I was inspired by a picture posted at one point by Michael Janzen of Tiny House Design. He was considering designs to develop, and had posted an 8x20 design with dormer windows added to the roof. We are most likely going to go with a modified Sonoma Shanty design that adds dormer windows for loft head room and lighting.
I am now wondering if we should do full shed dormers on BOTH sides, REALLY opening up the loft and the whole house, but making it a lot more susceptible to heat loss.
On the other hand, we could do partial shed dormers just in the back third over the loft.
And finally, there's also the option of cutting back to one side of the loft for even more heat efficiency, leaving windows only on the south facing side.
While we do love the 8x20 solar house design that Michael is now offering, we really want to implement a loft for the extra floor space. And it seems easier to add dormers to the Sonoma Shanty than it would be to add a loft to the solar house, so we're leaning that way at this point.
I am still lost on how we are going to implement a grey water holding tank near the drain (so we can use it at RV parks and stuff) and also how to implement the electrical system properly so that it can be hooked up easily to a simple extension cord... wouldn't mind also being able to hook it up at an RV park, but I don't know what the standard is there either.
Hmmm.
If anyone has any resources on these, please let me know.
The power is fairly simply. You can buy a reverse outlet at any good home store, and put it in a normal electrical box, and put a nomal cover on it. Make sure you get stuff rated for all weather, and exterior use.
ReplyDeleteThen run some 3 strand line in to all the electrical outlets you want in your home in a chain fashion. Nail to box to the stud, run the wire into to it, and on to the screws to the side of the outlet, screw in the outlet and a cover and you're done. The orange book from home depot has a pretty good covering of basic electric work.
The thing to remember is that the standrd home outlets are rated for 15 amps max, that's about 1750 watts. Everything in your home must be less than that, although you don't have to assume that everything is on at the same time.