We have been learning about and creating a tiny house for the past month in Social Studies. A tiny house is something pretty self-explanatory it’s a small-sized house that ranges between 100 and 400 feet.
Some advantages of living in a tiny home that I was able to think of were:
- Cost – Many people struggle with expenses (mainly quarantine), and tiny homes provide lower expenses than a regular-sized home would cost.
- Portability – Making a tiny home into a portable can be easy. Many people who enjoy travelling and exploring choose the option of owning a tiny home.
- Customization – With a tiny house you have more options of customizing your house like you would want to. Adding specific material that you might not be able to add in a regular-sized home.
I also thought of a few disadvantages, for example:
- Difficulty of Entertainment – Being able to entertain guests is a difficult task in a tiny house. Not as many opportunities for entertainment as in a regular-sized home. The main source of entertainment would be outdoors nature.
- Limited Storage – A smaller-sized home means a smaller amount of storage. Many tiny homeowners have to be creative with storage areas, for example, the stairs, some make their stairs drawers for storage areas.
- More Chores – Living in a tiny house adds a few extra responsibilities than you might have in a regular-sized home, for example, emptying a composting toilet.
These advantages/disadvantages are also reasons why tiny houses are becoming more popular. But the main reason is the cost of the house. Many people are looking for a more affordable option when it comes to owning a home.
Greenhouse gases are gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect by absorbing infrared radiation, for example:
- Carbon Dioxide
- Methane
- Chlorofluorocarbons
Tiny homes spread less gasses because they use less energy than a regular-sized home.
A carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gases (including carbon dioxide and methane) generated by our actions. We use carbon footprint mainly to measure the effects of global climate change. My carbon footprint measures around 16.3 tons. Your footprint includes emissions from a variety of sources, for example, your daily commute, the food you eat, the clothes you buy, everything you throw away etc.
After viewing many options of resources for my flooring and roofing reclaimed wood was my final decision. Reclaimed wood is processed wood retrieved from its original application for purposes of subsequent use. Wood is very known to be a durable and sustainable natural resource which is exactly what I wanted for my tiny house. Reclaimed wood is a great option for tiny houses.
For the math portion, we learnt about scales, budgeting, calculating the area of shapes and so much more.
We also learned how to create the following:
- Floor plan
- One-point perspective
- Budget calculations
- Elevation
Lastly, I would like to reflect on this project. I’d start by saying that I was surprised about how much I learnt throughout the entire process. Going into the project I was thinking that I would know everything and that the project would be very easy, let’s just say I was wrong.
If I were to do this project again I would have a few more questions:
- How big of an impact does your carbon footprint have?
- What is the better option – renting or owning? (statistics)
- What are the best strategies to come up with decisions for your home? (Materials, rent/own, etc,)
I think I did handle this project pretty well. If I were to do the project ever again I would try to be more responsible and organized when it comes to productivity and time management. Looking back on how I worked I think I worked very hard on both the math and social studies sections. I’m most proud of my floor plan that I worked very hard on. I also want to say that there were many struggles throughout the process, the main struggle was answering some of the questions in the social studies section. Many of the questions were difficult for me to answer.
That’s it for my blog post.
Thank you for reading!