Our wood stove

After much debate and discussion, we decided to go with a very small wood stove made for heating a boat for the tiny house. Although the precision of a propane heater was appealing, we really wanted something that we gentler on natural resources, allowing us to use small, fallen branches to fuel it instead of dangerously harvested fuels. Jeff has plans to alter the exhaust to get some of the benefits of a rocket stove, but that is still being ironed out.

Like many other house finds, we bought this off of Craig's List from a nice man in Seattle who had formerly used it in his sailboat. Ironically, he is building a tiny house in his backyard as well! :) You have to love the Pacific Northwest!

Can I just say....It is adorable!

As you can see, it was locally made in Seattle by a company that unfortunately no longer exists.

It can be open to the grate or that door can slide down to cover the grate completely when burning.

We will post updates on how it works, I know a lot of folks are hesitant to use wood fuel in the city but we are excited about making it as efficient as possible!

-M.

Searching for a home for the tiny house....

We are now officially only two months away from needing a yard/property to live in our tiny house, and it is time to start searching hard for a location for our little home.

Please take the time to share our flyer with your friends and family to see if they know of someone who has a yard that would be suitable for our home and might be interested in hosting it. We both work in the Hilltop neighborhood of Tacoma so we are hoping to find a home for our wee house within a 30 minute bike ride from that area (about 5 miles).

Thanks so much for supporting us on our journey by sharing this!

-M.

Tongue action

So today I spent the morning at our local home depot trying to pretend I'm a plumber.  I got some PEX tubing and different connectors to start the plumbing and a few other stuff for the electrical but we will write more about that tomorrow.  I made it out to the house and got to work on the tongue box that will house our propane tank, hot water heater, battery bank, and the other solar system regulators/inverters.  I have been looking forward to this for a while because, to me, its the first step in actually installing our solar system.  (Thats a lot of dollars and a lot of days down the road though)

I made a 2'x51" box and then used 2 layers of garden fencing to wrap around the bottom.  The reason for this is the let the air circulate a little bit better within the tongue box. 

On the left are three shelfs where the battery bank, inverter, and electrical box will be.  On the right is where the propane tank and hot water heater will reside.  

Another shot of the water heaters house.  

This is right up next to the bathroom window, which wont necessarily make for a good view...

Despite the appearance, it is not a chicken coop...

Tomorrow, I will try and wrap it with felt, and put the metal roofing on.  Maybe even the two doors that will be on the front.  

-Jeff 

 

Flying solo

Jeff worked on his own this weekend while I was visiting my best friend in Spokane before she moves to Texas. (Thanks for the great visit Kati! Love you guys!) He replaced the window with the bad seal, he ended up using a slightly smaller window so he had to re-frame the space. He found it on craig's list so it was repurposed, but with a good seal of course! :)

So it's official, we have zero matching windows in the whole house.

In the picture above, you can see the beginning of the bathroom wall framing up.

Interior with the new window in, you can see the added framing below it which Jeff had to add.

The final window all sealed up!

Jeff also installed the rest of the electrical outlets and light boxes, but hasn't run the wire yet. We'll post more information about the electrical plan and pictures later this week.

-M.