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The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels


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This is the Peponi, a tiny house on wheels with a beautiful rustic cedar exterior built by Perch & Nest in North Carolina.

Two-color French doors lead into a living space filled with natural light because of the many large windows. The THOW has two lofts, one accessible via a ladder and the other with a staircase filled with open and closed storage compartments. The house has a washer/dryer unit, Nature’s Head composting toilet, and a nifty green glass bowl sink.

Enjoy the pictures below! Contact information for the builder is below.

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Related: The Boho Home

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Images via Perch & Nest

Peach on the outside, green on the inside!

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Large under-loft living area. My favorite.

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Wow! Windows, light and a beautiful ceiling.

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Looking down from the loft. Need a couch or two 🙂

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Excellent storage options: Drawers, cabinets and hanging.

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Mini-split heats and cools the beautiful home.

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Second loft has some “extra” space on this end.

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Love not needing a laundromat!

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Love the sink! Makes washing your face more fun.

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Nice-sized shower.

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Perfect outdoor storage for all your outdoor gear.

The Peponi: Rustic Cedar Tiny House on Wheels

Images via Perch & Nest

Related: Roost 36: Family-Friendly THOW 

Want a similar build? This one was custom by Perch & Nest. Get in touch with them here.

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Natalie C. McKee

Natalie C. McKee is a contributor for Tiny House Talk and the Tiny House Newsletter. She's a wife, and mama of three little kids. She and her family are homesteaders with sheep, goats, chickens, ducks and quail on their happy little acre.

Latest posts by Natalie C. McKee (see all)

{ 14 comments… add one }
  • Tom Osterdock
    May 30, 2017, 11:20 am

    Love this house. the only thing I would have to change is the hot water heater. Inefficient. On demand is the only way to go. Other than that it does look great.

    • James D.
      May 30, 2017, 12:14 pm

      There’s also hybrid systems that provide on demand but have a small tank for instant hot water… Combined with heat exchangers it can be more efficient because you can add additional heat sources like solar, wood stove, etc. to help heat the water.

      Along with allowing hydronic radiant heating, which is also more efficient and helps prevent overheating the loft space and reduce your total heating costs.

      • Jeff
        June 1, 2017, 10:12 pm

        Sorry! Just clicked the wrong button and “reported” your comment when I really wanted to reply!

        I agree wholeheartedly with you on the combination of options you note, especially w/ radiant floors. Given how tight most tinys are (esp those w/ SIPs) I should think heating wouldn’t be the problem cooling would be. Any thoughts about ceiling mounted *cool* radiant system that allows the cool air to sink to the floor? I’ve read about some being used in SE Asia…wonder how that might tie into a heat exchanger. Definitely a place for lots of research!

        • Bigfoot,
          June 2, 2017, 12:08 am

          Hi Jeff, there’s a lot of info on the web regarding radiant cooling. It’s not recommended for humid locales, is very costly initially, & you will still need a conventional HVAC system to maintain/control humidity. Condensation is the enemy you would be fighting with radiant cooling. Because the space is so small, I would think using a maximum amount of insulation would be the best way to go.

        • James D.
          June 2, 2017, 2:02 am

          For directly cooling the interior, radiant cooling isn’t very ideal in a tiny house…

          Mind, for a heat pump to work you need a temperature difference in the direction you want the heat to flow… It’s much easier to generate a heat difference higher than the interior of the house than a cooler space… Except in the winter time when you don’t need it…

          In a residential system you could set up very large surface areas and things like geo-thermal, swamp coolers, etc. to provide enough of a cooler space/heat sink to make the system work as a cooler even in summer but that’s hard to do in a mobile Tiny House where you’ll be limited to the ambient air temperature and limited space… Though, a swamp cooler can still help, it’s just not going to be as big a cooling effect as you may want…

          At least with the Mini-Split, which is also a heat pump system, it has a compressor on the outside that allows it to work as a AC, with the option to run in reverse to heat… and they’re already very efficient…

          The other problem is creating a large surface area that’s cooler than the rest of the space is a good way to give yourself condensation issues, which on the ceiling also means having water drip down on everything below…

          So you’d have to be running a dehumidifier, which would negate your energy savings from radiant cooling…

          You don’t have to worry about condensation when heating, and radiant means you’re relying on convection to distribute the temperature difference but that just gives more time for condensation to form when cooling…

          However, there are ways it can be used… If you have solar then there’s usually the issue of the panels getting too hot to run efficiently. So a radiant cooling system would help solve that problem as well as help keep the heat off the roof and thus keep the house from absorbing as much heat from the sun, which can help lower interior temps by up to 10 F degrees…

          With the heat exchanger, you can then channel that absorbed heat to the hot water system… Mind the solar panels don’t need to be kept cold, just cool enough to run at peak efficiently. So don’t need to be kept as cool as the interior of the house and that makes it much easier for the radiant cooling to be practical in that application.

          It also helps use the panels for double duty, as then you have them not only generating electricity but also making use of the waste heat…

          While another alternative is solar ice storage… Certain companies are offering units that basically uses power during off peak hours, usually at night, to generate ice in a insulated container which then can be used to pre-cool air going to an AC unit or other cooling system during peak day-light hours to reduce the total energy required to cool the space.

          Units tend to be bulky, though, especially to provide more than a few hours of use, but is another way to increase efficiency by using the cooler night time to help cool during the day…

          Without solar, then the solar thermal system would work in its place to similarly keep the heat off the roof and pump the heat to help heat the hot water…

          Or, if you’re near a spring, creek, or other running water source then you can conceivably use that as a convenient heat sink to help cool the house as well…

          In the pre-electricity days they had what were called spring houses, which used a spring or other running body of water to provide year round refrigeration to store food that was a step up from plain old root cellars… but again, it’s just harder to do with a mobile tiny house unless you keep it in one place and don’t need everything to be inside of it…

        • James D.
          June 6, 2017, 3:45 pm

          Just wanted to add a caveat…

          There are more advance radiant systems that let you regulate the temperature for each zone that the radiant system is installed and this can be for the floors, walls, and ceiling for a complete envelope…

          Under a smart system, the temperature will always be regulated to a precise range, which can avoid condensation issues… It just won’t get as cool as you can with an AC system but can keep the temperature within a fairly comfortable range.

          Combined with a good ERV to regulate the humidity in the house and it can work…

          Good ventilation system is recommended regardless for any small space…

          While the smart radiant systems would be able to both heat and cool the space and with hydronics it provides thermal mass that adds an additional buffer layer besides just the house insulation…

          Radiant systems are slow, though… So it can take a few hours to heat up a space and similarly to cool, but combining it with a air circulation system, fan, etc. then that should help speed it up and further help avoid moisture issues.

          There’s just a high initial cost to install such a system and you may still want a Mini-Split for a more rapid response system if you leave everything off for awhile and come back to the house and need to get it comfortable quickly…

    • Natalie C. McKee
      May 30, 2017, 1:02 pm

      On demand is my favorite 🙂 Although, it probably means I take longer showers than I should haha.

      • Tom Osterdock
        May 30, 2017, 8:05 pm

        I agree Natalie but sometimes long showers are very nice. Anytime someone says tank for hot water it is inefficient since it has to be heated when not used. Waste of energy.

        • James D.
          May 31, 2017, 10:00 pm

          Not really true in a practical sense for modern systems, since tank systems don’t generally need to be heated all the time because the tanks are well insulated and can retain heat for more than several hours and would only need to reheat the water if you don’t use it, otherwise it’s heating the water according to demand, just like the on demand system…

          But modern systems also are smart system run by computers that learns your usage behavior to optimize when it heats the water… There are tank systems run on solar, for example, which it couldn’t do if it was running all the time and needing to be constantly heated.

          The main advantage to on demand is it requires a smaller footprint, which is ideal for smaller spaces and you don’t have to worry about capacity to meet demand, only that the heater has enough BTU capacity to heat the water at the rate of usage demand.

          The disadvantage to tank systems is you need to store the capacity to meet your demand and that can add up to a lot, especially if you’re not using water conserving outlets… So adds weight and uses more space…

          However, on demand can waste water because it’s not an instant source of hot water and it can take several seconds to even a minute before the water reaches the desired temperature… Depending on BTU capacity of the heater, distance between the heater and the water outlet/tap, and variables like how cold the water is to start with and how quickly the heater turns on once the water is flowing.

          You also can’t take advantage of hydronic radiant heating with a on demand system and electric radiant heaters don’t provide thermal mass like hydronic systems do.

          So there are really pros and cons to both…

          But like I mentioned before, there are now hybrid systems that provides the strengths of both systems and can run even more efficiently by using heat exchangers to utilize any and all heat sources available and not require all the heat be generated by just one source…

          Allowing the use of wood stoves, solar thermal, etc. to supplement…

          Nothing like having virtually free hot water that’s been heated by the sun and/or wood stove instead of needing to always heat it with electricity or propane…

          Along with hydronic radiant heating that’s more efficient and convenient than other heat sources and the thermal mass can help regulate the house temperature to further help reduce energy costs…

          Now that’s efficient…

        • Bigfoot,
          June 1, 2017, 11:55 pm

          I put my how water heater on a switched curcuit located in my bathroom about 19 years ago so it does not have to run continuously. It doesn’t take that long to heat up, so for just me & my wife it’s not a problem. Another option would be to put the water heater on a timer with obvious advantages there.

  • Gail
    May 31, 2017, 11:53 am

    Natalie,
    Do you know what the wooden piece on the bathroom wall above the toilet area is for? I tried to figure it out, but cannot.
    Thanks!

    • Tom Osterdock
      May 31, 2017, 5:08 pm

      looks like it folds down. Maybe for folding clothes or something. don’t know what is above it so maybe to be able to step up for something?

    • James D.
      May 31, 2017, 10:25 pm

      Yes, Tom is right on this one…

      If you look at the lower left corner of that image, you’d see part of the other half of the wall partition that contains the pocket door to the bathroom and that piece is just the right length to span the distance between the back wall and that interior wall… with a retaining clip just visible on near the top left corner…

      Meaning it is basically a drop down bench/table… You can use it as a table to fold cloths, or you can sit on it, or you can use it to reach the window to more easily open and close it or just to clean the window more easily… add something in front of it and you won’t even see the toilet below it…

    • Natalie C. McKee
      June 1, 2017, 2:53 pm

      As the guys said, I think it’s to fold down over the toilet to allow for more counter space of some sort 🙂

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