Here is my (very long and somewhat thorough) report on that weekend.
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| Dad checking out one of Caravan's tiny houses |
Dad and I had a reservation at the Caravan Tiny House Hotel for the weekend of the workshop. Caravan consists of six unique tiny houses parked in a lot just off Portland's famous Alberta Street, which is packed with quintessentially Portland pubs, eateries, and shops. (And, when we arrived on the afternoon of October 31, also packed with young kids and their hip parents, costumed to the hilt and trick-or-treating at the businesses. It was a bit overwhelming.) Due to its prime location and unique "rooms," the hotel was rather pricy for us, but it was a valuable learning experience in itself: a chance to get up close and very personal with a tiny house, and try one on to see if it fits my sleeping, showering, and even cooking needs.
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| Roly Poly from the outside during the tour on Sunday |
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| Roly Poly's kitchen in use |
We managed to cook dinner from scratch that first night--mushroom omelets and braised cabbage--but not without the kind of planning and forethought usually required for a much more complex meal. I showered and even washed my hair in the sub-2'-square shower stall, but knocked my elbows on the (super-cool stainless steel) stall walls and had nowhere to stand as I dried off but in the wet shower pan. We slept in the two sleeping lofts, but we--Dad especially--hit our heads on the exposed rafters multiple times. The ladder was wide and sturdy, easy enough to climb up and down, but it almost completely blocked the downstairs living area when it was in place. It was doable for two nights, but to live in...? Good lord...
So, are tiny houses too tiny for me?
No way! That one was, yes, but it turns out Roly Poly is the smallest house at Caravan. It measures only 14' from end to end of the cantilevered lofts, and I believe the trailer it was built on is only 12' long--compared to the 20' trailer I plan to use. It was built to sleep up to three people, with two lofts, which took up a lot of overhead space. There were also some issues with the floorplan and furnishings that made it feel tighter than it needed to. For example, the bathroom was oriented parallel to the long wall of the house, relegating a quarter of the downstairs area to hallway duty: basically wasted space. That hallway would have been eliminated if the bathroom were placed at the end of the house, perpendicular to the long wall, like I'm planning to do with the Going Home. And the stools, with large, comfortable, padded seats, were too large for the space and lacked wheels for easily moving them out of the way. The ladder, too, could have been less cumbersome with the addition of wheels.
Basically, it was cute--boy, was it that--but I can do better.
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| Dee Williams (in overalls), PAD co-founder/workshop leader |
The first morning of the workshop was a classically Pacific Northwest autumn morning: chilly, overcast, misting rain. One of the other Tiny House Hotel parties, a couple of 20-something Canadian women, knocked on our door and told us that they'd heard we were going to the tiny house workshop. They were, too, they told us, and were planning to ride the hotel's rental bikes to get there... so we offered them a ride in our car.
We chatted a bit on the way there, about a 15-minute drive. The PAD workshop was taking place at the historic Kenton Firehouse, in a quiet residential neighborhood in far north Portland. We knew we were there when we saw PAD co-founder Dee Williams' little Vardo parked out front. But as we pulled to the curb, one of the Canadian women was like, "Wait--where are we?" It turns out they were going to a different tiny house workshop, organized by Tumbleweed Tiny Homes, at the airport! We hadn't even considered that there might be two tiny house workshops happening in Portland on the same weekend--but I guess it is Portland, after all.
The Canadians ended up calling a taxi. I hope their tiny house workshop was as helpful as the PAD one turned out to be for me.
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| Dee Williams and tiny house basics |
The audience was diverse in terms of knowledge, experience, and interest level in tiny houses, and the presentation was tailored for beginners, so I didn't learn as much as some of them did. On the other hand, at least the tiny house basics weren't so shocking for me! I had already been through the wringer of initial research--where I knew so little, and there was so much to learn, that it just seemed impossible that I could ever build a tiny house myself--and it appeared that some of the other attendees had not, yet. Two or three got up to introduce themselves on the second day and admitted that maybe they won't be building their own tiny house, after all. Too bad! Maybe they'll keep researching and regain confidence, or maybe not; after all, tiny house living--much less tiny house building--doesn't have to be right for everyone.
I could hardly regurgitate everything that was said and done at the workshop--I recommend you attend one yourself to get the full story!--but keep reading for some of the stand-out lessons and moments of my weekend.
Iron Eagle Trailers
One of the most enlightening presentations on the first day was from Rob Mandzij of Iron Eagle Trailers. Iron Eagle is the trailer manufacturer that has partnered with PAD to create a specialized tiny house trailer: the PAD Series trailers. Rob actually brought an empty 16' PAD Series trailer for us to inspect, and--super helpful!--a spec and price sheet for their 16'-24' range. I learned that...
- The PAD Series trailers are specially designed to fit the tiny house's floor with 2x6 framing right inside the trailer bed, so only the subfloor plywood sticks up above the trailer bed. This gives you a good 6" of extra headroom, compared to a trailer where you have to build entirely on top of the trailer bed. And none of the trailer crossmembers stick up through your insulation and conduct heat in and out of your house, since they're all welded to the bottom of the trailer frame. Nice!
- The number of axles required on the trailer has only to do with the weight of the house, not the length of the trailer. Rob told me that basically, you only need three axles (each rated to carry 5,000 lbs) if you include particularly heavy materials like granite countertops and tile floors. Otherwise, two is enough.
- It's preferable to have too much weight in the front of the trailer than in the back. As Rob said, you can always use a stabilization bar, AKA weight-distribution hitch, if there's too much weight in front, but if there's too much weight in back, you'll have to add weight to the front--not ideal, since adding weight might overload your trailer, overload your tow vehicle, or just make the house harder to tow.
- Since so many tiny house designs place heavy stuff--like the kitchen, bathroom, and loft--in the front of the trailer, Iron Eagle shifted their PAD Series trailer axles a few inches forward compared to what most trailers have. Another reason to go along with putting more weight toward the front than the back.
- The trailer comes standard with an 8'4"-wide bed, but can be made narrower by 2" increments. This is good for me, because I want an 8'0" house for simplicity of building; building materials often come in 8' lengths, and with a wider house, I'd have to buy the next bigger size and cut it down (harder, more expensive), or splice two pieces together (harder, less structurally stable).
- There's a big price jump between the 20' and 22' trailer. Coming into the workshop, I had just settled on a 22' design after struggling to fit my loftless ideas into a 20' footprint. However, after seeing the price jump, I decided that I could probably find a way to cut a couple feet off my design... (And I found that way, on the second day of the workshop!)
DOT Width Limits
We were told that, apparently, the widely-touted 8'6" width limit for road-going tiny houses is measured at wheel-height only. The eaves can exceed this width with no (legal) issues. Whaaat?! I haven't been able to corroborate this piece of news through my internet research, but it does take some pressure off... if it's true!
Strapping and Tie-Downs
I had been a bit confounded by all the requirements for using metal strapping and tie-downs to secure the house to the trailer, the walls to the floor, the roof to the walls, and so forth. How do all those rules apply if I'm building with SIPs? The answer: all we're doing is following the building codes for hurricane- and earthquake-prone areas. Towing a tiny house down a freeway is basically just subjecting it to hurricane- and earthquake-like conditions, and all these metal bits are just to keep it from falling apart under the stress. Building a SIP tiny house? Just do what is required for a regular SIP house in hurricane and earthquake zones. Boom. Done.
RV Certification for Tiny Houses
In Oregon, you can have someone from the DMV inspect your tiny house and certify it as an RV, even if you built it yourself. It just needs to meet certain standards, mainly to do with the electrical system. In other states, a tiny house must be built by a manufacturer certified by the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association (RVIA) to gain this certification.
Of course, I plan to build and live in my tiny house in Washington, so... oh well.
(But...) RV Appliances Are a Bad Idea
A lot of tiny housers look to the RV supply world for tiny-house-sized appliances, such as refrigerators and hot water heaters. We were told that this is a bad idea, because RV appliances--like RVs themselves--are designed and built for occasional use, not full-time. They will need frequent replacement if used on a full-time basis.
Electrical Wiring
According to Nathan Miller of All-Ways Electric, the 50-amp extension cord that I think I'll need will carry 240 volts in two hot wires, rather than 120 volts in a single hot wire as in a 30-, 20-, or 15-amp extension cord. I'm not sure of the full extent of what this means, but one thing it means is that I could install a 240-volt major appliance if I wanted... which I don't.
I also learned that the shorter your extension cord, the better. Most RV parks and marinas limit the length of your extension cord--running from the box to your tiny house, RV, or boat--to 20'. If you need to park more than 20' from your power source, it's better to dig a trench, bury a line in conduit, and install a box closer to your parking spot, and then plug your extension cord into that.
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| Touring Caravan Tiny House Hotel |
We spent the last hour or so of the second day of the workshop touring tiny houses... at Caravan! I got a close look at the other five tiny houses, which was incredibly good for dispelling any cramped, claustrophobic feelings I may have gotten from Roly Poly. Most of the other houses felt (comparatively) enormous! Even with a dozen other people crammed in there at the same time. I believe the tour may have been open to the public, since it seemed like way more than the 50-60 workshop participants were there.
One of my favorite houses was Skyline (on the left in the photo above, next to The Tandem), an 18' house with a shed roof. Its design incorporated lots of metal: the siding was shingles and corrugated galvanized steel, the roof was made of metal and foam refrigerator panels (essentially SIPs with metal sheathing), the entire shower stall was metal, and there were pretty metal railings and details inside. But that wasn't what I liked best about Skyline...
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| Skyline's bed-under half-height loft! |
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| Skyline entrance |
My favorite thing about Skyline was: the loft! I hadn't been planning to include a loft in my house because I don't want to climb up and down a ladder to get to and from my bed, but I also kind of hate the idea of taking up floorspace with a queen-sized bed. Skyline's builder, Eric Bohne, got around both issues by creating a half-height loft with the bed at ground level and additional living space a short distance above. I knew instantly that I was totally going to steal that design element and tweak it, putting my "dressing room" up top instead of a sofa/bed. Goodbye, extra 2' of length, hello cheaper trailer price bracket!
I also liked The Tandem's cushy cork floor and steampunk-y, gear-shaped joist hangers, as well as the Envi panel heaters used in a couple of the houses. I was already pretty set on using panel heaters, since they are energy-efficient and clean, but I wasn't sure if they would be sufficient to heat the house on their own; their use at Caravan seems to indicate that they'll do a good enough job in a Pacific Northwest winter. And I hadn't thought of it before, but now I may decide to use cork flooring, too--at least in my loft, where the ceiling will be low and sitting/kneeling will be more comfortable than standing, if the floor is soft enough!
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| Cork floor |
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| Gear-shaped joist hangers |
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| Envi panel heater |
Check out Caravan's website to see better photos and more information about the houses.
Critiques and Parting Thoughts
My report on the workshop wouldn't be complete without some critiques, of course. I really only have two:
1. Don't get me wrong, Dee Williams is an awesome speaker--she's utterly hilarious, she keeps her audience's attention, and she's super knowledgeable. But sometimes she didn't really answer people's questions, mainly because she didn't seem to understand what they were asking. There were moments that would have been better for us all if she had made sure she really got what she was being asked before she started in on an answer--an answer that just confused the asker and the rest of the audience. Or, people should feel more free to interrupt her and restate their question. I'm sure she'd be totally cool with it!
2. (And for a totally subjective critique...) Dee strongly advocates for making your tiny house as bare-bones simple as possible, and for one excellent reason that I can easily see: you're much less likely to screw up a small, simple system than a big, complex one, whether you're building it yourself or just maintaining it later. Simpler is better in a lot of ways. But this stance can lead dangerously close to the "tinier than thou" mentality. That is, the mentality that if you want a system that's larger, more energy-intensive, or more complicated than mine, then you're not "doing tiny" right. For instance, if I am happy in a 12' tiny house with no bathroom, then your 24' plans are not tiny enough. If I want just enough electricity to read a book at night, then your 30- or 50-amp service is over-the-top. If I can roll out of bed and into the same jeans I've worn all week and head to work unshowered, then so should you, because what the heck kind of job requires hygiene and grooming, anyway?
I got a whiff of that attitude at the PAD Tiny House Basics Workshop, and it didn't set well with me.
The Tiny House Society's "About" page contains this (widely-quoted) sentence, which pretty much sums up my beliefs about how the tiny house movement should be: "It’s not a movement about people claiming to be 'tinier than thou' but rather people making their own choices toward simpler and smaller living however they feel best fits their life."
Had I been the one presenting, I would have reminded the audience that there are advantages to simplification--foremost the simplification required to move from a normal house to any size of tiny house. But I would have also emphasized that it's their lifestyle and their preferences that dictate how tiny is tiny enough for them. Everyone has different priorities, different needs, and different reasons for getting into tiny houses, and you shouldn't let anyone--neither the idealistic neophytes nor the crusty veterans of tiny living--make you feel that your priorities are less valid than theirs, or your ideal tiny house lifestyle is less worthy than theirs.
So with that, let us go forth and tinify!
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