Small World: The Tiny House Trend • Hacker News Board

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#341

Post by tjr225 » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 6:01 AM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #75

tjr225 wrote: post #12

The Tiny Home trend and the "Van Life" trend are slightly unsettling to me - I wonder which forces are at play who intend to convince us that lowering our standards of living is cool? No judgement from me if you do choose to do these things, though. I do see the appeal. Maybe there is no conspiracy, maybe it is a coping mechanism. Edited "deeply" to "slightly" upon further reflection.

> lowering our standards of living Why is living in a smaller home a lower standard of living? Wasted space is a higher standard?

The problem with your question is that we haven't defined what "wasted space" is.

If I want to have a couple of children is wanting one or two extra bedrooms really wasting space? And if it is, wouldn't you still call it a loss of quality of life compared to the alternative?

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#342

Post by CalRobert » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 9:16 AM UTC

war1025 wrote: post #226

CalRobert wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently live in a 62 sqm (667 sqft) 2 bed flat with my wife and 18 mo. old daughter. Friends think of the place as huge. We just bought a 52 square meter house, but we did it cash - no mortgage (just took the deposit we'd saved for a city home and looked outside the city instead). That's worth more to me than a lot of space. Though I might be cheating because there are some outbuildings which can hold washer/dryer…

We also paid all cash for our place. Looking at what our bills are currently, and adding a mortgage to it, I think we'd be living much closer to paycheck-to-paycheck if we had that over our heads. Very happy that we lived frugally for several years and were able to build up enough savings to pay for our place outright. The key in our situation is we went for a townhouse, which for whatever reason seems to knock 30-50…

Hah, in our case the key was going for an old but very small farmhouse, about a 15-20 minute bike ride from a train station so if needed car-free commuting could be doable (albeit not ideal). Most homes here are semi-detached, meaning you have party walls.

I love living next to good neighbours. It's tough to know what you're going to get before moving in, though.

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#343

Post by Fjolsvith » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

Bjorkbat wrote: post #142

I really wish there was more diversity in offerings when it came to manufactured/trailer homes. To clarify, I'm not talking about RVs. I like tiny houses, but really only in the sense that I'm fascinated by unusually small things. Otherwise I think they're actually kind of ridiculous if your motives are to downsize and not pay $300,000+ on a house Trailer homes are pretty incredible when you think about it. They're t…

My company builds sheds and garages, but we have a couple of 12x24' designs that look like tiny homes. They have a front porch and two lofts inside. They are not finished inside, mainly just a shell building. We sell a lot of them to farmers (for hired hand housing) and hunters.

Here is a link to our cabin/office list:

https://ksshedbuilder.com/store/index.php?main_page=index&cP...

Re: Small World: The Tiny House Trend

#344

Post by metildaa » Thu, Feb 07, 2019, 8:04 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #338

metildaa wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How new is the building? Are the exterior walls properly insulated and sealed? My friends in a 3 year old building in Ballard have had to open their windows through the last few weeks, and they're only near the top floor. Another friend of mine had a similar experience in Mill Creek when on the top floor.

2000 something in downtown Bellevue. We also have a very high ceiling, the sealing seems to be good enough that heat from adjacent apartments doesn’t seep into ours.

This sounds like the air sealing in your unit isn't very good, as your unit shouldn't fall back to exterior temperature very quickly unless the insulation is insufficent or the air sealing is poor. Nevermind that insulation between you and othet units won't stop heat migration, just slows it down.

FYI electric heat is common in older apartments and condos, but many of the newer buildings I've seen go up in Seattle are using natural gas.