What we experience in winter weather.

Hi everyone!

Well, the holidays are upon us as we bring in the New Year tonight! Christopher and myself aren't planning anything big, just to enjoy each other's company! Maybe we will plan our next big adventure! 

I wanted to take a moment and share a few adjustments we have to do to our tiny house, when old man winter starts blowing. One big thing for us, has been our windows. Let me start by saying, It's not that I don't like Jeld-Wen windows, but they have not served us well. Maybe there are other factors involved, but here is my experience. We purchased our windows straight from the factory, so they were nice and pricy, which when you spend over $3,000 on windows, you hope they are going to last more than a few years. Every winter, when the temps start to drop outside... and I'm not talking that low (we have not seen a winter with temps lower than 11 degrees, most of the time it's more like 25 degrees) and we keep our house at about 60 degrees at night, since it's warmer up in the loft (and we have lots of blankets!). So, the thing with the windows in a tiny house, and I've seen this happen in a lot of them, they get moisture collected at the bottoms of the ledges. If this water sits there long enough, it starts to bleed behind the adhesive and rot the wood from the inside. We did decide to go with wood windows, since the look of wood was what we were going with. Be sure if you do decide to go this route, to make sure you seal it up! We typically don't have issues with the windows in the spring, summer or fall, just the winter months. I find myself having to sand the black off my windows and reseal them every summer. I know, not much to complain about, if that is my only maintenance to the house. But it can feel frustrating when you spent the money you have for quality windows. Now, let's talk about moisture in the tiny house, since that seems to contribute to the issue as well. Since our first winter in the tiny house, we decided to get a much larger dehumidifier to take care of the moisture we experience in the pacific north west, during the winter months. If we kept it running for a  full 24 hours, we would have to empty the 30 pint container every day... that's a lot of water floating around your house. Even with a fan, you are just going to be moving the moisture around, and you might still have persisting issues. Since we got the dehumidifier a few years ago, it has been much more comfortable inside the house, and easier to heat as well.  We typically will keep the heater to about 70 degrees during the day (on low) and turn it down to about 60 degrees at night. We will actually find ourselves sweating at night if we keep it any higher (our blankets work amazingly! basically two comforters, haha) We only really experience the moisture on the windows at night, during the day, the sun works it's magic on them. Also, one thing to point out, when it's just me in the house, there really isn't enough moisture being put out to notice anything, but when Christopher is also in the house, is when I start to see the condensation starting. Cooking dinner in the evenings also will help with that. So we typically will turn the dehumidifier on during dinner and leave it on a few hours into the night. It has a built in timer, so we can set it, and it will turn itself off. Same thing with our little oil filled radiant heater, we can set the time and it will shut off within a few hours. Since I work from home, I can monitor the system, but when we have to go somewhere, we will set it to turn off. Keep in mind when you are considering building your very own tiny house that there are a lot of factors you aren't going to notice, until you live in one. I hope that our personal experiences can be of some help to those looking to build or live in a tiny house of their own. Thanks for all your support! I'll see you in the new year!

I hope everyone is having an amazing adventure! Let's bring in the New Year, with new possibilities!

Happy New Year From The Tiny Tack House!!!!!

Some photos of what I've been talking about.

My window with some moisture on the ledge. You can see some black on the wood, right next to the glass. The awning windows get it the worst, since they open out to the moisture outside.

For those interested, it's a GE 30-pint Dehumidifier.

This is our Honeywell- Oil Filled, Electric Space Heater. Has temp setting, high-medium-low settings and an off timer.