Author Archives: Laura

Here is the building code for Ontario, as it has to do with size.  This was provided to us by Ontario’s amazing tiny house researcher, Lulu Chan, who in turn got it from the Chief Building Official from Orillia, Ontario.

The attached (below) is both an interesting and sort of hard to read document which shows that Ontario building code will allow for homes to be built that are 239 square feet, plus a bathroom.

Orillia is open for any of you who are interested in purchasing land and putting up a house of this size.

Now for the rest of the province!

What does about 250 feet of well designed space look like?

A gorgeous 250 square foot floor plan

Sharporillia.ca_20160621_075510-2

Tiny House Ontario is looking so sweet these days.  I thought it was as good a time as any to share some updated photos.

Fruity table cloth – LOVE

Built a corner bench around the table in the cloth porch.  $112.

Bought an antique chamber pot for the in-house. $50

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   Tiny House Ontario

   Not much new in the kitchen.    Sofa and stonework with the wood stove (I am not happy with the stove)

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   Tiny House Ontario

Stairs

Exterior after the rain

Tiny House Ontario 2016

Tiny House Ontario

Entry corner.

HJ reading under the solar light in the cloth porch

Tiny House Ontario cloth porch reading by LED solar lights

Tiny House Ontario Loft

Bedroom

Tiny House Ontario, loft – bedroom, king bed and ceilings tall enough for me to stand under.

The Tiny Bad Wolf of Tiny House Ontario  😀  

• Rudigrrr Wolf at the table.
• 4/5ths of the dog pack waiting at the door

It has been a long while since I updated you on Guillaume’s tiny house.  I think the last time I did, it looked like this:

I don’t even think I let you know when his house looked like this:

I did not even fill you in when it was moved – which was pretty exciting!!!

Then last fall when I stopped to see him and the siding was being put on, I also did not update you!

And yet, the building went on.

The other day I popped over to see my Guillaume and his house.  Unfortunately, he was not there.

But..

I did find something unexpected!

A porch!!!

And with the exterior now finished, I am sure there will be lots happening inside there in 2016!

She is a beauty Guillaume!

Two weeks ago Jill wrote to me.  The note she sent was both surprising and hopeful.  In fact, it brings the tiny house movement in Ontario to the cusp of a new era!  We have finally had our first real, significant and open bite that Ontario has had from a community.  She enquired with the city and apparently, Kitchener is open to having a tiny house community, the only problem they have is that they have NOT been approached by a developer.  So… knock, knock, knocking now on the doors of developers!

If there were a community there, my husband and I would seriously consider this.  We are currently still tied to this area, because of my husband’s work, so it would mean selling our house and building another tiny house to live in.  My list of wants for a tiny house community would be: A central shared building with laundry, a full kitchen and common room for community gatherings, a classroom and a guest room or two so that we could run classes.  Full hookups for sewage, water and power (even if we choose not to use them), a community garden space, private fenced lots of roughly between 15x 30 and 30x 50 feet for each house (good fences make good neighbours and they also keep pets safe), and I think each lost should have a shed for storing off season clothing, sports equipment, hobby and outdoor items, gardening tools.

Personally, I would also like to be a part owner in such a development.  In that, I would not like to lease or pay rent on the land for the rest of my life.  I would strongly prefer for all of us who would potentially live there to be the land owners.  What I mean is that I would like the developer to organize this in such a way that the lots are each privately owned and that we each own a share of the common spaces and everything is decided through the voice of a common not for profit board, similar to a condominium structure, which is to say that we would still have a fee to pay for common needs such as building repairs to the common structure, snow plowing, land taxes and all other common expenses of the community.

SAMPLE TINY HOUSE COMMUNITIES

A few questions:

1. How many of you would be in the VERY SERIOUS financial position to consider living in a tiny house in Kitchener?
2. How many of you would be in the SEMI SERIOUS financial position to consider living a tiny house in Kitchener?
3. How many of you would be in the position for a lease to own position for considering living a tiny house in Kitchener (good credit rating, for a mortgage and leasing space)?
4. If you were able to answer yes to any of the three questions above – then what would you want from a tiny house development?  Do your desires differ greatly from my personal needs that are listed above?

Lastly… Do any of you know a developer who would be interested???

If you don’t know the city, here is some information About Kitchener

Every once in a while I stumble on an idea that blows me away in its simplicity and design. Yesterday on Facebook I posted about a pint sized air conditioner that seems to be small enough to be practical for an on grid tiny house (or one that is producing adequate solar power for 110).

But this morning I started googling and I came across a very interesting post.  It seems that we silly wasteful humans have gotten yet another thing wrong.

Why don’t we have single units that take care of our heating, cooling, refrigeration and hot water heating?  SAY WHAT?

Did you know that we could be heating our water while we cool?  And I suppose we could also be cooling our food while we heat?  Even though this will be a no brainer for you science and electronics folks, I had no idea, and I think I am not alone.  But the question is… why have you science and electronics folks NOT fixed it so that we have systems that save power and money?  We need that!

tiny air conditioner

This morning I learned that during air conditioning, the heat and the cold are simply exchanged.  That is in essence all that happens inside these machines.  More specifically, in a window air conditioner, the air is put through the machine and the heat both that of the machine and the air are sent to coils in the back and there is a fan that blows against the coils and this sends that air out the window.  But the coils themselves are enclosed… so there is no need for this to happen.  The coils can just as easily be sent to an adjacent water heater and or a hot tub.  (see below video)

Hybrid air and water heater

The same principal, I think would work for cooling, in the winter the air could, I am sure be exchanged so that the air becomes warm and the cooling is sent to a refrigerator.  It would only be during moderate times or excessive cold or heat that one would need to use power beyond that of running the machine and I would hazard to guess that you only need power to cover the loss (the rules of hydrodynamics) and to run the machine.

How to reuse your refrigerators heat

A system like this would be ideal for a tiny house.  Three units all stacked on top of one another like a little birthday cake to take care of our water, heating and cooling needs.

After thinking about this – I learned that I am not the only one who has wondered about this… Someone else with this Q & A… BUT none of these folks were thinking about it in terms of use for tiny or right sized homes.  We have much smaller needs.

Anyone with thoughts on this?  Could it work?