stove or some form of heat in each separate building which would be similar to water on demand heating, that you only crank up heat when you are working in that space.

I have given much thought to the Tiny House Movement and have decided to build a home and purchase 1-2 acres of land close enough to a large town or city but far enough from its eventual urban sprawl to where I will set up my trailer. Land does not come cheap as I want to live close to the mountains so I can enjoy my outdoor activities.

Cabin fever will not be a factor for several reasons and one of them is the fact that I will still be working for another 20 years at least. That equates to time away from the home. I love being outdoors so my acreage will include a screened gazebo where I can hang out when I am not mountain biking in the summer or cross country skiing in the winter.

As for washroom facilities, my intent is to build a wood stove sauna with a gravity fed shower adjacent to the sauna. The heat used for the sauna will heat the gravity fed water tank for the shower facility. As for laundry, I have not come up with a concept for that, so one option is using a local laundry facility.

As for power, solar, wind are part of the concept along with propane and wood stove heating. I will have a gasoline inverter so I will never go without. The main thing is heat and a small wood stove in a tiny home on trailer will do the trick. The gas inverter will provide the power when I require it. LED lighting with solar power will provide enough lighting during majority of the year. Lighting is not an issue in Canada for 6 months of the year. Where I live, it does not get dark out in June until 11pm and its bright at 5am in the morning. Solar will work fine during the summer months. Its really about having several options and using the one which works best during that particular time of year.

Great conversation though. Thanks for letting me ramble.

I had to laugh when I read Tiny House Con #4 (It’s hard to find a place to park your tiny house.) Look at it this way. If you built a regular house wouldn’t you buy land to build it on? Well, same applies to a tiny house. Buy a small piece of land to build it or park it on.

[…] Pros and Cons of Tiny Homes and … – JT one of my readers sat down the other day and wrote down pros and cons regarding living in a tiny portable house and a regular larger home. […]

[…] Pros and Cons of Tiny Homes and Regular Homes […]

looks amazing

I love how you said that you don’t have a lot of property taxes because that’s not even something I thought of. I wanted to get a tiny home because then I could travel anywhere I want to. The lack of property taxes is a huge bonus!

I liked how you mentioned that you can grow a bigger garden from living in a regular home. My wife and I are wanting to move to a new property and we were wondering what we should look for if we want a bigger garden. I’ll be sure to tell her that we should look for a regular home for a better garden.

[…] Pros and cons of tiny homes and normal houses […]