Update 6.19.12
Finally, right?!?!
I apologize for being MIA, I have no internet at the moment, I have my phone tethered to my laptop which isn’t as grand as you would expect :). I have also been sort of MIA on my tiny house, I am spending some time trying to prep for our eco festival coming up this weekend and also packing all of my possessions to move out. My house won’t be complete by the end of the month, surprise! So I will be squatting with some family, I’m not sure who yet but someone… I hope :).
A brief description, I am lucky as hell to have a master plumber on my side! It looks pretty great! I got my roofing, my fridge and my water filter. Here are some pictures, in no particular order:
Here is my roofing material, TPO. I can hardly wait to get this on although there was a bit of confusion it seems on the order, I'm not sure if it is on my side or theirs just yet, standby!
This is the confusion, I was under the impression it would take approximately 5 gallons of adhesive for my roof area, thinking that I was pretty sure I had ordered 2 3-gallon buckets of the stuff, I received 2 1-gallon buckets. To be figured out soon!
That's a roof vent up there!! 🙂 Nice job dad!
here is some plumbing to my lav. I still haven't got any fixtures picked out, I am shocked at the prices. Dad and I are going to a wholesaler tomorrow, I am interested to see what I find out, hopefully the kitchen sink and bathroom lav will be on order tomorrow!
here is where all the vents (kitchen sink, bathroom sink and shower) penetrate the roof.
I think this is just another shot???
Dad doing his magic!
Dad really working his magic on the kitchen sink
the vents coming along.
the kitchen vent coming back to catch up with the others, we grouped them all into a single penetration, this just allows for less error when I go to do the roof. One hole in the roofing is better than three.
total chaos 🙂
another view
you can see a couple vents meeting up
the start of the lav
We picked up the fridge. I am keeping everything in boxes until its time, that kills me, I want to play with it all but it's to protect it :).
I thought the illustration was funny 🙂
This is my water filter, everything that enters the house will have to go through this first. We are working on finding an accessible place for this. It is able to filter 8 gallons of water a minute, that ought to be plenty for me.
Nathan even helped me get the last of the plywood on, here is the for real deck wall.
and I will leave it with a new overall view shot
Two thoughts!
One, I’ve never seen anyone vent their drains in a tiny house on a trailer – but I’ve definitely seen it on traditional houses on regular foundations. Have I just missed it on other Tiny Houses? Or are you the only one doing it? And if the others aren’t doing it, any idea what they’re doing instead?
And two, I would really suggest taking your appliances out of the boxes and seeing if they’re damaged, and plug them in, and make sure they work – as soon as possible. It’s much harder to send something back when you’ve had it for a month – or three months – or whatever. My mother and grandmother used to own a gift shop, and they would get their Christmas shipments in the middle of summer, and every bit of it had to be unpacked, checked for damage or missing parts, and then repacked until the Fall. Huge amount of work unpacking and packing tens of thousands of dollars of merchandise, but it is shocking how much stuff gets damaged during shipping – or was not quite right before it even left the factory. You may be in for a yucky surprise if you wait, since some vendors are not easy to deal with if you want to return something they consider “aged.” Just a little heads up…
Very good point on the appliances! I didn’t really think of that, sounds like a great excuse to play with things! Thank you! 🙂
Let me ask around actually about the venting. I have not payed as close of attention actually in other tiny houses plumbing because I knew I had my dad there and that we would do that part well! I’m curious now, I can’t think of ever having seen it either. I’ll get back to you on it!
I started a discussion on this topic here, https://www.facebook.com/tinyrev/posts/360162374049900?notif_t=feed_comment, So far lots of great feedback but the consensus is sounding like, yes, vent a toilet, I’m curious about the other fixtures now too though. Some just didn’t do it and didn’t ‘handle’ it any other way either. Great question that I totally overlooked in other houses. Thanks!
Thanks Macy! Kinda weird that I, someone with no plumbing experience at all would be asking such a thing – but your photos and commentary made me wonder!
It is an excellent question! I hadn’t even considered not doing it, but you’re totally right, I haven’t seen it in many others. 🙂
I never noticed the little side panel you constructed on the porch. I really like that idea. Not quite enclosed, not quite open to all the elements.
Thanks Jonathan!
That last picture is a fantastic shot, it truly looks just like your design. I’m getting so excited for you.
Thanks! 🙂
I lived briefly in a place that the plumbing was not vented properly at the kitchen sink, and the problem was compounded by the landlords adding a washer and dryer in the adjoining wall, and using the same drain pipe as the kitchen sink. The kitchen sink always drained slowly, and clogged frequently. The worst part though was what would happen when the washer drained. All of the water in the P-Trap would get sucked out so the washer could drain fast enough and the when no more water was going down into the sewer system the horrible smells would come back up through the kitchen sink. If a sink is draining to a grey water discharge that is open to the air, it’s not going to need additional venting, but a closed septic system or sewer needs to have a vent to maintain proper flow, and prevent unwanted sewer gases flowing back into habitable living space.
This is exactly what was confirmed for me earlier today after talking with a plumber about it! Thanks for the information!
Macy! this is awesome! so exciting to see your progress!
a couple things I thought of (lessons we learned):
1. try out your toilet now to make sure it works! this is not something that is easy to live without once you move in. We did not do this. toilet sat in the garage for months. then when we moved in we realized it needed repairs!
2. the fridge. we used an undercounter fridge, but a conventional one and we are finding that is adds TONS of heat to the interior. the vent is on the bottom face of the fridge, like most fridges. and it is like a space heater! might be awesome in the winter. sucks in the summer. FYI. I am pretty sure RV fridges vent to the exterior – which seems smart…..
keep up the awesome work!
– Carrie
Hi Carrie!
Great points!
I think the toilet will be alright, it’s low technology so I don’t see a reason to get it all gross before installing. It would actually be pretty difficult to test out unless it was installed.
With the fridge, I actually thought of this, if I need to it’s very possible that I can vent the excess heat out the side of the building, next summer would probably be the time to figure that out for sure but it’s definitely doable!
Thanks for the encouragement as always! I hope you two are well!
hi Macy! It got a bit cooler this past week with monsoon rains in Arizona and I realized that a fridge venting heat indoors is actually a good thing in 3 out of 4 seasons…. It’s just what to do with it in the summer!
hope you’re well!
– Carrie
Go Macy go! So cool to see your structure coming together. Yeah, master plumbers are a jewel as friends or family! I think I am going to outsource my plumbing to a client of my dad, as I seem to have no interest in figuring it out. 😉 I see you went with an apt.-sized fridge! Very nice! I’m thinking to go that route, too, as they appear to use the same amount of electricity as the smaller ones (weird, huh?). Keep rockin it!
Thank you!!!