Additions to Lea's Tiny House This is a twin-wall polycarbonate and aluminum kit greenhouse from FarmTec. This is a new roof overhang, before finishing soffits, fascia, and snow-load bracing.
This is the new north-side porch just getting its steel roofing. Bob's up top. This is the start of the northwest-side root cellar, showing stacked 4 block getting ready to be filled with concrete and then surface-bonded on both sides. The flooring became 8 -by-16 patio blocks.
Here's the root cellar with Lea in it. The blocks are bonded, insulated with 2-inch foam, covered with aluminum, and the top is being framed with 2-by-8s to make a pantry floor with an access hatch. These are two shots of the County-approved, 2-stage, passive solar heated outhouse. The south side collector is shown at left and the access door is shown at the right, before getting steps. One of the composting barrel access doors can be seen also, before getting painted.
This is a drawing showing how Lea's composting outhouse works. Sun hits the left (sunny) side of the outhouse and travels through a recycled glass window, striking a sheet of black-painted aluminum. The aluminum is nailed in place between two air-spaces, each about 1.75 inches thick. Cool outdoor air enters at the base of the composter, flowing through two 4-inch holes that have stainless steel screen on them. It travels through a short, 4-inch, PVC pipe into the right air-space, formed by the metal sheet and a piece of half-inch plywood. The air is heated by the metal sheet and rises over the top of the plywood into the composting chamber. Cool, moist air drops to the bottom of the chamber and flows through two more 4-inch PVC pipes into the left air-space, formed by the metal sheet and the window. Actually, the 4 PVC pipes all lie at the very bottom of the chamber, not above and below as shown. Again the air is heated and rises to flow out a screened T fitting in a 4-inch PVC chimney. This design is for our County zoning regulations which require a watertight container, and is adapted from a composter I first built in 1979. Two thick plastic barrels sit in the insulated composting chamber, one being filled by feces/urine and the other composting and drying in place. The insulation used inside the chamber is Reflectix-brand double bubble/foil. Access is through two plywood doors.
This shows the site after leveling with a borrowed Bobcat and spreading a few inches of washed, crushed rock. It also shows the ramp used to tow the trailer down onto the site. The porch floor. It's 2-inch foam over the washed rock, with 2-inch paving blocks laid over it to make a flat surface. This runs as far as the pantry/root-cellar, then the pantry floor is about 14 higher.
This shows the pantry siding going up in early spring of 2011. Note that the hitch on the trailer has been cut off except for the area containing the front jack and a steel shelf. And this second photo, from another angle shows the entryway about to get its siding. Soon the entire remainder of the north side will become a screened porch with glass combination windows all-round.
It is now October of 2011 and here are some shots of the nearly finished porch with all of the windows, doors and siding in place, and a cat door just to the right of the door, added so the kitties can get away from the coyotes. The first is shot from the northeast and shows the clear roofing above the porch door. And this shot is from the northwest, showing the steps up from the outhouse, the porch and pantry windows and siding, and the start of the rainwater collection system, including the polyethylene pipes from the eaves, the current rain barrel, and one of the stainless tanks that will eventually be insulated inside a small attached shed on the west side of the pantry and house.
And this is a drawing of Lea's fresh air exchange system, utilizing her small wood-stove to draw fresh warm air into the house. Stale, cool, moist room air is drawn into the stove inlet on the right for combustion. Hot flue gases exit out the back of the stove into a 5-to-6 inch pipe reducer and then into a 6-inch pipe elbow, suspended in the 8-inch pipe surrounding it by three quarter-inch bolts and nuts. Cold, dry, fresh air from outside is drawn into the 4-inch, screened outdoor vent by the partial vacuum created as room air is evacuated from the house. The 4-inch duct is surrounded by Reflectix-brand, bubble-wrap foil insulation. The fresh cold air enters the 8-inch pipe at the hottest point in the chimney, where it interacts with the hot 6-inch stovepipe, gets quickly heated, rises, and exits the top of the 8inch pipe into the room. The 6-inch pipe goes up through a mounting box at the ceiling where the box supports two sections of insulated metal stovepipe, each 3 feet tall. If you would like more detail on how I designed the corners of the house to be better insulated while maintaining a high level of structural support, just click this link for another free PDF which shows the design of the building corners as seen from above.