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Todays video was actually our first YouTube hit! Aimee and I sit down and talk about what worked well and what didn't, one year after moving into the Tiny House.

When I watch tiny house videos on YouTube, more often than not, only the positive side is shown. Usually, the houses are perfectly displayed with staged décor and accessories, and are showcased before they were even lived in. This gives an illusion of perfection, when few things in life are perfect. Even standard sized houses have issues, so why wouldn't tiny houses?

Aimee and I discuss both the positives and negatives we uncovered after living in the tiny house for one year. Since we have now been in the house over two years, I am going to briefly list the items mentioned in the video and give some additional updates. How did we deal with some of the problems we encountered? Continue reading to find out.

Challenges

• Condensation - One of the big issues we experienced during the first full winter in the tiny house was a build up of condensation, particularity on the windows and in a couple of cold corners in the house. One of the things that helped was running the wood stove more because it causes a greater air exchange. While we briefly discuss a miniature air exchanger in the video, we didn't end up installing one. What we did end up doing was buying a small dehumidifier. It has reduced the condensation issues roughly about 75%. We don't have the type of build up we did that first winter but sometimes the windows still freeze shut.

Condensation in the winter is not just a tiny house problem.

• The Furnace Crapped Out - After the first full winter, as we entered into the spring the furnace stopped working. Luckily, by this time the weather had already warmed up quite a bit. Additionally, we had the Hobbit Stove as back up. I have since repaired the furnace and it has been running well this whole winter thus far. I may do a video on the repair process in near future now that I have more footage which I have not yet shared.

• One Drain Pipe Froze Shut - Our grey water pipes are exposed to the cold temperatures under the tiny house. Even though we have some skirting around the house, the area underneath isn't heated. Leaving the pipes unheated hasn't been an issue with the exception of the bathroom sink where we only use small amounts of water at a time. With a fresh water tank at a limited size, we try conserve our water usage. There wasn't enough water travelling down the sink to melt the ice from the previous uses which caused the pipe to eventually freeze solid. We had the same issues this winter but started using a catch basin under the tap. Once it fills up we pour the water down one of the other drains we know remains free from ice blockages. I know this isn't a very elegant solution but it works in a pinch.

• Lint Clogged in the Dryer - Our washer/dryer machine doesn't have a lint screen;the user manual states that the lint will be flushed down the drain. This feature hasn't exactly been flawless for us. The lint tends to accumulate at part of the vent system in the back of the machine over time. The first time this occurred, clearing out the lint was extremely hard to figure out. Since then, I have had to de-clog it one other time, making the issue a yearly occurrence. The second time, I cleared the lint was much easier though.

  Some appliances gave us issues but still worked well overall.

• The Hobbit Stove Caused Overheating - Even though The Hobbit is a tiny wood stove, when the weather isn't extremely cold the stove would tend to overheat the core of the tiny house while the far ends of the house would tend to remain cool. We didn't do much to specifically address this issue other than doing shorter burns in The Hobbit stove when temperatures weren't super cold. The dehumidifier also seemed to help slightly with the heat distribution issue because it has a fan which helped circulating the air better.

• Our Water Storage was Inadequate - We have a 150 gallon water bladder that sits under the floor in the main living area. We have to refill this tank a little too frequently for our liking. The main culprit for the quick drain is our laundry machine. We had originally planned to get a bigger custom bladder but once we knew we were going to build a bigger house we decided to just live with the temporary inconvenience.

What Worked

• Our Near Full-Size Kitchen - We have seen a lot of tiny houses with a lot of tiny kitchens but this wasn't going to fit our lifestyle. We cook a lot from scratch and need room to both store and prepare fresh ingredients. I don't have much more to add to this point other than, after two years we are still glad we decided to have a larger kitchen.

Having an almost full size kitchen was a real plus.

• Our Near Full-Size Bathroom - Another feature that we made sure to incorporate into our tiny house was a near conventional-sized washroom. You use the washroom every day and trying to clean up in an over-cramped space wasn't at all appealing to us.
• The Hobbit Stove - I know, earlier we complained about The Hobbit stove overheating the house. While overheating was an issue when the winter weather was mild when the temperature dropped to the bitter cold having a source of wood heat was nice. A warm fire gives off a much cozier heat than forced air and it saved us on buying propane too. We have even used the stove to boil water, cook bacon and roast smokies with the door open. Due to the amazing draft of this little stove, we don't get smoke back.
• Raised Floor - As I may have mentioned in other posts, the raised floor was an innovative idea that Aimee and I though of. We raised the floor in the living area, using the extra space as a mechanical room; hiding the furnace, hot water tank, water bladder and water lines below our feet. Since our water bladder and water lines are in an insulated and heated area, even when temperatures dropped below -30°C overnight nothing ever froze.
• RV Hot Water Tank - While we weren't impressed with the RV furnace, the RV hot water tank was amazing. Even though the tank only holds 10 gallons, we never really run out of hot water because it is great at heating on demand. It also uses less propane than you might think since the heat from the pilot light stretches up the burn tube which helps to maintain the water temperature. We did do some maintenance on the tank this fall to get it ready for winter. Apparently, the thermocouple was loose which caused the pilot to occasionally go out. Once we tightened down the thermocouple the hot water tank started working flawlessly again.
• Indoor Lighting - The majority of our lighting is 12v DC strip lighting. Both the lofts areas underneath have low ceilings making conventional fixtures a poor choice. The strip lighting is low profile so it doesn't get in the way and illuminates the areas that we need it to well. We also added a few dimer switches, the one in the bedroom is really nice because we can turn it down before bed to help us relax. Power consumption wise, our lighting uses minimal power. We could turn on all the lighting in the house at once and it would only use about 60 watts.
• Propane Appliances - We decided to install as many propane appliances as we could find, mainly to help us go off grid if decided to. It turned out that, the propane appliances used very little propane and were very affordable to run. In the summer, we can go about four months on a single 100 lb. propane tank and in the winter that same tank size will last 2-3 months.

Conclusion

While tiny house living isn't as perfect as it is often presented to be, I think we did a good job of planning from the beginning, before we started to build and then addressing with problems as they arose. As you may have noticed, a good portion of our issues were directly related to the extremely cold winters here in Alberta. Hopefully, if you are planning to live in a tiny house at some point you learned a thing or two and if you aren't then I hope you were at least entertained by this post.

Aimee and I had some fun filming this video! I am actually larger then Aimee but due to the perspective she is out angling me... :)

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Thanks for reading/watching everyone! Please upvote, follow and resteem to support this work. As always, comments are welcome and I would be more than happy to answer any questions you may have about tiny houses.

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