What is your idea of a small house? Rod Thiessen’s house is smaller. The local builder was showing off his tiny house at Rocen Autosport, talking to people curious about the shrunken abode.
The house has a footprint of 8x16, with a sleeping loft above the main living area. It is “fully liveable,” Thiessen says, with a 5 gallon hot water heater, a furnace, fridge and stove. The extremely limited amount of square footage requires some novel solutions to problems that are not an issue in a regular-sized house. For example, the bathroom sink is mounted within the shower in order to save space.
“Everything had to find its place, because there is a lot of mechanical involved... There are lots of little nooks and crannies, and lots of places to put stuff.”
Building things is Thiessen’s life-long passion, and that’s also why he decided to build the house, for the sake of building something he hasn’t built before, and giving himself a new challenge. Building a tiny house requires a large amount of planning, since you have to make sure each square foot is used as efficiently as possible.
There are a few different reasons why Thiessen thinks people would like to own a tiny house. He suggests that it would be a good recreational home, for example, or housing for someone who works on oil rigs and doesn’t want to share an apartment with a number of other tenants. It could be a temporary home, or something someone could live in for four seasons.
“For those who really want to live minimalistic, this is small, moveable living quarters.”
Thiessen admits that since the structures are such a new concept, the laws surrounding them are still up in the air. That is the case locally. There are currently no laws specifically regarding tiny houses in Yorkton, nor does the city know of any permanently located in the city. Two areas where the city would want to talk with a potential homeowner about are sewer hookups as well as safety issues concerning a civic address for emergency services.
While the size of a camper trailer, Thiessen says that the tiny house is built more like a full sized house, with full insulation to make it liveable in the winter, residential quality windows and so on. The roof is also held to the standard of a residential building, just to a smaller scale.
“After 30 years it’ll still be holding out water, and that’s just not true of a camper. After thirty years your camper will be in the dump.”
While people are interested in the concept, Thiessen’s house is the first time many people have seen the concept first hand. He hasn’t met anyone who has been inside a tiny house before.
Thiessen’s tiny house is for sale, $35,000 will get you a new, small home. If the house sells, he plans on making more, and has some ambitious plans for the build.
“The next one will be a train caboose.”
