The small home: worksheet

Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Lesson 7: Small-home types compared

By the end you can:

Your brief says: one person, low budget, must be legal full-time, and you may move in five years. Which question should you answer first?

Key: Whether local zoning allows a tiny house on wheels as a full-time home
Name one trade-off from this lesson. What do you gain, and what does it cost (money, time, space, upkeep or risk)?
Which parts of this topic need a licensed professional or a permit, and what would you ask them?

By the end you can:

Name the main kinds of loads on a building.
Trace the load path from roof to soil.
Describe common foundation and framing types, and know what needs an engineer or inspector.

You want to open up a small cabin by removing an inside wall. What should you do first?

Key: Have a professional confirm whether it is a bearing wall, and check permit rules
Name one trade-off from this lesson. What do you gain, and what does it cost (money, time, space, upkeep or risk)?
Which parts of this topic need a licensed professional or a permit, and what would you ask them?

By the end you can:

A cabin has thick insulation in the walls but is still cold and drafty. What is the most likely missing piece?

Key: Air sealing: there is no continuous air barrier
Name one trade-off from this lesson. What do you gain, and what does it cost (money, time, space, upkeep or risk)?

By the end you can:

A new cabin in zone 5 overheats on sunny October afternoons and is cold before dawn. The south wall is almost all glass, with a wood floor on joists. What is the best fix to explore?

Key: Add thermal mass where the sun lands, and add shading or less glass
Name one trade-off from this lesson. What do you gain, and what does it cost (money, time, space, upkeep or risk)?

By the end you can:

You have just air sealed a small house with a wood stove. What should come next?

Key: Plan ventilation and have the stove and flue checked for safe draft
Diagnose it: “The cabin is damp. Windows drip every winter morning and black spots are growing in a closet on an outside wall.” What is the most likely cause, and what clue tells you?

Key: Lots of moisture made inside, with no planned way to remove it
Name one trade-off from this lesson. What do you gain, and what does it cost (money, time, space, upkeep or risk)?
Which parts of this topic need a licensed professional or a permit, and what would you ask them?

By the end you can:

You buy rural land and plan a small cabin with solar and a septic system. What is the best first step?

Key: Call the building, zoning and health offices with your homestead brief and ask what applies
Name one trade-off from this lesson. What do you gain, and what does it cost (money, time, space, upkeep or risk)?
Which parts of this topic need a licensed professional or a permit, and what would you ask them?

By the end you can:

Two plans have the same floor area in zone 6A. Plan A is a rectangle with its long side south and most glass on the south. Plan B is an L-shape with large west windows. Which will usually lose less heat over a winter?

Key: Plan A
Name one trade-off from this lesson. What do you gain, and what does it cost (money, time, space, upkeep or risk)?
Which parts of this topic need a licensed professional or a permit, and what would you ask them?

Goal: Keep indoors at 59 °F (15 °C) or warmer for at least 95% of hours, December through February, on 2,500 kg (about 1.5 cords) of wood.

Run the starting setup to the end. Write down what failed and when.
Predict which single change will help most. Write your prediction before you try it.
Pin the first run as a baseline, make one change, press Restart and run again. Record what moved in the comparison table.
Keep changing one thing at a time until the goal is met. What did your final setup cost, as a range?

Questions come from the lessons' checks. The course is in draft; check answers against the current lesson text.