In 2018 we were living in a "smallish" 80m2 house with 3 bedrooms. Our business was going pretty well, and like most people we thought about a bigger house. We loved where we lived, so we decided to extend our house to make the lounge area bigger. We met with the draftsman to draw some plans, when one of those "crappy things that turns out to be a good
thing" happened. The rent of the room we rented was going to almost double, which would have stretched our mortgage too much with the renovation. In the end, we negotiated a better room rent, but it just made us pause and think- is this what we really want to do?
In 2020, we opened a new clinic in Mount Maunganui on the 2nd floor of a commercial building. Looking back, I am amazed at how little we were aware of mould because the owner told us they had recently had some big roof leaks and we didnt even care or think about it. We started working there, and within a few days I started noticing some weird symptoms- intense fatigue, brain fog, achey pains, anxiety and wobbly legs at times. As we had heard of mould affecting health through our functional medicine training, we got onto it pretty quickly and stopped working there after 2 weeks.
Although the symptoms resided, from that point on my system became hypersenstive to indoor mould. Buildings and vehicles that I hadn't previously noticed as being a problem, were now causing symptoms. I couldn't drive our trusty old Toyota Corolla anymore. I stuggled to work in our other physio clinic (it had no windows or fresh air!). Things became alot more difficult as I felt like I was being constantly exposed to mould when indoors. The more I learnt about Mould Illness the more clear it became that mould had been affecting our families health for years.
I stopped working from the clinic, and started seeing clients from home. Although I felt better doing this, it wasn't an ideal setup as it was just in our lounge and it felt a bit unprofessional.
This is when we began thinking about Tiny Houses
At first we didnt think about living in them. We thought about building a small one to work from and continue our physio business from. Having it on a trailer made sense if we wanted to move it on the property, or potentially have it as a mobile clinic. We looked at a few design options online and started drawing our plans.
Julia loves the design side of things and quickly came up with some great designs which included a loft space that we could use as extra storage, or sleeping if need (which turned out to be the case as you will see)
We soon ordered the trailer from Bay Engineering, and decided to go with steel framing for the reduced weight (we were aiming to keep it under 2.5 ton). We simply sent our drawings to Steelhaus ,they sent back a framing plan which we tweaked a bit and then ordered. Our neighbours had a empty back section right next to us, and offered for us to build it there which was amazing.
The first step was building the subfloor. We opted to do a timber subfloor as it had a bit better thermal properties than steel. We used timber framing, EPS insulation (not great for the enviroment but really the only underfloor option for tiny houses) and 18mm treated plywood for the floor.
Our shiny new trailer, built by the team at BES
Next the steel framing went up which was so quick as it was alreay in sections. What we woud learn with building is that there are so many options - each with its pros and cons. Steel framing is light, straight, and also won't grow mould if there is any water damage. On the negative side it can be hard to work with if you want ot make changes, it doesnt have as good thermal properties and it can increase the EMF in your house if that is a concern for you. With the moud illness, Julia and I had noticed that we were more senstive to EMFs so we decided to use shielded electical cable (which is not cheap!) but we are glad we did in the end.
The walls went up quickly!
Roof on
After the roof went on, it was time to wrap the house. This was trickier than expected, especially with the steel framing, but we learnt a trick from "Living Big in a Tiny House" videos about using a magnet to hold the wrap as you go. I also found that the standard wingtek screws we got from fortress didnt work that well, and we ended up using the Bremick Multione which worked way better through the steel. We used plastic Cavibats as cavity battens. Again for the weight, but also plastic doesnt grow mould.
After the joinery from Omega BOP was in, (thanks to our friend Mark who helped us out on Christmas eve!) we started cladding. Again, we looked at tons of different options but ended up using Enduroclad- which is basically shadowclad which has been joined to make longer sheet. This removed the need for a horizontal Z flashing we which we liked. What we didnt like was the timber treatment as it stunk! They are treated in LOSP which offgasses like anything, and as we had chemical senstivities as well it was quite hard to work with. Eventually if offgasses so you don't notice it, but in hindsight we would choose a less toxic product.
Joinery in, ready for cladding : )
Into the inside, we used a wool/polyester blend for insulation, and also used a 3mm foam seal tape on inside of the framing where the steel would touch the interior ply. This creates a bit more of a thermal break from the steel. We used a birch/poplar plywood from Pureply for the interior lining which uses a soy-based glue instead of the formaldehyde based glues that ply usually have. We love this plywood, but it was alot more expensive than your average plywood. Most plywoods now have a E0 or E1 rating for formaldehyde which is a very low emission, so Im not sure if it's something we needed to worry about. It was good to support a company creating better products for the enviroment.
We love how this plywood looks. That big box is the Lunos ventilation unit and the big black cable is the shielded electrical cable
Ventilation was a big consideration for us. We had learnt how important exhanging the air was inside a small space, and had come across the Lunos units (again on the Living Big in a Tiny House channel). We opted for a unit called the Nexxt which was a single unit which simultaneously brings fresh air in, and the old air out- as opposed to the Lunos e2 which has 2 units which alternate. It has a heat exhanger so incoming air is warmed, and a F7-9 filter which is near HEPA level. It was probably a little oversized for the small room, but we wanted something that worked well- which it did.
Laying down the flooring. Another first for us…
The last thing was the flooring. Again, we wanted something low toxic and could wear well and deal with any spills etc. We went for Forbo Marmoleum which is lino made the old school way- 100% natural. We let our daughters pick the colour and they chose a really nice blue colour which really worked in the space (mum and dad were opting for the boring gray!). We installed that ourselves which was a new challenge, and in came up nicely.
A few finishing touches (blinds, architraves etc) and we got all the light fixtures installed. We chose to use BlockBlue lights which reduce the amount of blue light at nighttime, which helps with sleep and hormone balance. We love the biolight spectrum light which can flick between full spectrum, amber (low blue) and red (no blue) from the same switch.
Now we were ready to use the space! It felt super cosy and calm in there with the ply walls and the lighting. I started seeing a few physio clients in there and it felt like a good amount of room.
Our tiny house physio clinic (for a while)
Dealing with mould illness, I was still struggling to have the energy and mental power to see many clients so I knew that I couldn't go back to seeing the amount of people I was in our old clinic. After alot of thought and looking at options, we decided to sell our 80m2 house and move down the road to a section that my parents owned and build another tiny house to live in. This would take the pressure off financially and allow us to have a break from physiotherapy, and focus on getting well.
And off she goes! Luckily only 200m down the road.
So after building "Teeny Tina" for a physio clinic, she ended up being towed down the road and became our home for 6 months while we had our "big" tiny house built. Luckily we had built the loft space, so Julia and I could sleep up there and the girls had there bunk beds down below. We managed to fit our couch, a desk and a bunch of baskets, suitcases etc for our clothes and things. It was tight! But very cosy and because we knew it was short-term it was actually a really nice experience overall. It was really warm through winter, without needing a heater, and we got minimal condensation with the Lunos Nexxt (which was amazing with 4 people sleeping in there). Where did we cook, and use the bathroom? Well, the section we moved to already had a small 30m2 cottage on it, which my parents used as their holiday home when they visited. This was consented and had a shower, toilet and kitchen. The only problem was that we knew it had some mould problems as well. We lived mostly in the Tiny house, and woud use the kitchen and toilet as quick as possible! We also made an outdoor kitchen and bath which we used alot.
Very cosy. Lounge and 2 bedrooms in one room.
It was a great experience building, and then living in this space- even though it was way too small be a long term solution. We loved sleeping up in the loft, surrounded by plywood, and a looking out through a window to a beautiful tree. Because it was quite small, we were able to move it ourselves with our smallish 4wd and have repositioned it quite a few times on the site. Initially it was facing north-west and got really hot inside in the summmer at evening. We now have it positiioned in a better spot (it's quite easy to move) where it has more shade, and we will end up building a pergoloa to help with that as well. After sleeping in it, it was then used as the girls craft and play room (as they didnt have bedrooms). Now they finally have their own bedrooms, it is back to being a work space- The Mould Project office :)
