The Weight of the Matter (Part 1)

So to broach the subject while I am thinking about it many tiny homes on wheels are built using typical building materials used on regular houses, but there can be one problem with this... WEIGHT. In the state I live in someone has to get a special license to tow anything above 10,000 pounds, which if you are building a family tiny house and add all of the stuff you will be putting into it (like toys, cloths, food, etc.) the weight limit restricted on your average drivers license may be exceeded. Also if you plan on hauling it places on an occasion (something I am considering since I want to visit state and national parks regularly during the summers) then the less it weighs the less gas you will be spending on hauling it. So here is a list of things I have thought of to reduce the weight of the house.

• Thin wood panel for walls, such as a beadboard or wainscoting. I know we all think of the hideous wooden walls that looked like fake wood paneling, but some of these can look really nice and you can find boards that are completely flat and paintable.
• Recycled cardboard shelves for light weight books, DVD's, and CD's. If you are handy at crafting things then take cereal boxes or other cardboard materials and build a small box using masking tape, glue, and various papers (make it colorful if you want) to cover it. I'm sure if you look around on the internet there are crafting sites that can give you step by step instructions on how to make these kinds of things. Once you have several of these boxes made you want to put the bottom against the wall and put two screws in the bottom spaced evenly apart, then put another box next to that one and so on and so forth. Light weight and cheap shelves :-)
• Using air mattresses instead of regular mattresses. You can find some pretty durable air mattresses that can be used on a regular basis or finding a good memory foam to put on top of those thin camping air mattresses might be kind of comfortable. Either way these options are bound to be lighter and easier to put in or remove from a tiny house.
• Light weight steel framing. I have no idea how to work with this stuff although I have seen it in pictures of tiny houses on wheels and I would assume this is much lighter then regular lumber.
• On the note of eliminating lumber it could be possible to make the kitchen area out of plexiglass which can come in various colors other than clear.
• Another idea is to use fiberglass panels for the exterior and roof. Also I am not sure if it is possible and I will look into it some more eventually, that it might be possible to use some sort of fiberglass flooring. I am not sure if it would be more light weight than regular wood flooring, but it would not hurt to find out.

So just a few ideas right now, I will add another blog on this as I am able to do more research on light weight materials for building with. Please feel free to add more ideas in the comment section cause the more ideas the better for all who want to make their home light weight and portable.

The Smallest Family House

So I really got to thinking about what is the least amount of space I could use for building a tiny house on wheels and this is what I came up with.

As you can see this house's interior is only 9'x7.5', but it has all the amenities needed to live. If necessary a family with 2 children could call this place home, but I would only recommend this size for possibly a single parent with one child. If there were two children I would expand the interior to at least 12' (only adding on another 3 feet) on the end with the door and make that into a "living room" space where the children could play. That opens up variations with lofting above the "living room" so there are two play spaces. Either way this makes for a very small and portable family house.

It is very efficient with use of space although some might find it to be too cramped. My idea (if I ever get around to building it) is to make it as light weight as possible so it might be towed behind the family mini van so we can travel and not worry about the expense of hotels... or heaven forbid there was ever a disaster we would at least have a home to live in wherever we went.
Some thoughts I have had about heating, plumbing and such is that on the front end where the trailer hitch is to put in a small storage space where the heating unit could be stored and warm air can be blown into the small space so there is no risk of overheating with whatever is used. Toilet would be composting or incinerating and have a small water tank above the toilet for showering. I'm still thinking about other aspects of this trailer, so I'll post more as I get ideas.

* As usual if you have no idea what you are doing please seek professional help as I am not a professional and my ideas may not be sound in their safety.