Cummins Engine

[glort]

I have seen YT vids about these tiny houses on wheels.
They are a freaking caravan or trailer as called in the US. I don't see what the fuss is about?  Just because people make them look house like really doesn't change the fact they are still caravans and you could buy or build something similar as people  have done back to shortly after the advent of the enclosed motor car.

I just worked out what square feet is. I thought this house was not that big. I know the measurements off the plans and we work in " Squares" so it is 2700 Sq Ft.  What is average for a normal house in the US?
My TV education of US homes leads me to believe they are either smallish apartments or rather large places in the suburbs.

Also, what is the idea behind these tiny houses? Is it to save on cleaning and maintence or because they are cheaper to buy/ build or....?
Got to admit, I like space.  Our bedroom is 30 ft x 30. It is big but its light and airy and there is room around the bed without having to squish past the dressing table and chests of drawers. We wanted a King size bed in the last place but had to settle for a queen. Didn't have to compromise this time!
  The main lounge room is  not quite 40x40. There is an inset on one corner about 6 ftx 4 but it is a nice big room where one can put plenty of furniture and not feel cramped.  My office is tiny, only 12x 12 ft but i'm the only one in here 95% of the time so it's OK but I would have liked more room for bookcases, shelving and storage.

Garage is a bit less than I'd like, 870 sq ft but I'm going to add about another 500 so that will be better.
More space to put panels and to harvest the rain water.
And put the 12/2 6KW gen set in which is looking like it might happen as talks with the seller are doing well. 

[mike90045]

In the USA, only mobile units can be called "tiny houses"  Most building Codes require 500sf as minimum dwelling size.

this link from Forbes, lists average house size 1,000 sq ft to 1,800 sq ft
https://www.forbes.com/sites/trulia/2013/10/10/where-americas-middle-class-can-afford-to-buy-a-home/

[glort]

Sorry to be dense but is this for free standing houses or ?
I don't understand the term " affordable" as it is applied here.  They list citys in that article which I take it they mean suburbs of the CBD.  It's not possible to buy anything for $300K here in the suburbs including a small unit apartment.  What are they talking about there?

The house sizes seem tiny as well quoting 1000 Sq ft. That is a unit here.

" Affordable" homes here would be in the $700-800K mark.  The new estates not far from here where the land is really tiny being only 350 Sq m go for early $700's.
I was lucky with this place when I bought it back in May to grab it for only $1.4.  it's an acreage.  Many places in the area were going 1.6 to 2.0.  Prices have gone up of course since and with what I have already done here in just tidying gardens and removing overgrown bushes, painting etc the place would be worth a lot more now.

Not sure you would get anything in any city here for under $300K. Country towns 3-4 hours away, you would get something in some states that was decent, others would be real fixer upper's.

With prices that low in the US, Why would anyone want a small house??

[LowGear]

With prices that low in the US, Why would anyone want a small house??

I live in a 350 square foot apartment 3 or 4 months a year.  If I sum up my used space back here at the main house I really only use about twice that space on a normal day.  I've come to like the smaller space for a couple of different reasons.  Who's your cleaning company?  I just buy less crap when I have less place to keep it. 

I also like the subtle questions.  How do I get along with one small refrigerator?  One computer?  Ok, two monitors but one computer. 

The 6'-1" ceilings are not that bad but some of my taller friends get nervous.  The ceiling is easier to paint.

Money seems to last longer as well.  It's a choice for me but i grew up in a house that each person had about 400 square feet of living space.  OK, we shared many spots like the bathroom, kitchen and such.  It's might grind a bit if this was financially forced and keep in mind most of the world would regard a 600 square foot living space as amazing.

So there are some of the observations of a small place inhapitor.  Small is beautiful.

[vdubnut62]

Bob you are a much, much better man than I.  I just prepare for me and mine and sit back and watch the rest of the word slowly die. We all know that is going to be the end result, but some keep on trying to right a sinking ship. Sorry I guess my cynicism is running rampant tonight, but I don't see a viable way out. How many times has the old saw "These Kids Today"
been uttered?

Now,everybody pile on and tell me just how full of ship I am. I asked for it. And I guess I need it too.
Ron inTN

[glort]

The 6'-1" ceilings are not that bad but some of my taller friends get nervous.  The ceiling is easier to paint.

The ceilings in this place are 6'1???
No!
That's not small, that claustrophobic!  You'll be happy to know, I won't be coming to visit. I'm taller than your ceilings are high so wouldn't fit in the place.
I spose it's a good job they are easy to paint, it would be a job you'd have to do regularly from the marks people smacking their heads all the time would leave.  I have never heard of such a low ceiling unless that's a typo.

Small fridge wouldn't worry me If I were on my own. It's the mrs that has a thing that an empty fridge is something unacceptable.  the old dedicated freezer caught fire a couple of months back so we bought a new fridge/ freezer with the water and ice dispenser.  Great idea and we are all drinking more water now which is a good thing. The freezer is a 1/4 the size we had before but so far, she's coping well with it.
I turned the old freezer into my plant raising " hatchery".

Despite this place being roomy and comfortable, It does not cost a lot to be here. The solar I have put on the roof allows me to run the AC and everything else without going into a coronary when the bill arrives and we have water tanks and also the Biological treated sewerage for watering the garden.  My energy and water use would probably be les than my friend in his apartment that cannot generate his own power and has a small yard he maintains.
Just because it's not tiny does not mean it has to be expensive to run.

Cleaning, I'll certainly give you that one! The floors seem huge. I washed the floor in the kitchen/ dining room yesterday. There are a lot of tiles and just as much carpet.  Bathrooms take some doing as well. Our ensuite is bigger than our last bathroom but because just the wife and I use it, never as much cleaning as the smaller bathroom we shared with the kids.  My daughter claimed the main bathroom as hers which was granted providing she keeps it clean.  Some butt kicking has been applied there as it's the one guests see and not been kept to the required level.  I think that problem will be rectified in future.

I'm looking at putting in another bathroom in the new year. we want to put in a new kitchen and re do the en suite so this will be the tradesman's bathroom, literally.

I have lived in very Modest homes all my life but now we have the means to live more comfortably, I think we have earned and worked for the comforts we now have.  They will probably be relatively short lived and I don't think this will be our final abode.  The fact there is a large retirement village a couple of KM away was not lost on us so if we do find the place or living unassisted gets too much, at least we won't have to change postcodes. :0)

In the mean time, I want to get my business up and running again next year and providing my health allows me to carry on with things, I have promised the wife a cleaning lady.

[mobile_bob]

i suppose, cost and sq/ft are subjective terms

obviously i can by an acre in central kansas for peanuts, compared to downtown NYC or Tokyo

when it comes to size i guess it all comes down to what one is willing to tolerate.

i did my stint in 215sq/ft while going through a protracted divorce, while paying combines support to a level that left
me with precious little to live on... so it was out of necessity that i got to run the grand experiment.

as it turned out i am grateful for the experience!

we all know when it comes down to being self sufficient, offgrid and all that, with size comes expense
with big houses, come the need for big heat and cooling, big appliances, lots more lighting and all the other stuff
that is needed just to fill the space so one doesn't end up feeling as though he is living in an aircraft hanger.

conversely the tiny experiment, proved to me that i can live comfortably and vastly more economically in a small space

that is one of the reason's i am tickled to follow our members journey with his 165 changfa...

i now know i could live comfortably within a sub 500sq/ft home, and power it with a 165 easily, a couple solar panels, a few golf cart batteries, and a small inverter.... stay warm or cool, and never have to work for someone other than myself (at least full time) for the rest of my life.

had i started out as a young man (early 20's) and forgone the female company (also known as a wife) for at least 10 years, and opted for a tiny space... i think i likely could have comfortably retired by 35 without a care in the world... granted if i then got married and started with the kid thing all bets are then off... but my bet is i would still be miles ahead.

i think that is what is driving so many younger folks these days with the whole tiny house movement.. they can control their costs to the point that they free up a lot of time that otherwise would be spent making money to pay for the mcmansion, the associated taxes, utilities and all the necessary furniture to fill it with... and there you go... on the treadmill till you fall off.

if you feel you have to have a big house, then go ahead and buy one, and rent it out and let some other guy pay it off for you?

there is just something seductive about having the freedom to engage only to the extent one wants to, at least to me.

that 215sq/ft studio (if you wanna call it that) had 4 light bulbs, my desktop doubled as my TV (with a tv card), i had a sofa which as really a love seat... hell how many folks do i want to entertain anyways? the wall mounted nat/gas heater virtually never came on even in the winter months, the pilot light and heat from cooking, taking a shower, the light bulbs and my puter provided the vast majority of the heating requirement. bare in mind this was a flat in the upstairs of an old rooming house, so it is doubtful that the R value was much more than a 2x4 piece of fir stud and some plaster.

the point being is this.... an 800watt inverter (maybe 50 bucks) a couple of golf cart batteries, a couple panels and a charge controller, a 165 with an alternator, harvest the heat to heat my domestic hot water, help with charging, and providing power during the evening... maybe convert a small chest freezer to fridge duty and with a little thought and ingenuity and bob's you uncle!

now i realize this isn't the cup of tea for 90% of women folk, but really?  i really think one might be surprised.

at the very least, i would think there ought to be an incredible interest among folks around here, if not for primary living, but at least for a getaway cabin, a wtshtf escape, or if the old lady through's you out of the big house

of what happens should you or the wife or someone close to you gets a dreaded illness and bankrupts your butt.... wouldn't a predesigned tiny home be welcome as a fall back solution?

i realize there are those that live their whole lives without health issues, never losing a job, always making a good living, and never having a hiccup... i guess i don't fit in that group so my perspective might be a bit different because of that?

and then there is that tv channel and the like "natural geographic" where they show us over families from around the globe, living in straw huts, mud huts, tar paper shacks or whatever, with 27 kids, a happy stay at home momma and a dad that seems to have the time to actually know most if not all of his offspring.

i have read that over 75% of the worlds people don't have a word for the word "mortgage" in their native language! when it is explained to them that there are folks that borrow money to have a house built and then pay it off over 30 years?  really?  they think they are insane!

i wonder who is really the one that is insane?

bob g

ps... "there is nothing wrong with me, wrong with me, wrong with me..mememememe.....

[glort]

Your comments make a lot of sense Bob.
I just can't relate to them myself.  Certainly we have lived week to week and done it for a long while too and couldn't afford a lot of things I would have liked to have spoiled the family with  but here we lived, I don't think the size of the house which was modest anyway, was a big factor.  One of the reason I got into the veg oil thing was the cost of taking the kids to school every day.  They went to an out of area school because we basicaly lived in a shithole suburb and a friend whom was a school teacher confirmed my fears and said your kids will be so held back if the go tot he school 5 doors up the road.  We enquired at the school before they were school age and were told that they had a yearly student turn over of 80%. A mind numbing figure due to the population of the area being renters rather than owners and moving on.

Their school wasn't that far away but in peak times was a 45 min drive each way.  At 9Pm I could do it in under 10 min easily. Did burn a lot of fuel sitting round and was not possible to drive anymore conservatively than what I did.  When I got "Helga" as she was christened  and not only had the ability to do the school run for nothing but go everywhere else for free as well, it sure was a godsend to us till things picked up a bit.

One thing I would LOVE to do is have a place somewhere to put a lot of my DIY ideas to work.  I had a lot of things in mid for this place but I have learned they are not practical.
It comes back to a side point I think you are also making.  This is a " Luxury" home in an upmarket area.  TBH, we didn't even realise  when we bought it but now when people ask where we live and we tell them, we get the " OH!" reaction like we told them we live in Beverly Hills or some other place of the rich and famous.... which we are certainly not.
The thing is, I have to be careful of what I do here so as not to 1. affect the property value, and 2, piss the neighbors off.

No one here is snot nosed at all, quite the opposite in fact. Tends to be a lot of people whom have been battlers and now like us, have become better off through hard work and maybe a bit of luck. It's more a consideration matter really. The place across the road is a shitfight.  The guy is a Bikie and seems to have much of the street scared of him.  Only ever seen the guy sitting on his verandah once and the only people that I see quietly coming and going are his Mrs and parents whom own the house but don't live there.  If he cleaned up the front and got rid of the old cars and bit of junk it would be fine but it is an eyesore.

I'd like to have the house heated with a veg oil burner and a heat exchanger and other ideas but locating them for one is a problem and then putting in pipes or other ways of transferring heat or cooling is another.  I really don't want to go punching holes in the brick walls and don't want to heath Robinson things that could fail, cause damage and have the insurance company tell me to go jump if I made a claim.
If I built my own place and incorporated ideas, very different story.

I'd love to get some land that had running water sufficient for a micro Hydro setup.  Build a little shack out of 3-4 40 ft shipping containers and use that for some of my DIY self sufficiency ideas. Maybe one day.

I got the last of my panels up on the shed roof this morning. Made 28 kwh today even though most of the day was overcast.  Got up early and put them on ( Didn't go to bed actually) which was good timing as the day turned out to be a stinker and hit 44oC here so I had the AC on all day.  Probably cost me $2 all up.  Money well spent.

I think you are correct in what you say about a few panels, inverter and batteries.  Earlier in the year I was playing with this sort of setup.  I was able to run a bar fridge and an electric urn with no problem and could have run a lot more. I did have 8x 190w panels but they were never without some being shaded and 2-3 panels in good sun would have produced the same power, around 500W.
For the urn I used a PWM controller so I could run the urn at anything from 1w to 2kw ( briefly) but I used to have the thing sit at around 50w which was enough to keep it just off the boil. Turning it to 500w when I wanted a cuppa had a rolling boil in 15-30 sec.  I liked playing with that!

My nephew has been working in cambodia on a solar sharing project. Because they are so poor there, a single solar panel is a luxury well out of reach.  Because of the sunshine there a panel will get good yeilds so the idea is to have one panel shared amount several " Homes".  The panel will charge batteries in succession and there will be a power company that owns the equipment and the villagers will pay  to have the power connected. Not amount used but rather just to have it.  The scheme is heavily financed by the government and some private enterprise. They are going to install some micro grids at 60V and have a small solar farm and some batteries in the middle of the village and distributed around homes and businesses.  My nephew is writing software for controller to designate power, control outputs and do billing which of all things will be done by smart phone because many homes have one!

Just having an electric light, one light, makes a big difference to these people and means they don't have to take old car batteries into town to be charged or burn kero lamps which is expensive and makes the huts filthy with soot.  The other luxury these people have is a radio.
Amazing how the little things can make such a huge difference when you don't have them.