Exterior work

Now that winter is coming to an end the exterior work is starting up.  There is a little bit of siding to finish, painting the trim and installing the removable eaves.

First the eaves had to be primed and painted

Next the second part of the bracket was attached to the house.  The painted rafter extensions where then attached and the plywood decking nailed on.  Finally the roofing was screwed down.

Waiting for the right color screws.

Electrical system upgrade

Since is has been so long since I have done a proper update I'll summarizing the updates to each system.

Back in August I was running a 2500 watt 12v inverter, 2 x 200 watt solar panels and a cheap charge controller.  I was having to run the generator a couple of hours a day to keep the batteries from going dead with minimal use of electricity.

I put in my order for my new solar system in September.  I was excited and nervous, it was awesome.  I've been researching and waiting for over a decade to have a off grid system and it was finally happening.  I was nervous because it was going to be $7,000.

The first thing to arrive was the charge controller which would allow me to run the panels at over 100 volts and the battery bank at 48 volts.  Shortly after receiving the charge controller I sold the inverter for a nice profit but I had to make do for a few weeks with a cheap inverter.

While waiting for the parts to come in I make another trip to the states for batteries.  It was funny watching the suspension when they dropped the 16 golf cart batteries in the truck bed.

More power!

The wrong panel for the inverter came in so I had to wait a another week for it to come in but that gave me time to order cables for the new panels.  Once the cables and proper electrical panel arrived I got to work installing them.  The new inverter gives me 4400 watts at 240 volts, more than I'll need.  The electrical panel handles the DC breakers and main AC breakers, including inverter bypass.

The batteries will be tucked under the cabinetry so I needed a way to pull them out for maintenance.  I made two skate boards for them to sit on

6 of the 9 panels @ 250 watts each.  I've been using the solar setup most of the winter.  My generator has not been used since the fall.  On cloudy days I make 1 to 2 KWh and over 10KWh on sunny days.  I've stopped using propane to heat my water because I produce so much electricity.

Just recently I installed and wired the AC breaker box.  I'm pretty happy with the job I did.  I just have a few more circuits to add and it needs to be permanently installed once the cabinetry is done.

Before

After

Time for a new post

I've been ignoring this blog for a few reasons and I'll let you pick the best one from the list

• I accidentally found a job
• I was physically unable to work on the house for a few months
• I was busy working on the house
• I was fixing issues with the house
• I was visiting family over the holidays
• I was attacked by a ROUS
• There wasn't a whole lot of traffic to the blog

One of the reason that I started this blog was to document the progress of the build.  This helped me during those times that it felt like it was taking forever to progress.  I would read my posts from the previous month and be surprised on the progress I had forgot about.  Recently I've felt that I haven't needed it as much because even though the progress has slowed, the progress has become more visible.

In the next few weeks I'll be posting updates what has been done on all the major system, problem I've encountered and how I fixed them.  Starting in March I'll be refocusing on the house so you can expect regular updates.

First Month Living in the Tiny House

I have to say that after living in a not-quite-finished tiny house for a month I love it.  It may be cluttered but the size feels right.

The last 3 weeks where incredibly busy with work and trying to get the house livable. For most of time I was using a pop bottle to shower, it was only on the 2nd last day that I had a working shower (it was awesome!).  I'm taking a 6 week break from the house and I won't be able to do very much when I get back so the pressure is on.

I'm going try to take pictures when I get back into the house of all these projects


Stained and installed almost all of the siding

Plumbed all the gas lines using black iron and copper lines

Installed the stove, furnace and hot water tank

Installed the kitchen sink

Installed most fresh water lines

Plumbed the shower

Built a rough outline of the cabinetry

Moving Days!

Moving a tiny house for the first time is a stressful experience, and to top it off I was starting a job as soon as I arrived.
When I attached the tiny house to my truck the truck's rear wheels looked ready to pop.  The trailer tires didn't look much better.  It was pretty late so i decided to sleep on the problem.  The next morning I called around and came up with a new plan.
Trip 1
Truck loaded with the washing machine and batteries would pull a trailer loaded with my second vehicle which would also be filled with stuff.
Trip 2 Calgary -> Okanagan
Rented 1 ton pickup would bring the rented trailer back to Kelowna
Trip 3 Okanagan -> Calgary
Rented 1 ton would pull the tiny house to Calgary

Feeling a lot more confident about the move I departed on the first trip.  I checked my axle weights and found out I was carrying too much weight on the trucks rear axle.  This was solved by moving the batteries into the trunk of my second vehicle.  The rest of the trip went well except for my headlights being a little high.
I slept in the truck at a visitors center and made it into to the property around noon.  With unloading the car and getting the rental sorted I was 5 hours behind my schedule.  I was able to make up a little bit of time returning to the Okanagan with the empty trailer.  I finally made it to bed around 2 am.
I was up early the next morning to finish cleaning the place that I was leaving. I still had to get the rear bumper and lights done.  I pulled the house into the main parking area to weld the bumper and I was already impressed with how well the rental truck handled the weight.

By 3pm I was on the road back to Calgary, the Tiny house handled really well.  I did keep my speed around 80 to 90 km/h (50 to 55mph).  I averaged 25L/100kms (9.5mpg)for the trip, that's 1 liter of diesel every 4 kms!  The truck handled the weight no problem including going up and down the steep mountain passes.  The only problem was the trailer axles where loaded with 9500lbs, far heavier than I expected.
I arrived at the site at 2:00am and proceeded to position the house and unload the rental.  By the time I returned the truck and crawled into bed it was 5:00am giving me a whole hour of sleep before starting my new job.

Getting ready to move

I'm actually writing this post in late August.  There have been a lot of changes and progress over the last month and I wanted to break the posts into smaller pieces.

On July 31st I moved to the Calgary area.  With so must left to complete on the house and having to plan/pack for the move its going to be a busy time.

The still open bay window roof became the first priority and 2 days later it was insulated and covered.

Later the same day the short wall had half its siding done. 

On the 23rd I had to make a trip to pick up more siding, I wasn't sure I would have enough of the 4' pieces to finish.  Despite the ungainly appearance it handled very well.

The next day the new wood was sanded, washed and partially stained.  This was thanks to my classmate that picked the colors and 2 of her friends.

After this I was really busy, most days where 12+ hours working on the house and running errands.  I didn't get much time to take pictures.
The main roof took a couple of days to finish up.  The loft soffit needed to be painted and installed, the ridge cap and trim for the soffits finished up the job.  All in all I'm happy with how the roof turned out.
The last few days where spent packing and preparing for the move but I did manage to put a little more siding on.

Painting and more painting

The past month has mostly been a lot of prep work, not very exciting and very time consuming.  I also was out of town a few times looking for a location for the tiny house.  I'll be leaving the Okanagan behind for a while.  It has also gotten very hot with highs in the 35C to 40C (95F to 104F), not the most fun temps to be trying to work in.

Cedar siding all sanded and ready for washing.

 Testing the stain on a few boards.

It turned out to be too yellow, so my friend and I headed back to the very patient staff at Benjamen Moore.  They where very obliging and did up another dozen colors and after much thought Espresso was the winner!

 The previous stain will be used on the backs of the boards so there is no wastage.  This stack is about 1/3 of the siding and took about 8 hours to apply.

I also have been painting the interior wall covering.  I'm normally against painting wood but it is a low quality pine.

 It also gives the tiny house a nice cottage feel

The siding is finally starting to go one.  I'm loving the color.

I got around to designing the roof for the bay window.  There where so many angles to cut and I ended up using a band saw, table saw, compound miter saw and jig saw to get them all done.

Pretty picture!

Expenses to date: TBD