My plan is to have a bunch of tiny houses (like those giant two story sheds you’d see in the parking lot of Home Depot) all facing each other. Except for the living room one which faces the street and is where people enter. That one would also have big glass doors facing the courtyard, and maybe the kitchen would too.
They would all need to be well insulated and have their own window AC units. Weather would need to be mild for the courtyard part to work well, and it would have some potted plants and a metal table to sit and eat at in the middle.
Thoughts? Could I feasibly: legally build this?
I could also buy one tiny house at a time and add on as I get more money. And it would end up significantly cheaper than buying a new build house
Stairs guarantee falls which destroy mobility when you're old. That house should be a single story with the same area instead. Stairs not only don't get used by old people, but if you get injured you lose half your house. Build for the future not just the present.
>Could I feasibly: legally build this?
Does your jurisdiction let you have a kitchen or a bathroom in a shed? Probably not.
In terms of feasibility, it would be more efficient in terms of cost, energy efficiency, comfort, and value added to just build an ADU in a more conventional manner. You're basically getting all the downsides of a tiny house with none of the upsides.
The main thing is that I really want the toilet separate like an outhouse. I’ve been thinking about the bacteria and everything and I think our ancestors had the right idea with outhouses, they thought having a toilet in your house is nasty.
Also with baths and showers I get concerned about the humidity building up in my house and closet. I really want it separated and well ventilated so there’s no moisture issues spreading and causing mold.
And with the kitchen there’s always steam in the air, smells, oils etc. and there was that stuff in the news about natural gas stoves causing asthma. I would also rather have it separate from where I sleep and well ventilated. And this way if any one section gets damaged it can be repaired independent of the others
Sounds great until you get older and have to get up to pee at night and walk across a courtyard while it's below freezing out.
You can pee anywhere dummy. Just walk 5 feet and pee on the nearest tree or fence or old tire or something.
In Afghanistan out on the FOB we had this pipe that everyone pissed in. It was the piss pipe.
Having to go outside to go from your kitchen to your living room or from your bedroom to your bathroom is a terrible idea. Like really fricking awful.
The reason outhouses were separate from houses was because they were just open pits in the ground full of shit that constantly emitted harmful gasses and shit smelling foulness. That's not a problem with modern plumbing as sewage is piped away from the bathroom and gasses are blocked through the use of traps. There's no issues with bacteria if you clean your bathroom regularly. And if you're concerned about humidity from the shower put in an exhaust fan with a motion sensor switch on a 30 minute timer.
Don't design your house around avoiding a problem that hasn't existed in the civilized world for 75 years.
It would be fine somewhere like Florida where it never gets too cold
Have you been in Florida in July-August? You go outside for 30 seconds and you're completely drenched with sweat.
However even if you took the environmental factor out of the equation it's still just a horrible idea. There are no benefits to designing a house this way, only drawbacks. It just makes it so you have to go in and out of the house like 50 times a day for no reason.
>Walk outside to take a shit
>Get accosted by a million mosquitos
>I think our ancestors had the right idea with outhouses, they thought having a toilet in your house is nasty.
It was a huge step forward in health and sanitation when we started using modern toilets instead of outhouses.
Try taking a look into dogtrot houses, pic related. You could separate the bathroom and kitchen from the rest of the house (although tbh-- extraction fans and stove hoods make this completely unnecessary)
>dogtrot houses
Interesting
I know a few people who still live in these style houses and they're still being made in my state (Pennsylvania) though modern dogtrot houses are usually the house on one side, and the garage plus spare room/additional bathroom on the other
I'd live in one. The layout is perfect for my needs.
>and there was that stuff in the news about natural gas stoves causing asthma. I would also rather have it separate from where I sleep and well ventilated.
trust the news to give you propaganda, don't trust the actual propaganda
I think traditional japanese homes are like this
If you watch old kung fu movies, you can get a glimpse of how their houses are laid out, with open areas between rooms. They obviously do not live in a typical North American climate, but they did not live a typical North American lifestyle either.
Reminds me of how rich Chinese people lived in olden times.
but where's the SHED?
The main advantage of tiny homes is they have no code or permit requirements. In most places, anything under a certain square footage is considered an outbuilding and not subject to these requirements... until you add power or water. Once you add power or water (or gas, sewage, etc.), regardless of size, it requires a permit in most places. This varies place to place but permits mean inspections, certified tradespeople signing off on work, meeting code, etc.
Also, the absolute cheapest thing you can add to a home is square footage. You can double the footprint of a home for way less than double the price. But, if you are doing weird shit like having separate buildings, you've now doubled everything. Two foundations, two roofs, EIGHT walls instead of four. A building that is 40m x 25m is 1000 m2 in area and has 130m of walls. Two 20m x 25m buildings have the same area but 180m of walls. You'll need a sub panel of each building if you want them to have power. That kind of shit. It all adds to the cost.
Or, you know, just do what the Japanese do and put the toilet in its own little closet and wear separate shoes when you use it.
I’m pretty sure I saw a Mormon outlaw with multiple wives try to do this in a documentary once it was actually very kino. He wanted to basically terraform the area enclosed area into a green space in the middle of the desert. He had a bit of trouble starting it up but seemed to be doing okay.
Courtyard houses are very appealing. Kind of weebish but I'd suggest looking to Japanese minka for inspiration.
I've played around with similar ideas of having the shitter, bath, and kitchen each individually seperated from the main living areas. But I want a proper spa bath with sauna, shower, and bathtub. Maybe a cold plunge tub as well. Bathing is supposedly something we do every day but many houses either add ithe bathroom as an afterthought or have five shitty bathrooms instead of one nice bath. Seems dumb when there are multiple guest rooms and redundancy like a den and a living room. Designers seem to hate the shit out of a nice bathroom. Back to the topic, Japanese construction favors deep eaves to protect buildings from rain which is perfect for a wrap around porch. They call it engawa if you want to search for examples. A porch around the courtyard would be a nice way to enjoy nature and your garden while bleeding the distinction between inside and outside. Especially if you had removable screen or glass panels between the two depending on season.
Since you are considering cooling/dehumidification you might be better served by a multizone mini split system instead of multiple window units. I would go for a U or L shaped house and well defined courtyard connecting to a garden, but I'm a weeaboo. Chinese houses were more closed in with walls on all four sides, were more rectangular, and still had seperate areas for kitchen, poop, and living spaces. They were kind of big though. If you aren't considering a multigeneration home I'd think Japanese style would be better. If you're considering costs building roundhouses maximizes square footage vs cost of walls. There are not many examples of it but a cluster of roundhouses combined with a courtyard could be neat.
that's fricking moronic, you're a mongoloid, never breed.