Micro Home Discussion Group

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Comment by Eric Koch on April 1, 2009 at 12:51am

Awsome....let me know when ya got some pictures up...love ta see it.

Comment by Walt Barrett on March 31, 2009 at 10:45pm

We finally have some decent weather and are finishing the interior of the micro home.

Comment by Eric Koch on February 24, 2009 at 12:43pm

I've noticed a bed seems to take up a lot of space....so the way i'm seeing it is ya either have to multi it as seating for dining, office/study, and lounge ..Or..frame up a bathroom to the dimensions of your bed with the idea of the bed as the "Cap".

Then It hits me....3' 6"(plenty of room to sit up) + mattress= 4'....and a bathroom with an 8' ceiling...giving 12' total, so, ya put the main floor at half way on a bath room wall ladder and call it a Micro Split Level !!!

and the +4 on the roof line will get your solar panels up a little higher too.

Comment by Eric Koch on December 25, 2008 at 8:43pm

Hey Walt,
do you have any floor plans?...my saucer is 57 sq. feet equator area...tight bit of design work but i don't lose any space to door swing.... if ya multi space i bet 100 squares could be really nice.

Comment by Walt Barrett on November 3, 2008 at 6:56am

There is no doubt that you need lots of insulation and light colored paint etc. to hold an even temperature in a container, but we do not find it that expensive compared to a conventional home. We have also seen some clever ways to shade these units in the hot season. We are currently building a basically all wood unit anyway. The container are currently being engineered. We are watching the market very carefully to see how many people are really interested in buying. Things could be draggy until spring due to the slumping economy. We just have to keep moving forward! Walt

Comment by Walt Barrett on November 3, 2008 at 6:44am

I have just posted the DIY video for the micro home we built to experiment with. It is on my Pickens home page.
Walt

Comment by JT on October 16, 2008 at 8:08pm

Walt, you may wanna rethink that shipping container strategy. I've done a few of them, and there are some issues. It's narrow, for one, but more importantly, steel is a great thermal (and electrical) conductor; they're cold as all hell in winter, hot as the same place in summer, without taking considerable steps and expenses to insulate and shade them.

JT

Comment by Walt Barrett on October 16, 2008 at 7:34pm

I have announced today that we will begin converting steel shipping containers into micro homes at our tractor assembly shop in Connecticut. We will offer optional solar energy systems to power these units. The size is either 8' x 20' or 8' x 40' all insulated steel construction. Interested parties should contact Walt Barrett at: wbarrett1@aol.com .

Comment by Dennis K Howard on October 7, 2008 at 8:01pm

ok guys, I just joined the pickens site, got my profile set up and this was about the first place I found when I searched the groups. I have 200 acres of ranchland in west texas just outside of Lubbock. I havd been investigating alternative energy option, alternative buildling option and otehr possibilities.

Lets get the discussion going.

Dennis

Comment by JT on October 2, 2008 at 3:08am

Funny that this group should form. I've been designing and building micro-homes for years. (In fact, the domain names just came up for renewal again, and I'd decided not to bother with the websites.) People jsut don't want to give up their expansive houses, even though they don't make sense. My micro-home clients often start modest, between 8 and 12 feet wide by 12-20 feet long, and end up doing 700 square or more. (Some then scrap the idea altogether because the costs have risen beyond Walden Pond Cabin prices. :)

The comment from Pat Jack is classic. He "needs" at "least" one room with a ceiling of 13.5 feet. Well, first off, that's not inherently opposed to energy efficiency. But saying you want a micro-house with "as much space as possible" is an oxymoron, a contradiction of terms.

The simple fact isthat we don't NEED that space, and it's nigh unto impossible to justify it for the few times that one will record a "full sized orchestral string bass to be played..." Uhm, if your bass is more than 7 feet tall, you're gonna have one hell of a hard time playing it no matter where you put it, Pat.:)

Lest you think I don't get the concerns, I've got my own recording studio here as well. There again, THINK MICRO. Korg D3200 is a LOT of digital music in a very concise (and portable) package. So when you "need" that bigger space, take the bass to a place that is suitable and track it. Hassle? Maybe. But it beats the hell out of building a room with 14' ceilings for that few minutes of recording. Kinda like taking on a fly with a bazooka.

Pat, I'm not attacking you personally. You just provided great example of how we ALL need to be rethinking our ways of doing (and looking at) things.

Peace & Creation,

JT

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