Host a Tumbleweed Vacation Rental

We are looking for a place to host the Fencl as a vacation rental.

This might be for the summer only, or could turn into a long term opportunity. You must have a place in the continental U.S. that would be a desirable vacation spot. In addition, electricity must be readily available. The house needs its own 20 amp circuit. Also, a sewer hookup must be present, and a water source within a few feet. Basically, the house needs RV hookups. Because it is a vacation rental, we don’t want to deal with cleaning of any tanks. We are looking for a place with a sewer hookup. [Read more]

Logo Contest Finalists

Congratulations to the winners of the logo contest. Originally, we were going to pick our 3 favorite designs and test them on our website. This turned out to be a problem since we like so many of the designs. So, we picked 4 designs. It was certainly a lot of fun, and 2 of the top 4 designs were created by amateurs who learned about the contest from our blog. The other two winners are professional designers. When we selected the winning designs, we didn’t know anything about the designers, and it was really exciting to discover that one of them has dreamed about owning a Tumbleweed Home. We also gave prizes to a few of the runners up … many of whom were also amateur designers.

Vote for your favorite logo

Below are the 4 logos selected with our current logo at the bottom.

Logo #1

Logo #2

Logo #3

Logo #4

Current Logo

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Picking up the trailer

Today was eventful. The snow is almost gone which is unusual for Ontario in March.  It was probably one of the rainiest and windiest days we’ve had all year. Not a great day for driving a trailer 100 km (60 miles) but we managed.  Dave Cook the owner of Intruder Trailers was fantastic.  He had the 18 foot Suretrac trailer ready to go when we arrived.  The cost was 2895, with taxes it ended up being 3271.  Dave made sure we had the proper hookup for the electrical and a 2 5/16 trailer hitch ball.  They also filled out the paperwork for us to take down to the Ministry of Transportation to get the license we needed.  10 minutes down the road, $35 for the license plate and a quick trip to Tim Horton’s for coffee and we were ready to head back to Intruder Trailers where Dave fixed up our trailer hitch and showed us how to hook up the trailer.

The one thing we found out was that most tandem trailers need to undergo a safety check each year if they are going to be on the road.  Hmmm. That was news.  The ministry sites I’d consulted didn’t note that anywhere I looked.  They’ve got height, weight and length restrictions, and the Fencl conforms to all of these.  Whew.

It might be a pain to have to move the house each year for a safety, but it might be enough just to get the safety when we eventually move the house again which could be years after we park it the first time.

Dave was keen about the idea of our tiny house and had even been looking at them on line.  We’ll keep him posted as the house goes up.  He also recommended that if indeed we are parking the house for years, we should consider taking off the tires for the duration. He says tires will deteriorate in the sun and be useless after a few years.

Since it was crazy windy, we decided to drive the back roads to return to  Kitchener.  It took about an hour to drive from Nilestown and then another hour just to park the trailer in the shop where the classes will do the building.  They’re using one of the auto shops rather than the woodworking shop because of its access to outside.  They’ve set up workbenches and circular saws in the auto shop and it should work.  Bob and the students will tell you more about the challenges of this space.

All I know is it was very challenging getting the trailer into the space.  I’m sure my husband was ready to scream “Lucccy”  in exasperation.  He probably wanted to swear too, but he refrained. Although the automotive shop is huge, two metal posts that operate the car hoists block the space about 18 feet from the door.  We (and by we I mean my wonderful husband) had to back up the trailer so that it was centered perfectly between these hoists.  Needless to say, this took a long time.  Ultimately we (and again by we I mean my wonderful husband) ended up having to manually lift up the trailer and reposition it so it would fit between the hoists.  There are only a couple of inches of clearance on each side.

I can’t believe it is actually happening.

A tightly parked trailer

Dave Cook at Intruder Trailers

KCI’s construction students

There are three classes that will be working on KCI’s Fencl.  Two are construction classes and one is a cabinet making class. These are just a few of the students in the classes.  They’re viewing construction videos, and writing some tests on important construction techniques and safety codes.

Jay Talks Tiny

Wednesday, March 3, 2010 Jay Shafer discussed some of the economic and environmental aspects of our housing laws.

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