Tiny House Living

I always learn new stuff while reading Lloyd Kahn’s blog. This week I spotted this funky little tiny house built by the folks at Living Earth Structures in Petaluma, California. These folks build all sorts of earthen structures including benches, walls, ovens, and houses. They also offer adobe and cob workshops for those who want to learn about building in this extremely low-cost and sustainable building method. Below is a video from their website.

Living Earth Structures

This might seem a little off-topic at first but I’ve been getting some great suggestions from a regular reader about small scale sustainable energy. Here are a few recent solutions that might work great for those searching for ways of powering a simple and sustainable lifestyle. Thanks again Dave!

• Bike Electric Generator
• Bike Powered Machines
• Mini Photovoltaic Power Plant
  

One of my favorite non-tiny house blogs is The Good Human. This article on windows was a guest post by Nan Fischer a Green Real Estate expert who lives in Taos, New Mexico. The Good Human is definitely a blog to bookmark.

A Guide To Buying Energy Efficient Windows

John Wells at The Field Lab has been making slow steady progress on his greenhouse. His home is a tiny 8′ by 16′ tiny house specially built to survive the extreme heat the southwestern Texas desert can deliver. His greenhouse will be made from shipping containers with a roof of welded steel trusses. He’s doing all the work himself including raising the giant handmade steel trusses into place. Be sure to watch this video on YouTube that shows how he lifts one of the trusses into place.

The Field Lab

Here’s a cool idea for a tiny house community; a tiny underground house community. I’m particularly fond of tiny underground house concepts but we don’t see too many of them.

Save Mother Earth: Live In The Environment Friendly Earth House

My friend Kent Griswold took a drive over to Jay Shafer’s place to photograph the latest Tumbleweed Tiny House under construction. These photos are hot off the press. There are now over 30 pages of construction photos of this tiny house and I suggest starting with the most recent photos and work your way backwards.

This is also the house Jay is planning on taking on his coast-to-coast tour. He’s going to take this tiny house from San Francisco to New York and is scheduled to begin May 25, 2009. Visit Tiny House Journal to see more tiny houses under construction. Photo credit Kent Griswold.

One of my newest favorite blogs is The Good Human. It’s filled with great advice and information on living simply, sustainably, and self-sufficiently. While is is not directly about tiny houses it is a great blog for those of us looking to simplify and improve our lives. This recent article caught my eye. The six R’s of being green are: RECYCLE, RECLAIM, REPROCESS, REUSE, REAP REWARDS, OR REDUCE. Read the complete article a The Good Human.

Heather at The Greenest Dollar posted a great article on how to size a solar system last week. It’s not a simple thing to calculate because there are so many variables to consider, but this article does a great job of summarizing what you need to know. If you’re looking for a good place to start learning about solar powering your home and saving money visit The Greenest Dollar.

Recently Stephanie at Coming Unmoored visited the Phoenix Earthship in Taos, New Mexico. Earthships were born out of the imagination and ingenuity of Mike Reynolds. These homes are build from tires, dirt, and natural and recycled materials. They are passive solar and use thermal mass to regulate temperature. You can learn more at the Earthship website and read about Stephanie’s stay at the Phoenix Earthship. Technically this is not a tiny house but this would be a wonderful way to build a tiny house.

Now tiny houses have very small roofs so you’d have to live in a very wet climate to really be able to harvest enough water to meet all your needs, but here’s a great way to harvest and filter at least some of your water. Visit green book publisher Chelsea Green for more information on harvesting rainwater with sand filters and the book The Carbon-Free Home: 36 Remodeling Projects to Help Kick the Fossil-Fuel Habit.

A related story was posted on The Good Human this past week that asked the question Just How Much Rainwater Can You Collect Off Your Roof?