April 2019 - Imaginarios Writing and editing

A tiny house possibility with lots of windows — **Lovely TH park model in Spokane. Too many windows for high winds and summer hailstorms?**

I was in the Spokane area recently. Beautiful surrounding wilderness areas. The city’s got character too. This was part family visit, part fact-finding mission to check out jobs, business opportunities, housing, property. I specifically wanted to look at tiny homes, and secondarily, campers.

Before I left home for my travels, I had a couple of calls with Tumbleweed Houses. When founder Jay Shafer owned the company, I attended some weekend DIY design workshops, hoping to learn enough to get started building my own. Shafer was inspirational, a true pioneer in the movement, if not the pioneer, and he’s brilliant. The company’s more commercial now, and feels less personal, less driven by design genius and mindfulness, but still seems committed to furthering social good. They sell plans as well as houses, and periodically have some pretty great sales prices.

Well, life happened, and I also despaired when I realized I didn’t have even basic tools expertise (let alone any hands-on power tool knowledge), nor any foreseeable help from family and friends. I back-burnered my dream. Ten-plus years later, as I clearly see the need for major home repairs here or a new residence, my goal is to resume the quest. Tumbleweed does offer financing – a big plus, and a necessity for me – and their prices are reasonable-ish, especially when they run sales. They offer a nice assortment of models. The ones I can afford are the right size, but don’t quite have the “wow” factor for me. Almost, though. Definitely almost. I like the rustic, simple look of a few of them very much. Others are more interesting, but bigger and less affordable. The jury’s still out.

Driving around Spokane, quite by accident I found Park Model Homes. A national company, they have a great selection of affordable, beautiful models tailored by region, e.g. for northern winter climates. Their homes are more upscale-looking, which has a certain appeal, but rustic is more my style. If I want to buy a TH for delivery to Montana (vs. the Spokane area), my house would come from their Nebraska location. They also offer financing, with banking relationships in Spokane, although I haven’t gone too far down that road yet. At my request, they emailed me a price sheet, and I was informally given a verbal ballpark quote of $60K, including house, taxes, delivery, and hookups. The homes are on trailers, to meet RV zoning requirements. I’m still researching the company itself – the website is dated and a little hard to figure out their true ownership or distributed business model – but I liked what I saw on the lot. They appear to have a network of companies that either operate as Park Model Homes, or do business with them. On my end, I’d need to have a level packed gravel parking space installed. Do-able.

It seems a little weird that there are no standout choices for these tiny homes in Billings or really anywhere in Montana, but I’m still looking. There are a couple of companies I want to check out. And there are numerous seasonal popup lots in Billings and outlying areas displaying sheds, shells really, that look like TH’s or garages or feed barns. These are quite affordable and well-constructed by local Amish builders. Delivery is cheap or free. The landscape is increasingly dotted with these in small communities and along state highways. I’m considering buying one for a shed, but I can’t imagine doing the interior work to transform a shed into a home.

Another option is having a TH built. There’s a contractor in town who is interested, but I think I need to go the financing route; paying cash outright isn’t an option. Elizabeth Smart’s book, Under 55 and Faking Normal: Your Guide to a Better Life, has a dedicated section with good information about TH’s and financing. In fact, this book re-started my pursuit of owning a TH. I reviewed it here, on Marc Miller’s Career Pivot website (my favorite online community!). Smart’s book is exhaustively researched, with some real gems for any seniors questioning how they will survive and thrive in an economy that doesn’t know (or care about?) what to do with us!

I’ve also tentatively explored acquiring a vintage or new/retro camper trailer. There were some great options in Spokane, which, like Billings but more so, seems to be an RV sales lot hub. More on this in another post.

And finally, I’d love to work for a TH company or housing non-profit, because I believe TH’s can go a long way toward solving the affordable housing crisis for seniors and many others. If you’re making a living in the gig economy, as opposed to running a business or holding down a 9-to-5, TH’s solve the issue of getting, and paying on, a big mortgage. An Auxiliary Dwelling Unit (ADU) in a homeowner’s backyard is a perfect situation for an extended family member or a college student, or can be a win-win for a property owner and tenant with a work exchange deal. Or for digital nomads, RV-licensed TH’s are on wheels and travel with you, wherever you desire to go next. They are also one answer to providing dignity and shelter off the street for our marginalized homeless populations. The municipalities and NIMBY communities that are so adamantly opposed to TH’s are missing the boat. Lack of affordable housing, and homelessness are problems that impact all of us. We hide our heads in the sand to our own detriment.

My tiny house concerns and questions for further research
1. The PMH models I like have many different-size windows, letting in lots of beautiful light. We have hailstorms and high winds. Will the windows all break? Can they be easily replaced, or should I stay away from those models and opt for one with fewer, standard size windows?

2. About those winds… Will the TH on its trailer bed tip over? How to prevent that?

3. I’d like a wood stove. Can I have one installed by the TH company?

4. I’d like solar. What’s involved? Cost? Can it be installed before delivery?

5. Can I finance based on my work as a 1099-contractor, supplemented by Social Security and a tiny retirement pension? Or do I need to find a full-time job to show income?

6. If I want to move my TH to the Spokane area someday, where are they allowed, zoning-wise? Vacant lots in the area are pricey and limited, due to rapid in-migration from Southern California, et al., and heavy encroachments on remaining wilderness by developers.

7. Are there any TH companies with a social conscience who are hiring an administrative assistant, copy writer, or digital content marketer?

All for now. To be continued…

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It’s been cold here (Jan 31-Feb 1 2019), but we didn’t make the news with our temps. It’s Montana. Bitter cold is normal. We were hardly mentioned in the news of the Polar Vortex, which sounded like a made-up marketing term to me anyway. I create marketing campaigns for a living. I recognize shorthand buzz-speak when I hear it.

This old drafty house is a challenge to keep warm. My great-grandparents and grandparents did it, so it should be doable. Right? I know they had a wood and coal cookstove in the kitchen, and in later years a fuel-oil burner, and in the main room a furnace of some sort with a stovepipe that fed through the ceiling to the upstairs bedrooms and chimney.

The chimney was dismantled when I got a new, metal roof in 2007. The hole for the pipe had been long-since sealed, but it is still visible, mostly because a couple of years ago I ripped the horrible pressboard panels out from the living room ceiling. (They were falling on my head one day as I was trying to work on my laptop.)

Upstairs, about three feet of the bottom of the deprecated brick chimney is still fastened to the wall. It’s a prominent unmovable fixture, painted a tired shade of mint green to match the walls. Which continue to separate as the house shifts on its unstable gumbo foundation.

I was doing fine with the cold, even though my propane and electric bills were sky-high. I also have a beautiful, efficient Jotul 602 woodstove which keeps the kitchen toasty warm as long as I keep the fire going. It’s got a cooktop in case the power goes out, so I’m all set. The situation changed when the temperatures started plunging into negative double-digits Fahrenheit overnight. Miraculously, my indoor worm farm survived. The first such night was not even -10F. I think it was -8F, but it was still cold!

Next morning, I got up and flushed the toilet. No water filled the tank. I moved my little ceramic space heater (of which I have many!) closer to the uninsulated south wall of the bathroom. Hot water wasn’t working in the kitchen sink – same pipe. I lit a fire in the woodstove. A little while later, I heard the welcome sound of water running again, except that it was spraying out underneath the kitchen sink. I figured the PVC trap had cracked. Wouldn’t be the first, or last time. But closer inspection revealed the pipe had pulled apart at the slip joint. A big relief. A huge relief.

When the pieces were pushed back together, no more spray. I learned my lesson and put the bathroom heater right next to the pipes the next night. Before the freeze, I’d had it a couple feet away, and thought it would do the job since the bathroom was so small. Like I say, lesson learned.

I tried to wash a load of clothes, and ended up bailing out a whole washing machine tub of water. Fortunately, I was able to use my amazing, life-changing Underhill Gulp Ultra manual siphon pump. Emptied the water into a galvanized pail, then slogged outside into deep snow a dozen times or so to dump the water. About 15 minutes total. Disconnected the hoses after an inspection revealed ice in the tub. The motor wouldn’t turn by hand, and due to the floor slope, the whole machine was angled severely downward, so I decided it would go offline till spring. I would just use my trusty hand-cranked WonderWash. There’s a lot to be said for having grid-independent backups when your essential electrical appliances are unusable.

I went out to one of my camper trailers to grab a jug of RV antifreeze to pour in the washing machine. Years ago, when my dad winterized before we left at summer’s end, we used regular full-strength poisonous antifreeze in the water lines. I don’t know if RV antifreeze wasn’t a thing yet, or if there was another reason not to use it. Now, I wouldn’t use anything but the RV stuff. It’s non-toxic, drinkable without fatal repercussions I suppose, rated for -50F “burst protection,” and pink. Very pink.

By now, the daytime low was -23F, so I needed to act fast, if it wasn’t already too late to save the washing machine. I had no idea that antifreeze could, well, freeze. The fine print, which I’d never bothered to read, said the stuff would get “slushy” below zero. Mine was beyond slushy. My antifreeze was frozen.

I’m beginning to come around to the idea that I may actually need a new house. A real house. Preferably a tiny house. A friend once unfavorably compared my Southern California ranch home to other people’s “real” houses. To this day, I don’t know quite what he meant, but it made me feel like a societal impostor. I mean I had decent furniture and all the normal appliances, and the darn thing was worth over $750K at the time. I never did want to be part of what we used to call The Establishment, so maybe it was a backhanded compliment. He wasn’t exactly the poster child for the mainstream himself.

My new goal is to learn all I can about tiny homes and figure out how to buy or build one here. Meanwhile, I’ve got to keep this house standing and survivable in all weather. I said to a friend recently that no one ever said Montana winters were easy. No one. As long as I have heat, I’m OK. But when black goopy creosote started dripping from the seams in my woodstove pipe onto the floor, it was sadly clear that my stove was likely not safe to burn until the chimney was cleaned out. I accomplished that with the help of a friend, but not immediately. So I had to rely on space heaters for a few days. Lesson learned there? Don’t burn pine. Don’t burn old telephone poles (for many reasons!). Burn cottonwood.

Okey dokey. Guess I have an axe to grind.

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Month: April 2019

9. Tiny homes, sheds, and campers, oh my!

8. The pink stuff is safe to drink, but I wouldn’t.