Inside the Bodega

Over the years, we’ve accumulated a catalog of interior photos for our tiny house on wheels. However, since we don’t build the larger houses (250 square feet or more), but only sell the plans, we simply haven’t had the photos to show. We’ve begun creating 3d drawings of the interiors, and will add more photos for our other “small house” over the next few months.

Inside the XS-House

In 2005, Jay lived in the XS-House, our smallest model on wheels. HGTV filmed him inside the house. Jay sold the small house after living in it for just 1 year, and this video is the only peak inside. The XS-House has a kitchenette and bathroom.

Wee Shall Overcome

It has been nearly 14 years since I started, what I like to call, my aggressive pacifist’s campaign to make the built world a smaller place. To date, my approach has been to pretty much just live my life in a small footprint and hope that my example might inspire others to do the same.

On Wednesday, March 3 at roughly 7:00pm at the Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastopol, CA. I’ll be taking a somewhat more active approach. Ignite Sebastopol 3 is part of Global Ignite Week. Roughly a dozen speakers from the Bay Area will be given just twenty slides and five minutes each to present their subjects. I will be using my time to rip America’s system of imposed excess a new body part. My distain for the building codes that restrict how small a house can be is no secret. On March 3^rd I’ll be making my position all the more clear. All presentations will be recorded and posted for international viewing.

We’re expecting a full house (~130 inside, and others watching the live feed to a screen in the outdoor Beer Garden), so get your tickets early. [Read more]

Building the Fencl

Over the spring of 2009 we built our largest home on wheels, the Fencl. This small house is 130 square feet and features a kitchen, bathroom, sleeping loft, fireplace and much more.

How long did it take to build?

Jay Shafer, the designer, and a crew of 4 others built this house over 10 weeks.
We spent 825 hours to purchase materials and build this green design house.

How much did it cost to build?

When all was said and done we spent $19,148.
Jay shopped around and shaved almost $2,000 from the cost when he found a trailer 100 miles away at a much lower cost.

Build one myself?

Depending on your skill level and determination it is possible to build a mobile home for a fraction of the cost of buying on already built. We do recommend hiring licensed contractors for the plumbing and electric work. When we build a house we hire specialist for those tasks. Typically, the electrician and plumber are the highest paid people per hour, so we keep the amount of their work limited to just those two areas. We spent less than $2000 to have that work completed on the Fencl.

When we build a small house we usually hire a finish carpenter as the job foreman. We keep the number of workers at any given time to 2 or 3. Aside from the finish carpenter and electrician and plumber, the other crew doesn’t need as much experience.

Buy this house from Tumbleweed?

This green home can be purchased for $53,997 plus shipping and applicable tax.

Is the price negotiable?
We price our homes and home plans with a very low markup. We do not leave room in our pricing for a discount. Our expenses are subsidized by selling ad space on our website and by the sale of our books. We are proud of the fact that we pay our crew a fair US wage with insurance.

Utilities in a Tiny House

This is an excerpt from my new book.

This is a six part post. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 … more to come.

Utilities

Like the rest of the house, utilities and appliances were designed with simplicity
and sustainability in mind. They met my modest needs but would be
considered primitive by conventional American standards. These rudimentary
utilities certainly would not appeal to everyone interested in living in a
small home, and it should be made clear that living small does not require
deprivation. Hot and cold running water, a microwave oven, and cable TV are
all available options.

Water: Tumbleweed was supplied by a simple, gravity-fed plumbing system. A two-and-a-half-gallon pot sat on a metal shelf just above a horizontal section
of stovepipe in the overhead kitchen cabinet and drained into either the
kitchen sink or shower through a Y intersection in a short stretch of rubber
hose. The water was kept warm as long as the heat stove was on, and it
could be made hot by setting the pot directly on the stove or a burner. The
pot was filled at a nearby spigot. Gray water drained directly into the garden.

Heating and Cooking: The best source of heat most structures can use is that of the sun. I installed windows on all but what was intended as the north wall of Tumbleweed for good solar gain. A covered porch on the south side kept the heat of the high summer sun out while letting the lower winter rays flood the house with their warmth. A gas heater kicked in on cloudy days and cold nights. I chose a gas stove over a wood one mostly because gas stoves only require about one-sixth as much clearance from flammable surfaces. This, in turn, allowed me to have pine walls without having to put my heater right in the middle of an already tiny room. The cleanliness of gas also seemed to make sense in a small space, and I liked the idea of precise control with a thermostat rather than the frequent stoking that a small wood stove requires.

The propane tank that fed the heater also supplied an R.V. cooktop. It is upon
this same double burner that a camp oven was set for baking.

Toilet: My composting toilet amounted to little more than an airtight bucket, a can of sawdust and a couple of compost piles outside. Sordid story short,
the bucket was used as an indoor toilet and sawdust was put into the mix
to absorb odor and balance out the carbon-to-nitrogen ratio. This bucket
was emptied onto one compost pile or the other every so often, then rinsed.
(Please see J.C. Jenkins, The Humanure Handbook, for details on this and
other methods of composting human manure.) While the idea of carrying
one’s own poop (or anybody else’s for that matter) to a compost pile off
away from central living quarters may sound both inconvenient and plainly
unacceptable to most Westerners, its appeal for more than a few will be its
absolute efficiency. Without electricity, running water, or waste and only small
inconvenience as its price, a cleaner environment and soil-building compost
are made available.

Electricity: By now, these description of rudimentary plumbing and a plastic chamber pot may have made it sound as if my house was more derelict than
homey. But, as I have said, these utilities were of my choice, and for me,
choice is, in itself, a luxury. In fact, there was plenty of room for modern conveniences.
The integral CD player, TV, and VCR disqualified the house as
an ascetic’s shanty. These appliances, along with six lights, two fans, and a
radio, were all powered by the sun through a single solar panel. I chose not
to mount the panel on my roof but kept it separate. This allowed me to situate
the house in a shady place during the summer while collecting energy at the
same time.

The Small House Book
by Jay Shafer

Price: $36.95

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