Aren't "Tiny Homes" upscale "Mobile Homes"?

In My Humble Opinion
21

Here are some requirements I think you’d have to meet in order to live in a tiny house for the long haul. (Sorry, bad pun.):

• Be exceptionally tidy. The smaller the space, the less it takes for it to get very messy.

• Live close to a grocery store. You can hunt (maybe), fish, and grow your own produce, but you can’t store much of it.

•Hate entertaining. Most tiny houses won’t accommodate more than one or two guests, and when you have little counter/table space and only two burners, making a birthday cake from scratch takes ingenuity, patience, and frequent dishwashing -that is, if you have storage space for the necessary equipment and ingredients.

• Not be claustrophobic: the clearance in the lofts of those places is pretty minimal.

*Find airplane lavatories a comfortable fit. Tiny house bathrooms tend to be miniscule.

I’m sure there are others.

I know there are people who’d be very happy with tiny house living. I just think there are more people who think they’d love that lifestyle only to find it’s too arduous.

22

nelliebly Given the small floorplan, anybody there may also know what you’re doing in that restroom…if you know what I mean. :thinking: So you can’t be easily embarrassed. Tangentially, some say the restroom really shouldn’t be next to the kitchen but in trying to concentrate the plumbing I think it often works out that way for tinies. In such a small house, how far away could you really be, anyway?

My folks had a very small trailer in a park for wintering in Florida. It was “permanent,” set on a foundation. Next to it, they had a sort of cement pad that was screened in and they set out patio chairs etc. Although they had only 200 square feet or so inside the trailer (bed, bath, kitchenette), much of the time they were outside on the “patio.” Or they’d run to Wal-Mart.

I think that’s how I’d have to tiny. Get out of the house as much as possible because if you get sick or if it rains, you—meaning, everyone who lives there—may be stuck inside for awhile. So walk in the park, go to the mall, sit outside on your deck, etc. whenever possible.

“I don’t mind climbing down a ladder in the middle of the night to use the restroom” said no 50 year old ever? It may be like a long-distance relationship…not impossible, but not easy (by a longshot), either, something more likely to be attempted by the younger crowd.

23

Some of these limitations will be familiar to anyone who lives in a studio or other small apartment in an expensive city like New York. I think a lot of people in tiny NYC apartments spend most of their time out of the house. (There are lots of stories of people who never use the kitchen, for example, even though they may have the finest appliances and so forth, just because they eat out or get delivery all the time.)

24

Do “tiny houses” go up in value, like land, or down in value, like mobile homes?

25

I live in a tiny house–it’s a converted Old Hickory shed, (lofted barn style with the deluxe porch if you want to look it up on their website) 14 x 36 feet so floor space is 465 SF (upper limit to be considered a tiny house round here is 500 SF) and yes, I do climb up and down a ladder to get to my sleeping loft. I did a lot of the work myself and the rest a friend who’s also a contractor did. The sleeping loft is 8 feet deep by the full width and the bathroom and pantry/dressing room/closet are underneath the sleeping loft. The rest is just one big room and the kitchen is at the front in the 8 x 10 area the porch surrounds. I live alone with three dogs and two cats on the lot where my house had a catastrophic flood such that it can’t be lived in any more. I love it. I set it up with propane appliances, energy efficient lighting and the kind of flooring I prefer–bamboo hard floor and ceramic tile in the bath. It’s warm, cheap to heat and cool, comfortable and cost me under 25K to buy the shed and finish it off. I’ve lived here over five years now and am looking for acreage to buy to have it moved onto. It does require an oversize permit to move it, but that’s not a big deal, they move 16 foot wide chunks of manufactured housing all the time. I like compact living and if I had the choice of this place or a larger more “normal” house I’d stick with my tiny house because I like it just that much.

26

I saw a meme recently that said we don’t call them mobile homes because we hate the poor and I think there’s some truth to that. People who live in mobile homes often come from the lower income brackets, they’re referred to as trailer trash, and are the butt of many jokes and harmful stereotypes. Who buys tiny houses? Younger affluent white people with no disabilities for the most part. We might make fun of hipsters but we don’t denigrate them the saw way we do lower income residents of trailer parks.

27

Actually, they’re a modern version of a class of RVs called “Park Models”. These were popular in the past for a certain group of snowbirds, who frequently didn’t move the rig themselves. Unlike RVs, they had no self-contained features (like water/holding tanks) and could only be used when onsite and connected to city utilities. Most of these required a heavy duty pickup or larger to move, and in the past it was rare for families to own a beast like that. Now not so much I guess.

These were rarely moved more than twice a year, and some were left onsite year round. I stayed in a relative’s park model in Florida in the 70s, and it was in an expensive and luxurious trailer park. It also had homelike features like a large sliding patio door. I think tiny homes fit in this niche, as they’re smaller and easier to move than a double-wide, but more permanent than an RV.

28

Has anyone else taken the time to watch this video? Because I seriously do not understand how the ‘guest bed’ is of any use at all.

The ‘main’ bed lowers on tracks, and is located directly over the area of the couch(es) which are convertible into the ‘guest’ bed. But it looks to me like when the main bed is in use, there is at most something like eight inches from the top of the couch seat to the bottom of the bed frame.

Are you trying to claim you have guests willing to wiggle into a bed space only eight inches high? We’re talking not just claustrophia, but actual pressure pushing down on the rib cage at that height.

If you can only use the main bed OR the guest bed at one time, then you effectively don’t have a guest bed. You might as well have the one bed and sleep in shifts like they do in submarines.

29

I think the idea is that you don’t have to share the same bed/bedding but still sleep in shifts. Either that or you use one to have sex with your guest and another to sleep on after you send them on their way.

30

I thought the upper bed was able to be lowered about half way so both can be used. She points this out, sort of, at about 3 minutes in. The pin holes are definitely there.

31

Pause the video at 3:11: That’s approximately where the bed will sit if you have guests. Notice the holes, about at the height of the TV’s top edge?

At 3:16 she talks about the pins and holes.

Pause at 3:22-She points to one of the higher holes.

Granted, your guest would probably not be able to sit up in bed but that’s not surprising for a tiny.

No guests? Lower it all the way so it’s easier to get in and out.

This sounds like what my folks had. It seemed flimsy but it was probably decades old by the time they got it. Just enough room to cook, eat, shower…six inches of walking space around the bed.

You can buy “Park Models” of these as well.

ETA: Ninja’ed by california_jobcase about the pins.

32

Ah. No, I didn’t notice the second set of holes at all. Okay, that gives your guests room to breathe. It does rather raise the question of how you get into the upper bed when it’s in the midway position. She shows how you use one of the coffee table/chair things as a step stool when the top bed is lowered all the way, but I think you’d need a couple more steps or at least a sturdy hand rail to clamber up when it’s higher. Still, all you need is a ladder tucked away somewhere.

Something else that bothered me is the hanging closet/shower cubby hole thingy. On first sight it’s absolutely ingenious. You only need the ‘void’ in the shower when you’re absolutely using it, so why not have movable storage there the rest of the time? And slide it to the middle position and you have easy access to your clothes through the bathroom door, and shoving it into the space above the toilet on the left when you want to be able to get in and out of the shower should work fine.

But. What about moisture? After your shower, the walls and floor of the shower cubicle are wet, and so is the inside of the shower curtain. Do you squeegee them meticulously after each shower, finished with a swipe of a towel? Because if you put the closet cubby back into the shower space, all that moisture will raise the humidity in the tiny air gaps left to saturation, and I’d bet you’ll be fighting mildew and mold all over the walls AND your hanging clothes almost immediately.

For that matter, where do you hang your towels to dry?

That aspect overall is what mostly makes me go, hmmm? in most of the vids I see about van living or tiny homes, etc. Yeah, you can engineer ingenious solutions so this same physical space can be a dining table or the couch you watch tv from or your bed or your computer desk or XXX or YYY or whatever you please.

But it can only be used as one of them at a particular time. For one person it may work fine, but if two or more are sharing this space? What happens when Dad wants to set the table for dinner AND Bobby wants to watch his favorite tv show AND Kelsey needs to use the computer to do her homework but Mary has a migraine and absolutely NEEDS to lie down in the dark and quiet or her head is going to explode?

No kidding. I saw one vid where what looked like a nice middle class couple, with three kids (looked from six to maybe 10 in age) and a medium sized dog, were proposing to sell their four bedroom house and move into a tiny house with a loft bedroom full time. “It’ll bring us closer together as a family,” they chirped.

Sure will.

Until one or more of them snaps and runs for the chain saw.

33

The middle position also looks like it may give a restless sleeper an opportunity to kick the big screen TV while asleep. I agree —the compromises are often such that you can do A or B but not A and B simultaneously in many cases.

One thing to keep in mind about that builder is that she’s making things for use in Alaska. They’re going to worry more about freezing water lines, the potential weight of snow on the roof, and parking that weight on permafrost—than mold. IIRC in the vacation cabin she and her husband built (for themselves), they chose to go with an outhouse instead of an indoor toilet.

FWIW I googled how often do alaskans shower: how often do alaskans shower - Google Search

The first answer that came up: once a week.

My WAG is that you need the water but not freezing pipes, you need energy to heat the water, which you then use but also have to dispose of…all of this even if it’s forty below outside. Summer does come and present a different situation but I’m supposing the builder, who lives there, knows the issues to address.

34

On the broader discussion, tiny homes look really gimmicky to me too - if you hit a really specific personality and health type, they work great. But as soon as you start to think about dealing with one when you’re sick or injured, or what all of those fancy sliding shelves and motorized bed lifts are going to be like with a decade or two of wear and tear, they seem a lot less nice. I can definitely see why their resale value tends to tank pretty badly.

On the original question it looks like there’s nothing that really distinguishes a lot of tiny houses from ‘mobile homes’ besides people not wanting to use the term. Not really surprising to me, but a little funny.

35

They didn’t mention it, but I would assume the bathroom space would have an exhaust fan. I would run it after the shower to vent the humid air. The closet is enclosed, so it wouldn’t be touching the wet walls or the wet side of the shower curtain. The bathroom area door is on rollers, so leaving it cracked would allow plenty of air circulation.

As for the bed, the occupants could lower it fully, get in, and have it raised to half-mast.by the guest bed occupant(s).

StG

36

That conclusion surprises me. Already mentioned upthread, in general:

  1. Tinies are much smaller, more like campers than mobile homes.
  2. Tinies on wheels are more easily moved, like a camper.
  3. Tinies are highly customized
  4. Tinies are much more expensive per square foot.
  5. Tinies usually have higher quality materials
  6. Tinies could be parked in a back yard.
  7. Many tinies recycle, reuse, etc. (sustainability)
  8. Some tinies are equipped for off grid
  9. Tinies are in a grey area of building codes
  10. Tinies are harder to insure
  11. Tinies multipurpose furniture as bed/table/storage etc. for multiple uses of space
  12. Tinies often have lofts, ladders (or the elevator bed I showed).
  13. Tinies are a very tough fit for families.

I’m not stumping for them as a great housing alternative for the masses. The question, rather, was whether they’re “mobile homes.”

37

“Size” beyond being able to be moved on a roadway is not part of the definition of ‘mobile home’ as far as I’m aware.

This is all covered by ‘upscale’. There’s nothing inherit in the definition of ‘mobile home’ that says they can’t be customized, or expensive, or made of a particular quality of material. As far as 6 on, you’re just listing more things that mobile homes can also do or that are irrelevant to the definition. I’ve seen mobile homes parked in a backyard, nothing stops mobile home users from recycling, or from equipping one off-grid, or having multipurpose furniture, or ladders.

Arguing ‘they’re not upscale mobile homes because they are more expensive than typical examples of mobile homes, made of better materials, and smaller’ doesn’t fly. I had avoided going into a back and forth on this before, but there you go.

38

It seems obvious we won’t see eye to eye on this, so rather than reply to your comments, I’ll just leave it here.

39

One thing I also wonder about Tiny Houses - there are a lot of articles that look at new tiny houses (often before anyone has moved in), fairly new ones (few years), and even some that look at longer-term residents who are happy. But has anyone seen a general look at ‘here’s what a tiny house looks like after 10-12 years’? I suspect that they’re hard to keep clean and mold-free, that clever convertible devices break down or don’t get used, and that there ends up being a lot of bad-looking wear and tear around ladders and sliding doors. In a regular house if a closet door screws up and you can’t easily fix it, you can live without it, replace it with a curtain, or replace it with off-the-shelf hardware, but in most of these tiny houses you’d have to custom rebuild (or close to it) the door because it’s in a specialized setup.

40

I wanna see the hidden camera a year later. You know the follow up isn’t quite as chirpy.