[frankthetank]

Why is there such a need for even 1000 sq ft houses? I don't get it. I measured my living room (roughly 200 sq ft) and i could live within those walls, no problem. Frame in a SMALL bathroom (stand up shower, little crapper, little sink) and frame in a small kitchen area (island?) and get a bed that can fold into the wall or something. Put it on insulated slab. Small woodstove in the corner. Little mini fridge? Portable electric burner (screw a microwave/oven).

I just seem to pile junk i don't need in areas of my house that i don't occupy regularly (areas include the whole basement/spare bedroom/closets).

I do think that if you went the small house route, you would need a garage or pole barn or big shed. Maybe even have a greenhouse built on to the south end of the mini house?

Any thoughts on why you live in such a big house? I bought my house because it was small (compared to everything else), good price and decent location (near the city). I wish it was MUCH smaller, after living here for 2 years.

Maybe its just a woman thing?

In the REAL WORLD (we currently live in oil rich fantasy land) wouldn't we all be living in high rise efficiency apartments heated by nuclear power?



My dream house above in the Rocky Mtns.

[PrairieMule]

Our family ranch house has about 700sq ft. It's very cozy but livable. Any more than 3 people can get down right crowded.


The interior is fairly spartan and has little clutter. I think the key to living in a smaller place is to lose the material junk that clutters our lives.

[frankthetank]

I think for me it goes back to my first time deer hunting. We stayed in a little cabin back in the woods (wood heat, no electricity, no shitter) and i LOVED it! It was a log cabin, very rustic. I remember sleeping up in the loft area and i was sweating my nuts off! and it was cold and snowy outside. Next day i shot my first deer and later that day i saw an albino whitetail.

That place you have is gorgeous. You're lucky.

[PrairieMule]

I too have fond little memories of a tiny little shack.

When I was four, my Dad and I put a Kenco aluminum shed with 2 windows on a small acreage in Arkansas. He paid $300(including delivery) in 1974. It's still standing today. Over time we put in a wood stove, a tin bathtub, and bunk beds. We had a tree fall on it in 1982 but we patched up the roof.

It was located deep in the Ouachita National forest. We would go up there and swim in the Little Missouri falls or fish out of our old grumman canoe. Funny you mentioned the loft. I too roasted on the top bunk from the heat but it ws a minor trade off.

[Cornelian]

I live in a large house, all by myself. I thought nothing off it - I loved the space - but all of a sudden I had people harping at me about it. There must be an unwritten law about individuals and space. My heating bills are low - I only ever heat the room I am using, and then often not if another sweater will suffice, but man I love the space. I don't have a problem with it at all, and no, I do not yearn to live in something cramped. It is a Victorian house and built for the non-powered age - it takes every advantage of passive solar heating - so it suits what is coming perfectly.

I would have gone for something smaller ... but this was the only house which came with acreage in the area in which I wanted to buy - my view has been always I lucked out with the space.

When I was a child my father and I lived in a tiny tiny caravan for a bit. Do I want to go back to it? No way. LOL It was abysmal. There are no rosy romantic memories.

[frankthetank]

A buddy has an old "jon" boat (aluminum flat bottomed boat) that is an "Ouachita". I swear its from the 60's, must have been made down there somewhere.

Tin tub? Did you heat the water somehow?

Maybe in California or in a Mediterranean climate, where heating/cooling concerns would be null, then having a large sq footage home would matter. Anywhere that requires a lot of heat/lot of cooling, it would seem to reason that smaller would be better (cheaper!).

Take an equally built structure and figure if:

500 sq ft=1 cord of wood a winter
1000 sq ft=2 cord of wood a winter
1500 sq ft=3 cord of wood a winter
???? Totally made those up, but just to give an idea.
You could probably heat up a little place with twigs (actually a pellet stove might make sense, they can really be cranked down to burn just enough to maintain a flame).

I once went to Home Depot and walked through all their sheds wondering what one would suit me well for living in!

[frankthetank]

Cornelian-

I think MOST of it depends on personality. Very VERY few people i know (none?) would agree with me. In this country, size RULES. The climate here in southwest WI is one that REQUIRES heat and enough of it and the past few years, A/C and quite a bit of that too. We normally have quite a few days when the dewpoint exceeds 70F (STICKY) and its miserable trying to sleep without A/C.

The mess we're in is directly tied to these huge tracks of McMansions with 4 people living in them or sometimes less!. Sure they might be well insulated, efficient. They still require more energy to build/maintain, use up more land, are farther away from cities due to that land requirement and generally speaking, look hideous (vinyl siding should have never been invented).

Wouldn't suprise me one bit if cardboard box houses become popular in the near future!

[culicomorpha]

frankthetank,

I have friends who converted a 40ft insulated shipping container, which is something under 400sq ft for two people. That's not the only space around, but if much of your day is spent outside, then you don't need as much space inside. Great solar siting too, so heating needs are minimal and mainly at night.

There are pretty huge energy savings by going smaller, but as the Stealth PO House thread seems to show, there is a limited amount of compromise most people are willing to tolerate until it energy costs start really hurting. When things get worse, people will close off rooms, use electric and space heaters, and just keep the rest of the house warm enough to avoid freezing pipes (in cold climates). Maybe they'll add other folks so they can afford to heat these places?

I never had kids, but when I was growing up I had a hard time being in the same room with my parents at times. I think single room buildings would be challenging for say families with teens. As for whether it is a woman thing, I don't think so because it seems that the reason most people want bigger houses isn't for any rational reason, it's because they are competing with the Jones'. So it seems to be more about class and status than gender. Also, plenty of women (and men) live in trailers.

[peaker_2005]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', '
')
My dream house above in the Rocky Mtns.

[frankthetank]

I once TRIED living with my sister. I still am pissed and its been 10 years!

I've read this guys blog for about a year now. Very interesting (smart) man. Pig farmer in Vermont. Building himself a 252 sq ft superstructure for a family of 5!
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/blog/

Some more pics of homes i could do with. Luckily i have a VERY tolerant wife, who would probably go along with it. I once told her we could have riverfront property......if we moved into a van and parked it down at the boat landing! She wasn't amused.




We get to -30F here sometimes (thats like -25C?).

Is that shipping container insulated? Moisture would be a big problem and thermal bridging, if it wasn't insulated. Metal is NOT good insulation! Although i think you are in a mild climate.

Europe:



USA:

[s]

[culicomorpha]

Yikes. 252 square feet? I saw it but it's hard to believe when the kids are teens that will work.

I love the little log cabin. I would be totally thrilled with that. Cozy and small is great, especially when you have to chop the firewood yourself!

Yep, the container is insulated. The insulation seems to actually work pretty well. The uninsulated containers are pretty much R zero, although I was contemplating using an uninsulated container and putting up strawbale around that, slapping on a roof, and the whole deal would be well under $10k, including placing the container. I have that part all figured out as well as all the other systems. All I really need is enough $$$ to buy land to put it on.

[thuja]

My wife and I live in a 1600 square foot house and used to rent out one of the rooms for 5 years. When we had a kid we took over the whole house and I enjoy the size of it. We only heat where we are- so we use a combination of mostly wood heat and a little electrical heat in the bedrooms on a cold winter night.

By the way, we bought one of those tuff sheds from Home Depot back before I knew how to build one well...

200 square feet rectangle- I put in the skylights, some windows, some pergo flooring, and wired it for lights and heat- then shingled it.

Now my wife uses it as an office for acupuncture-

I bet we could live out there if we had to- its a pretty sweet space.

[IslandCrow]

Good question. The house I am in now is too big for my use, but it was going cheap. It was well maintained and half to one third the price of small summer cottages nearby. Given my financial situation there was no choice. And I think it is a good place to be in the transition from cheap energy to reduced oil supplies.

It would be too big in a situation of almost no oil supplies... I probably should be looking at something like the old farm labourers cottages (quaintly called the equivalent of "Grandma's cottages"). Two rooms (kitchen, and living/bed room), with wood heating in both. Somehow I would want to fit in a small room for toilet/washing, as I don't fancy an outhouse in the middle of winter (I've grown soft).

The alternative to the above, in a crash situation, is to have 3 more couples move in, then the house will not be too big!

[strider3700]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', '
')I think MOST of it depends on personality. Very VERY few people i know (none?) would agree with me. In this country, size RULES.

[Chuckmak]

The ranch my brother and I own is about 900 square feet. To quote Bugs Bunny, "But there's only ONE LITTLE TING wrong w/ it"...it's in the 'burbs.

[Revi]

Our house is in town and has around 1000 feet GLAAG. It's got all the space the three of us (and three pets) need. We've been putting solar on the outside instead of adding on. It's fun to have hot water provided by the sun for free.

Click on the pics to see the captions:

http://www.msad54.org/sahs/appliedarts/ ... /index.htm

[lawnchair]

900 square feet here, rented. We will be buying our own place soon... I've actually started to scope out the houses up for foreclosure auction each month.

900 is doable for the two of us, but would get dicey if a kid were coming. We get to be hobby people. My gf has a big-time paperback collection. I have a fair bit of gadgetry (some ham radio equipment, etc). A sewing nook, a spinning wheel, etc. More clothing and shoes than are conceivably necessary, though 99% purchased at garage sales or Goodwill. Plus a garage, with gardening equipment and my bicycle repair sideline.

The trick is, as mentioned, compartmentalized heat/cooling. If that's done right, a somewhat larger house is no crime.

My gf is more bothered than I by trying to sleep in heat. So, we do air-condition. But, we A/C one north-facing 100 square foot room with a window unit. The bed is lofted in that room with workspace (wireless laptops) below. In the hottest parts of the year, we largely retreat to that space. This means that our August electric consumption is more like 500 kWh a month instead of our usual 250. Still, a lot better than average, let alone Al Gore. An attic-mounted whole house exhaust fan for evenings is planned in our own house.

Heating is a bigger challenge. Traditionally, in a house with a woodstove, families slept in the room with the stove during cold nights (getting radiant heat as well). The problem with letting some of a modern house go cold is plumbing.

[frankthetank]

Golem-

Why must we burrow ourselves underground and hide from nature? In a winter storm (we had a monster last Feb) i was out in it, not hiding in my basement! A simple wood box house could be rebuilt even if damage was done to it.

I think a 16x16ft square box would suffice. Use 2x6's for extra insulation room, couple of south facing windows, metal roof, small loft area?, and maybe use cedar for exterior? Throw it on a couple of treated posts cemented into the ground?

[SpringCreekFarm]

Our house is just under 900 sq.ft and sometimes it gets cramped. I guess it doesn't help that I'm 280lbs! Oh well.

Hey if I were building a house it would be all on one level ( excluding the basement of course, which would be used as storage ) and would be a lot bigger. Bigger is ok if you can make it an energy efficient building.

I find cabins cozy and fun but not as a living space.

[frankthetank]

Springcreek-

I'm a beanpole! (around 140lbs) So maybe that has some to do with it. For some reason i've never been able to gain weight (my dad was over 200lbs, my brothers are all around 200).

I've got no problem with going underground (i like my basement), but its just expensive (energy wise) to move all that dirt around. Being an avid gardener and a hole digger i can honestly see why not having diesel machinery is going to be a huge pain in the ass sometime down the road (50 years?). Not to mention Radon (its bad in the midwest and it can vary a lot from spot to spot). Although i think you would build for that problem if it did exist (and you can test for it).

I think i found another sweet little pad.