I am reading Charlie Wings’ The Tiny House Handbook. So much of the book is about tiny houses, as the name would suggest. I find tiny houses appealing though maybe not quite as small as the sub 400 square foot designs, especially those designed to be towed, suggest in much of the book.

Is a tiny home really a home, if it’s designed to be towed? In my mind such a structure is a trailer with a lot of things economized to fit the dimensions and weight limits of the road. The same can be said about many pre-fab structures. There is a lot of benefits to building a structure remotely in a warehouse or a factory – but also disadvantages of weight and size limits on what can be towed on the road, especially to remote sites.

At the same time, something on wheels or constructed off site seems to lack permanence. Truth is no building is permanent though there are many very old buildings still in active use. Obviously that is the most sustainable option. But it’s hard to see the plastic and plywood buildings that dominate the suburbs today having much permanence. Maybe an old house is better – if it hasn’t been hauled off to the local dumping grounds yet – then they must have done something right building it.

Building science is both fascinating and infuriating in my mind. Builders have many good ideas, they know what works and doesn’t. Durable materials aren’t always sustainable or easily disposed on site by burning or burying due to the toxic compounds used in them to provide a long life. Neighbors growing up when they got their new double wide to replace their old trailer burned the debris vinyl , siding scraps, waste materials and that sure burnt black and stunk. Decades before the burn ban! Wood just seems like a better option even if it involves covering it with toxic stains and paints.

I read a lot about sustainable building but I’m not sure what is real and what is woke glossy marketing. The sustainability community sure likes their toxic materials that maximize energy efficiency a lot. Even if it keeps drafts from leaking out, vinyl hardly seems like a good material to be using in building any more than the absolute necessary. What is going to happen to the vinyl eventually? Be burned? Be pushed back into the earth to leach plasticizers into the earth?

In many ways I do embrace the tiny house movement in that I crave simplicity, something like a very rustic hunting cabin. Something lit by a light bulb hung from a cord in the ceiling, heat by a basic woodstove , maybe no inner walls at all, just a simple brass or wooden bed like you might find in an institutional setting. For cooking, a simple camp stove or maybe upgrade to a small, old used gas oven converted to propane. Inexpensive electric refrigerator and freezer like everybody else has powered by solar. Outside shower and outhouse. When it’s too cold to crap outdoors a bucket works to be dumped in the poop hole. Rather than sending all that shit to the landfill.

Truth is that I hate how wires are hidden and even things like garbage cans are hidden in people’s houses. Heat comes from an invisible source, water is pumped in then disappears down a drain to a leach field or sewer with all the scum being collected to be eventually dumped in the landfill. I get how infrastructure is necessary but I hate how it’s all so hidden. If we could only go back to the way it was done 120 years ago, out in the country.