My eviction notice in North County San Diego happened to be God sent, the first of many perfectly timed synchronicities that would occur during the course of this tiny house experience.
I had thought that my design was pretty well worked out in the 2 months that I started planning. After all, I'm a CAD designer, this stuff should come naturally right? And I did work construction for a few summers with my uncle while in high school. Now that I have time to start picking apart my plans while I look for a new build site, I start realizing how much the end product needs to be in mind with every decision in a tiny house. It's like trying to cram a thousand piece puzzle of the standard American house into a little glass bottle as if it were one of those ships in a bottle. Every time a house component shifts an inch, all of the other adjacent items need to be reevaluated for clearance requirements and code compliance's, we'll at least if you care about those things.
There's thousands of internet sites dedicated to tiny houses. At first, everything I read, I took as the best method. Then there was a realization that contradictions were running rampant on the interweb of tiny houses. Most of the tiny house content is created by 1st time builders, not contractors. I was finding a wealth of knowledge in the comment sections brought up by contractors about unsound structural design, improper flashing, and photos of propane devices with inadequate clearances. These people commenting were called out as haters many times as there were pointing out flaws in design and construction. More times than not, I found out what the real truth in construction methods are and glad I was able to work out the bugs in my design before starting. Lets make it clear that I'm not saying that unqualified people shouldn't be building houses or writing about them. If that was the case, I shouldn't be building neither. What I am saying is take a lot of the tiny house content you find on line with a grain of salt. As much as we hate to admit, sometimes assholes are right. If someone tries to put your design down in a belittling way, take a breath and listen to what they say. It could save thousands of dollars in your investment. You don't need to be friends with them, but a healthy respect could make your build go smoother. My advise, read the comments as your researching and constantly humble yourself about what you know. Realize that you're at least somewhat blind and may possibly being lead by another blind.
We all have our own reasons for building a tiny house. Financially, get out of the consumer game, start a new revolution, tiny houses are cute. There's no shortage of reasons that people go at this. I've always wanted to build my own house. I also want to create an aesthetically pleasing and functional living space that nurtures all of my day to day needs. So on the one end of the movement, you can choose to have all the freedom you want since a tiny house can be built without permitting fees and compliance. Tiny houses, technically are illegal to live in since it's considered a temporary structure (which we all agree is a ridiculous law!). The ability to take creative chances on tiny house compared to a standard house is very appealing to me, but there are parts of that bother me about having that absolute freedom. A lot of codes are very rational decisions for the safety of tenants and protect potential tiny house buyers from getting a lemon of an rouge house. Then again, a lot of codes are outdated and irrational, so I choose to build an illegal structure to live in permanently anyways, but my compromise it to attempt to have it RVIA certified. I'm working with PWA, who is an independent 3rd party certification company. I want at very least to build a safe dwelling unit for myself. Too many times, I've seen propane heaters and devices without adequate clearance requirements in photos for tiny house. I've already lost money on a on-demand hot water propane heater because I couldn't meet the manufacturers clearance requirements. I couldn't return it and took a loose on that product. Let's face it, unless you're building your house out of metal studs and caked in flame retardant materials, your house is just a tinder box waiting to happen. Living in San Diego and seeing three large fires take out thousands of houses in the last decade, I'm sensitive to the situation.
OK, I'm done with my ranting of the problems within the tiny house movement. I understand this is still in its infancy and will only get better. Despite all my bashing, I also realize that there is an insane amount of free knowledge accessible through a few typed words on google. I couldn't image trying to do this even ten years ago. I'll go into the specifics of my design decisions throughout the build pages
So 3 weeks go by after my eviction. I'm at work researching potential build sites. Just by coincidence my co worker, Gabe, passes as I'm looking up warehouse space on Craigslist to build on and he inquires what I'm doing. Minutes later he says "I have a large concrete driveway and a storage shed for tools. Not sure if it will work out for you, but you can check it out and see what you think." I see it that weekend. Perfect! 15 foot wide by 30 foot long of flat concrete driveway to build on and a storage shed that's plenty large to store all my tools, is half the commute to my work, and happens to have an extra bedroom for rent. I make plans to move in 3 weeks and begin.
I had thought that my design was pretty well worked out in the 2 months that I started planning. After all, I'm a CAD designer, this stuff should come naturally right? And I did work construction for a few summers with my uncle while in high school. Now that I have time to start picking apart my plans while I look for a new build site, I start realizing how much the end product needs to be in mind with every decision in a tiny house. It's like trying to cram a thousand piece puzzle of the standard American house into a little glass bottle as if it were one of those ships in a bottle. Every time a house component shifts an inch, all of the other adjacent items need to be reevaluated for clearance requirements and code compliance's, we'll at least if you care about those things.
There's thousands of internet sites dedicated to tiny houses. At first, everything I read, I took as the best method. Then there was a realization that contradictions were running rampant on the interweb of tiny houses. Most of the tiny house content is created by 1st time builders, not contractors. I was finding a wealth of knowledge in the comment sections brought up by contractors about unsound structural design, improper flashing, and photos of propane devices with inadequate clearances. These people commenting were called out as haters many times as there were pointing out flaws in design and construction. More times than not, I found out what the real truth in construction methods are and glad I was able to work out the bugs in my design before starting. Lets make it clear that I'm not saying that unqualified people shouldn't be building houses or writing about them. If that was the case, I shouldn't be building neither. What I am saying is take a lot of the tiny house content you find on line with a grain of salt. As much as we hate to admit, sometimes assholes are right. If someone tries to put your design down in a belittling way, take a breath and listen to what they say. It could save thousands of dollars in your investment. You don't need to be friends with them, but a healthy respect could make your build go smoother. My advise, read the comments as your researching and constantly humble yourself about what you know. Realize that you're at least somewhat blind and may possibly being lead by another blind.
We all have our own reasons for building a tiny house. Financially, get out of the consumer game, start a new revolution, tiny houses are cute. There's no shortage of reasons that people go at this. I've always wanted to build my own house. I also want to create an aesthetically pleasing and functional living space that nurtures all of my day to day needs. So on the one end of the movement, you can choose to have all the freedom you want since a tiny house can be built without permitting fees and compliance. Tiny houses, technically are illegal to live in since it's considered a temporary structure (which we all agree is a ridiculous law!). The ability to take creative chances on tiny house compared to a standard house is very appealing to me, but there are parts of that bother me about having that absolute freedom. A lot of codes are very rational decisions for the safety of tenants and protect potential tiny house buyers from getting a lemon of an rouge house. Then again, a lot of codes are outdated and irrational, so I choose to build an illegal structure to live in permanently anyways, but my compromise it to attempt to have it RVIA certified. I'm working with PWA, who is an independent 3rd party certification company. I want at very least to build a safe dwelling unit for myself. Too many times, I've seen propane heaters and devices without adequate clearance requirements in photos for tiny house. I've already lost money on a on-demand hot water propane heater because I couldn't meet the manufacturers clearance requirements. I couldn't return it and took a loose on that product. Let's face it, unless you're building your house out of metal studs and caked in flame retardant materials, your house is just a tinder box waiting to happen. Living in San Diego and seeing three large fires take out thousands of houses in the last decade, I'm sensitive to the situation.
OK, I'm done with my ranting of the problems within the tiny house movement. I understand this is still in its infancy and will only get better. Despite all my bashing, I also realize that there is an insane amount of free knowledge accessible through a few typed words on google. I couldn't image trying to do this even ten years ago. I'll go into the specifics of my design decisions throughout the build pages
So 3 weeks go by after my eviction. I'm at work researching potential build sites. Just by coincidence my co worker, Gabe, passes as I'm looking up warehouse space on Craigslist to build on and he inquires what I'm doing. Minutes later he says "I have a large concrete driveway and a storage shed for tools. Not sure if it will work out for you, but you can check it out and see what you think." I see it that weekend. Perfect! 15 foot wide by 30 foot long of flat concrete driveway to build on and a storage shed that's plenty large to store all my tools, is half the commute to my work, and happens to have an extra bedroom for rent. I make plans to move in 3 weeks and begin.