Anybody built a Tiny House?

[2manyrocks]

I had a 1400 SF house moved 20 miles without any cracks in the drywall or broken windows.

I used T1-11 on a tool shed and 20 years later, it needs replacing.

 

[etpm]

So folks,
I have taken all the comments to heart. I really appreciate the comments and advice. It looks like a 5 foot wide by 8 or 10 foot long bathroom would be ideal, especially considering the ADA aspect. Even though this room will only be used a few times a year by friends or family making it friendly for folks with disabilities is a great idea. So besides the ramp to the door which was already planned the bathroom also needs to be ADA compliant. I would not have thought about this requirement but because of the post by Eddie Walker and his zero lip shower I have rethought the bathroom design.
Today a friend stopped by and he knows way way way more than I know about building stuff. (Did I say he knows way more about building stuff than I do? Well, he does.) We discussed the distance between the room and the building and how having 2 more feet of clearance would be ideal for adding the bathroom to the room. And he came up with a pretty good solution.
The building, the room, is resting on 4 x 6 beams. These beams are parallel to the shop. All the 2 x 6 floor joists are sitting on these beams and the 3/4 plywood subfloor rests on the 2 x 6 joists. I think joists is the proper term. On top of the subfloor is, of course, the floor.
Anyway, here is the plan my friend came up with to move the building 2 feet away from the shop: use my Yanmar YM2310 tractor to tug it away from the shop. My friend's suggestion to make it possible for my tractor to be able to tug the building 2 feet is to jack up the building, slide some greased up I beams underneath, lower the building, carefully, onto the I-beams, carefully tug it 2 feet away, then set it, carefully, down on re-positioned pier blocks.
My friend's plan scares me. So instead of using the tractor to tug the building I am going to use a couple trucks as anchors and a couple come alongs to tug he building into place. I have the I-beams already so I will grease them up, slide them under the building, then jack them up until the building comes away from the pier block supports it is now resting on. Unfortunately the beams closest to the ground are parallel to the shop and as such are perpendicular to moving them away from the shop. This means I will need to have all the pier blocks moved to a certain degree.
I would rather not move the building but right now it looks like a 5 by something bathroom will work a lot better than a 4 by something bathroom. I am still looking for suggestions.
Thanks,
Eric

 

[EddieWalker]

Instead of moving the building, why not just set some forms and pour concrete for a brand new room?

On the ramp, ADA wants it to be very shallow. Slope is 1:12 or less. If it's steeper, wheel chairs will struggle to get up it and they can be dangerous to go down them.

There are some good ADA websites out there that list what is required. I'm not gong full ADA with my bathroom remodels unless it's a requirement of the job. Mostly I use ADA as a guideline to make it easier for my elderly clients. But even younger people like having the opening bigger to get around.

When my wife had knee surgery, she was able to use a walker to get into the shower, sit on a chair that we put in there and use the handles on the walls to get up from the chair. Other clients wanted permanent chairs built into their showers with the controls for the shower within reach of the seat and a flexible shower head. For them, standing while taking a shower isn't an option. I've also had several jobs where I had to take apart the wall going to the bathroom because the door was only 24 inches to get into there. This is very common, the small 24 inch doors. And totally impossible for somebody to get through that needs a walker to get around.

 

[California]

I like Eddie's idea of adding an adjacent room. But if you decide to slide the existing building over, you might consider moving it considerably more than that 2 ft you mentioned.

 

[etpm]

Instead of moving the building, why not just set some forms and pour concrete for a brand new room?

I don't want another room. I think moving the building will be easy. I'll talk to my son about it since he placed the building where it is.
Eric

 

[EddieWalker]

My main reason for suggesting adding on a room is for stability. From what you have described, your building will probably move too much for a tile shower. If you want a zero lip shower, then it will have to be custom built, which means tile. Tile does not like movement. You can minimize the cracking in the corners with silicone, but there's a limit to what silicone can handle.

 

[ponytug]

Hey All,
I just wanna say Thank You to all the folks who have responded so far to my Tiny House bathroom inquiry. I have been getting lots of good advice and lots of good ideas.
After reading the posts I realized I need to add more info. First of all, even though the room is about 300 feet from our house it is 6 feet from my shop. My shop has its own septic system and the room is about 20 feet from the septic tank, which is behind the shop. So I will be connecting the room to the shop water supply and the shop septic. In fact, I have a water pipe with a valve in a vault just outside the back of the shop. This water feeds the greenhouse. I will need to put the sewage pipe under the water pipe to get to the septic tank. I don't know what code says about water pipe and sewage pipe proximity. This may be a problem. Then again it may not.
The reason for the narrow bathroom is because the room is only 6 feet and 3 inches from the side of my shop. That means that if the bathroom is 4 feet inside there will only be about 1 1/2 feet between the bathroom's outside wall and the shop. With this small clearance I'm not sure how the builders are gonna attach the T1-11 siding. I am considering moving the room, dragging it away from the shop a couple feet.
My son built the room and had it at his house. When the house was sold the building wasn't part of the deal. I bought it from him and he moved it about 1/2 mile to my place and set it on pier blocks. So I am gonna ask him how hard it would be to move it 2 feet. When I originally bought it the inside was not finished. Now it is and I don't know if the drywall is gonna crack. The room is built properly and is really quite stout but wood moves and I would hate to have to fix a bunch of cracks and then paint the interior once again.
Thanks,
Eric

I don't want another room. I think moving the building will be easy. I'll talk to my son about it since he placed the building where it is.
Eric

I would either move it away, attach it to the shop directly, or do as @EddieWalker suggests and building new. (Gorgeous bathroom Eddie!) If you expect elderly guests, having ADA features would be a gift, and you never know when it might come in handy.

Regardless, I would not go for a 4' wide bathroom, unless you go for undersized RV / Japanese toilets. That is just too cramped for comfort.

All the best,

Peter

 

[etpm]

My main reason for suggesting adding on a room is for stability. From what you have described, your building will probably move too much for a tile shower. If you want a zero lip shower, then it will have to be custom built, which means tile. Tile does not like movement. You can minimize the cracking in the corners with silicone, but there's a limit to what silicone can handle.

Greetings Eddie,
I had not considered movement causing the grout to crack because I want to use a pre-fab shower. Maybe what I want is not available. If I have to put in a custom shower I will need to make sure that part of the bathroom is stiff enough to avoid cracking of the grout. Thanks for the heads up.
I spoke with my son today and he thinks moving the building will be fairly easy. I already have the I beams and plenty of grease, plus between the two of us we have enough jacks. I can't really move the building more than about 2 feet because of the way the ground drops off. And I don't need to anyway. One foot would be enough, two feet will just give me a little more clearance between the buildings which will make building the bathroom easier.
Since I will not start the actual building process until late April or early May I have some time to consider all the good advice and suggestions I am getting here on TBN.
Cheers,
Eric

 

[EddieWalker]

You can save a bunch of money if you go with a premade fiberglass unit, but I'm not aware of any of them with a zero lip entry. If you get a one piece unit, you need to install it before the walls are up. They do not fit through doors!!! You also need good access to the drain, they can be a pain to install in tight spaces. For limited use, and easy to maintain, it's hard to beat them. The four piece units are easier to install, but they are not as attractive and I've seen them where they didn't get each piece aligned properly because it was too tight and nobody knew how to shave off some of the wood on the studs, so they leave gaps where there shouldn't be. I've seen this a few times. If you go with the fiberglass units, then movement isn't as big of an issue as it is with tile.

 

[jjeff]

Since you have months to go I'll say I bought and studied several books on designs of small cabins and homes , not tiny ones though, while I was drawing up my cabin plans they came in handy, I reverse engineered some of the pictures, had lots of ideas on room sizes and space utilization with limited space for me anyway.