The following is a guest post from Michael Tobias, PE, LEED AP, CEM, Founder of New York Engineers. The basic requirement for a net zero tiny house is generating enough energy to fully cover its usage. To achieve this, the tiny house must first be designed to consume as little energy as possible, and then […]
Category Archives: Construction Method
04
Jun
Jun
Here’s a new approach that will likely become the best way to build your own tiny home in the very near future – a self-build kit. Leading the charge is Volstrukt, a tiny house frame builder in Austin, Texas. Using start of the art FRAMECAD machines, Volstrukt is literally printing tiny house framing in steel. In just a […]
03
Jan
Jan
Mat & Danielle at Exploring Alternatives get a tour of a small shipping container home in British Columbia. It was built by the folks at HoneyBox, a home builder and shipping container supplier. This house was made from three 20-foot containers that have been attached using standard container connectors. It’s completely off-grid, has a small […]
27
Dec
Dec
While I tend to focus on tiny houses on wheels, if you don’t need mobility and want 100% natural building materials, consider tiny earthen buildings. In the video below the folks at Exploring Alternatives visit with Bryce from Dreamweavers Collective to learn about cob. Cob is just one of the earthen building options. It’s essentially a […]
19
Nov
Nov
Kirsten Dirksen recently visited Shiah Lints and his 20-foot container home in Winthrop, Washington. He downsized from a 2,500 square foot farmhouse into an 8×20 shipping container home he built himself. The shipping container he chose was a bit different than a standard container with doors on an end. In addition the normal door on […]
01
Aug
Aug
While steel tiny houses are not usually the do-it-yourselfer’s first choice (due to the learning curve) and new option for building steel tiny house frames is taking root. I use the term ‘new option’ loosely. The first year I began blogging about the tiny house movement (2008) I met a fellow named Bill who was […]
03
May
May
The construction cost of the printed house pictured here was $10,134 – approximately $275 per square meter. It was made by Apis Cor. in Russia. The 3D printer prints self-bearing walls and partitions. Workers monitor the progress, but the printer does the heavy lifting. The printer itself is easily transportable, placed on the worksite and even controls the mixture of concrete […]
04
Oct
Oct
My friend Kent Griswold is in town attending a straw bale building workshop taught by Andrew Morrison. I stopped by for a look, snapped a few photos, and got the inside scoop from Kent. The seven day long hands-on workshop lets you get down & dirty, and delivers not only the information but the experience […]
15
Aug
Aug
Patrick and Lacy have finished all the CNC milling of their WikiHouse based house and are now assembling it in Utah. They funded the FOUNDhouse project using the crowdfunding website Kickstarter. They will live in the house on the Navajo Reservation while participating in a semester long project to help build a home for a Navajo family […]
29
Apr
Apr
As if it really needed specific mention, wood is a truly precious building resource. Finding new ways to preserve this resource, to be frugal with its use, but to still take advantage of the excellent properties of wood in our home building is a great concern. The use of timbers in building has a long […]