Tiny House update

So, work on the tiny house idea continues. I've emailed the province regarding building codes and bylaws, and apparently for any structure under 50 square meters (about 600 sq feet) that is meant for overnight accommodations, although a permit is required, the permit is issued without an overview of detailed building plans. So as long as we stay under 600 square feet, we can build whatever we want (ignoring code where it is inconvenient) because the permit office will not be verifying plans nor visiting the structure for inspections. This is important because in many tiny houses, the sleeping loft is accessed by ladder, which takes much much less floor space than a code-approved set of stairs. The building plans I was working on last weekend were for a 500-ish square foot one room building, with a full set of 36 inch stairs. If we don't actually need those stairs anymore, our square footage can drop dramatically. In fact, the working plan right now is for an interior footprint of only 16 ' x 12 ' - truly a tiny house. Further, the by-laws require a full septic field only in the case of a building having running water. Since we planned on doing a compost toilet and collection of greywater for distribution on plants/garden, we didn't want a septic field. It costs a ton, and the installation is environmentally disruptive. Looks like as long as we don't have "running water", we can get around the need for a septic field. I feel I may prefer to interpret that caveat loosely...I would like simple plumbing to my sinks and bathtub fixtures, run by a Shur-flo water pump from a rain-fed cistern. I'm willing to risk some inspector coming around to our place, telling us that we need to remove the pump and haul the water from the cistern to the house by hand. Then I would just re-install the pump as soon as he left :)

So whereas my design from last weekend had all the amenities one would need, we are back down to the basics - which is actually what I had wanted to begin with. And with more flexible building requirements, we can actually do what we wanted to do for a tiny house.

The materials list, which we whipped up last night, includes about 5500.00 of material, not including windows or doors. This is high, but it is for a super-insulated building with 12" (staggered) exterior walls full of insulation, a post-and-beam foundation, using all new material. I don't even want to use fiberglass batts, but that's the only thing the hardware store carries so I just used that as a base price. Now that I know, I can compare it with wool/cotton/denim insulation or even spray foam insulation (Biobased doesn't have Canadian approval yet). I have also emailed a few ICF companies to get an idea on prices for that sort of building material too.

I've also started to scout for used/new but never used materials on some local websites. Reclaimed materials can be incorporated, provided they fit with the super-insulation theme we are going with. But bath fixtures, floorboards, interior doors, etc can all be re-used without a problem. This weekend I plan on visiting an old house being completely gutted by new owners (who happen to work in the same building as I do) to see what we may be able to salvage. There are gigantic beams available from a torn-down church just outside of town, and some mis-sized double pane windows from another construction job too. Exciting!