Aspies For Freedom

Full Version: TINY HOUSES (useful for autfinity project?)
You're currently viewing a stripped down version of our content. View the full version with proper formatting.
This is not my style, as realistically I always need a lot of space to store my "just in case" stuff and crafts supplies.

But it might be interesting for some people who are less chaotic than me... And it seems like tiny houses and islands kinda go together, no?

Quote:
The Big Idea Behind Tiny Houses
SEBASTOPOL, Calif., July 10, 2006(CBS) In a nation where homes have been getting steadily larger for decades, Jay Shafer thinks "cozy" may be ready for a comeback.

As CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports, Shafer builds and designs tiny houses — and lives in one himself.

"The small space is a symbol of something else," Shafer says. "I think it's a symbol of a desire for a more simple life."

The founder of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, Shafer has become a sort of guru to a small house movement. For those who have little need for elbow room, he has a whole catalogue of tiny houses. At $20,000 to $40,000 apiece, he'll build and deliver them almost anywhere.

At just 100 square feet, his own house is little bigger than many bathrooms.

Shafer explains, "I have been using the word 'claustrophile' to describe myself and people like me. Turns out I'm not the only person interested in living in smaller spaces."

Arguing in favor of small houses, he notes the time that's required to maintain and clean a large space, and the costs of heat and other utilities.

Some might say living as he does would be lonely, though Shafer says he shared a small house with his ex-fiancée last year.

Ex-fiancée?

"A month of living in a 70 square-foot house with two people, it's pretty rough," Shafer concedes.

His houses have been suggested as an alternative to the much-less-homey FEMA trailers provided to hurricane survivors.

Says Shafer, "People generally don’t think I’m crazy anymore. Whether I am or not, they generally don’t say so."

©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/07/1...9766.shtml

Cute, be a nice playhouse for kids, lol.
lol, would not fit some aspies network gear into one of those let alone the hardware and the person.
which is why i privately suggested to amy the use of static caravans for a gated aspie community, much cheaper than bricks and mortar whilst still being reliatively expensive
is a "static caravan" like a mobile home?

That's what my husband and I are trying to get.  :roll:  the american dream, downgraded.  

but it suddenly doesn't look so bad, as we are in a part of the southeast where there are relatively few hurricanes.
I live in a high rise building.  I do not mind it.  I do not enjoy gardening.  We have a pool and exercise room which I can use when no one else is around.  

The problem with small houses is real estate costs.  Urban living is better because there is access to services and often public transportation.  Living in a caravan/trailer park or on a boat is a problem because of sewage and noise.  Also neighbours complaining about the state of the yard or property around the building and even the fence, vegetation planted and use of the yard for entertaining.  Too many people complaining about junk in the yard or the lawn not being cut or garden weeded.  

My building is very very quiet.  We can keep the inside of our unit as messy or tidy as we please.

Natalia Wrote:
is a "static caravan" like a mobile home?

That's what my husband and I are trying to get.  :roll:  the american dream, downgraded.  

but it suddenly doesn't look so bad, as we are in a part of the southeast where there are relatively few hurricanes.


yeah mobile home, they're not all trailer trash nowerdays..some modern british models look quite good




yeah i know it looks a bit crap, but its a good, reliatively cheap stop gap solution

Ian

Yeah, this is the kind we are looking at:
(large photo)

http://www.livingpictures.org/imagesprop...home2W.jpg
I have another idea, huge basements. Two stories of basement would give a good amount of living space (with a small house above), and you wouldn't have to use cooling or heating; as the temperature would be stable year round.

Logical paradox Wrote:
I have another idea, huge basements. Two stories of basement would give a good amount of living space (with a small house above), and you wouldn't have to use cooling or heating; as the temperature would be stable year round.


troglodytes! yay!!!!!

My room is in the basement  :wink: .
That is a good point about the underground idea as earth is an incredably good insulator it does make energy costs extremely low, especially if you add a heat exchanger to the ventilation system which would be required to ensure an adequite supply of fresh oxygenated air and removal of stale air, as heat exchangers use very small ammounts of energy but work in such a way to transfer the heat from the stale air going out to the fresh air going in so it cools the old air and warms the fresh air.

The concept works in a similar way actually to the blood flow into and back from our limbs like arms and legs, run the hot blood from the body in the opposite direction in parrallel and close contact with the blood flowing out, thus keeping more of the heat in our core than the extremeties which loose far too much heat otherwise, same concept with the house but with air instead, what is even better is because they simply work on heat gradients in a very hot summer the exchanger works the other way, cooling the air comming in and expelling the excess heat from it in order to maintain relativly comfortable internal temperatures.

This way the need for artifical heating would be extremely low, maybe combine the system with a series of pipes to heat water somewhere above the house and an ability to circulate that around the house just like a central heating system may work, after all even winter sunlight does produce a reasonable amount of energy if you can capture this quite efficiantly and then keep that same energy where you want it.
The only problem about underground, especially on an island, could be that you would have a lot of ... seepage? leakage? ... problems, which might interfere with our fairly common tendency to collect (hoard) books and/or technology.

But maybe there is some way to deal with that, such as channeling the water in some way back out, or actually using it to do something else... not sure on the specifics here...

Edit:  other than that, i like the troglodyte idea.
That trailer home in an earlier picture looked okay on the sides but I would have liked to see some bigger windows on the front and some stripy awnings over the windows to keep out the sun more. Otherwise, they could become a real little hot box in the summer.

It would be nice to have rounded modular homes a bit like those in the Flintstones cartoon but a bit more sophisticated.

Depends where you have the island but if it is a tropical island, you need plenty of shade and air flow to keep the place cool and well ventilated.

100 square metres is small for a house but I'm not sure if my place is all that much bigger. The bathroom on my house is an old army hut that was put up on stilts and attached to the house with a small back verandah.

I do think if people whinge about grass not being cut they can always offer to help cut it. There is often a reason people don't get their grass cut. They might not have a mower or it mightn't work and they can't afford to get it fixed. It doesn't necessarily mean laziness:
They are also called "demountables" in Australia and quite a lot of "demountable" classrooms still exist in Aussie schools. They were meant to be temporary but some are over 30 years old.
Pages: 1 2
Reference URL's