• Marsha Cowan
  February 17, 2021, 7:41 pm

  Oh how wonderful to see a beautiful traditional tiny house again! It’s so simply, yet elegant and warm and cozy. The lofts are wonderful, and I love the lights for a rail. Love the front porch, too!

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• Lyn Ayre
  February 18, 2021, 2:38 am

  Yes, it’s a lovely little tiny house.
  Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be proper roof insulation or roof ventilation, as demonstrated by those deadly icicles. With all the print escape tiny houses are getting, I would have thought they’d do better.
  Warmly, Lyn

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  • James D.
    February 18, 2021, 5:29 pm

    Well, consider the following…

    Icicles can form for a variety of reasons and not just because of heat leakage from the roof. Especially, in high altitude areas where the weather can switch between extremes like snow in the middle of summer, etc. Freeze/Thow cycles can be caused naturally as well as be a result of weather conditions like alternating sleet/rain and snow.

    Heat leakage also doesn’t have to be severe if the ambient temperature is already close to the melting point of the snow, and it should be understood that insulation doesn’t stop heat transfer but instead only slows it down. So heat still gets through, just over a longer period of time and if the conditions lasted for a very long period then it becomes easier for icicles to form.

    Snow also tends to slide off metal roofs, unless they’re flat, which this gabled roof clearly isn’t. So the roof could still be periodically exposed to the sun before the next snow covers it up again as another reason icicles could form and at the very least the snow build up suggest there’s very little heat leakage as otherwise the snow would slide off more readily and we would see more melting towards the middle of the structure where most of the heat would originate and the layers of snow, etc wouldn’t be as uniform…

    While being well insulated for a tiny house doesn’t mean the same thing as a larger house. It’s much easier to heat and cool a smaller space and there are other considerations like how thick your walls, floor, and roof are that directly effect how much interior space you have to work with, specifically a thicker roof will reduce how much headroom you have in the loft… Remember, THOWs usually have to be limited to road legal size limits and thus everything has to fit within those limits and thus the more you add then the less space you’ll have left. So there has to be balance between what you put into the structure with what you have left to actually live within…

    Roofs also don’t all have to be vented, metal roofs with spray foam insulation directly applied to it is one example and is one of the most common type used on Tiny Houses. Non-vented roofs have advantages of being simpler and less complicated to build, making it easier to install skylights, dormers and other aesthetic flourishes. While the trade off on efficiency is small with usually only a few degree difference from vented roofs. Mind, again, the thicker the roof then the less headroom you will have, which directly effect spaces like the loft, and vented roofs add a layer to the thickness of the roof…

    Besides, the icicles in the photo are only on the sides and don’t effect the entrance as you would only get in and out of the patio through the front, where the step down is located and there’s no icicles on that side. While badly insulated homes usually form much larger icicles/ice dams…

    Mind, there’s no appearance of fogging or other moisture issues in any of the windows, even in the loft where a lack of insulation would show other signs if it really was a issue…

    So is it perfect, no, but it doesn’t appear they did a poor job of it and there are limits until you get to the larger Tiny Homes that aren’t limited by road legal size limits…

    For example, a builder in Tennessee, is building a THOW that’s over 16′ tall. So the loft space has just over 6′ of headroom and most people can stand and use it as a second floor… Among other ways going beyond the road legal size limits can change how THOWs are designed but still fall within the Tiny house size range… Conversely, compromises like making it single level can allow more flexibility in how the vertical height space is used and you could then have a thicker roof that’s still within the road legal size limit…

    Everything just has trade offs to consider…

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• Alison
  February 18, 2021, 4:25 pm

  It’s charming to look at both inside and out. I like the floor plan. This is a classic.

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