Are tiny houses a good investment?That depends on how you want to live and how well they are built. Small homes are more affordable and eco-friendly that large homes, butaretiny homes on wheels for sale locallygreen?Read here tofind out if Tiny Houses are good for the environment.
It seems somewhat contradictory for an environmentally conscious person to be dragging a tiny home behind a massive gas-guzzling truck, even more so if it isn’t well-insulated. Small homes are good, but mobile homes, well….not so much.See here to find where it is Legal to park and live in a Tiny House.
But the most notable design limitations of tiny houses is that you have to balance interior living space with a maximum highway width of 8.5 feet. That almost always leads to poorly-insulated walls with poor energy performance. It also leads to the use of spray polyethylene foam since it has a higher R value per inch, and while spray foam works well, the problem is that most brands of spray foam insulation have high greenhouse gas emissions. Read here abouthow to find more environmentally-friendly spray foam with lower emissions.
Atiny home built on a slab on gradethat isn’t going to have to move is a better idea than one that does move, but the reality is that a lot people are into Tiny House living partly to be able to travel with it. Which brings us to the one built by Ben Hayward, a Carleton University Architecture grad student.
Ben has come up with a Tiny House Design that in our opinion takes a big step closer to achieving one of the main goals of the tiny house movement; namely, being 'green'.
The wall structure of Ben Hayward's 180 square foot tiny house is his own grid-like design of plywood, and is insulated withmineral wool, a recycled stone dust insulation. The wall thickness and levels of insulation vary slightly, with the weakest point of the wall being R48, which is about double that of your typical new home under construction.
Ben's Tiny House Plans:
Having done a 3D computer model of the building shape made it possible to use the CNC machine at Carleton University (computer numerical control), an automated mill that cut the plywood wall components to an accuracy of within 1 mm, and allowed pieces to be friction fit during assembly.
"With such a fine tolerance of accuracy, we were able to achieve complex curvature that would be too complicated to do in any other way", says Hayward, who goes on to compare the assembly to doing"a big 3D puzzle".
Tiny House Design
小房子的设计要点似乎是这样的——狭窄的厨房上方的低矮天花板和一个小小的站立式淋浴器(如果你幸运的话，你可以到达所有你想洗的地方)，淋浴器上方是一个阁楼卧室，几乎没有头部空间，在你的厨房或客厅中间有一个梯子。但海沃德的小房子却不是这样。他设计了一张双人床，上面有滑轮系统，可以在几秒钟内退回天花板，留下一个开放的生活区。
On Hayward's 'to-do list' is the design of a detachable dining room table with folding legs that tucks up under the bed, so there will be an option of open living space or a table capable of seating eight people.
This cleverhide-a-bed design has excellent space saving benefits, though like most things in life is not without its own drawbacks, for example - good luck retreating to bed early if a dinner party drags on longer than you'd like. It also seems less convenient if one half of a pair typically goes to bed sooner than the other, but you just can't have everything in life.
Including a retractable bed means no need for a loft sleeping area, and therefore, the higher ceilings allow for a more open and comfortable space. This also leaves room for raised floor sections under which Hayward has included drawers and even a Lazy Susan-type spinning clothes dresser.
The bathroom is not at all cramped and will have a normal-sized shower and toilet, which goes a long way towards making this house seem a realistic option for long term living.
Atriple-pane sliding patio doormeans a lot of natural light, as well as passive heat collection when parked facing south. This will reduce the burden on the solar panel heating system.
How to Insulate and Heat a Tiny House
Energy and performance of Ben Hayward's Tiny House
- R-48+ walls
- Floors ranging from R-42 to R-120 under the bathroom
- Triple-pane sliding patio door
- Photovoltaic panels and a wind turbine will power two hot water tanks for radiant heating and domestic hot water
- Walls, as well as floors, will be heated with radiant tubing
Read more here aboutPortable Wind GeneratorsandMicro Power Generation.
The grid of plywood that forms the walls will certainly not make for the easiest of insulation jobs (as every batt and rigid board will need to be cut), so it's not something we would want to undertake for a conventional house, but for a small job like this it seems manageable.
This unusual wall design does stands out from most other tiny houses we've seen in one seriously green way - recyclability during its inevitable deconstruction. Building materials that have been spray-foamed have only one foreseeable resting place in their future, a land fill. This house on the other hand, looks to be easily disassembled and recyclable at the end of its life.
In meeting Ben Hayward for a tour of his build, which he describes as a 'research project', one thing became apparent - he is not someone married to his ideas if better ones show up. Having the good sense to adapt along the way when it make sense is the hallmark of a good designer/builder, and allows for the freedom to push the envelope and try new things without an ego to protect if an idea turns out to be a dud.
This project is Hayward's second such build. He says much of the design is an evolution of his previous tiny house titled the 'Hobbit Van', which received widespread attention in North America, including a feature in theWall Street Journal. You can see that project unfold in the YouTube video at the bottom of the page and follow this build onBen's Instagram.
All photos and computer renderings courtesy of Ben Hayward
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有用的技巧!如果你不知道什么地方会出错，建造自己的小房子可能会变成一个非常昂贵的项目。