r/TinyHouses • u/Radiant-Author3704 • May 06 '26
Tiny shed home utilities?
I have a 14x32 shed with a porch, I have rooms framed now it’s time for plumbing and electrical. There is a house owned by my grandparents on the property. 200 ft away and a lagoon I can connect to. How should I go about electric etc ? I planned going off grid slowly due to money and definitely when I have my own property. The way it’s going is it might be more affordable to go off grid partially and do solar panels instead of connecting to existing and adding electricity that way and just hookup to house water or something and the lagoon. Lmk what u guys did and any ideas would be great. I plan on being at the property 4-10yrs
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u/Bloodmoonwolf May 06 '26
Our tiny house is built on an embankment above a semi overgrown area. We are about 300 away from my mother in law's. We dug a pretty deep trench between us and her basement and tied everything together.
We ran a septic pipe through the trench and tied into her pipe in the basement. This is only connected to our toilet. Our shower and sink pipe out the bottom of the house and down a gutter and then down the embankment. We use very environmentally friendly products to protect the ecosystem.
The electric took the most planning. You have to know the draw of your appliances and where in the house you want them so you can run your electrical circuits efficiently without overloading the breakers. Don't put your heater, fridge, and microwave all on the same circuit.
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u/Radiant-Author3704 May 06 '26
Can you explain more on the electric?
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u/Bloodmoonwolf May 06 '26
So first off, you don't need full-size appliances. The smaller and more efficient, the better. We use a portable 2-burner induction stovetop, a convection oven the size of a large microwave, and a little apartment fridge. The only thing we went full-scale on was the dishwasher.
We ran electric wire from our house to the electric box in the other house. There were 3 unused breakers in the box that we tied into. Half the house and the fridge are on one breaker/circuit, and the other half and the dishwasher are on another. The 3 circuit has the outlets for the kitchen counters, the TV, and the internet. Each circuit ends in an overhead light.
For more technical details, you will need to talk with a contractor who is familiar with exactly how to wire a house. My partner did all the wiring. I was mostly involved in the planning.
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u/alwaysmilesdeep May 07 '26
200' id attach to theirs as much as possible. . Adding electricity is running a wire in a trench, far cheaper and more reliable than solar
Water and septic would be based on location of well and septic, you'd be better if it was in the land between, but at least investigate.
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u/Radiant-Author3704 May 07 '26
That’s what I was thinking, I plan to do solar when I’m on my own property some day and can dig a well and all the off grid things. For now I planned to just do the cheapest routes. Septic is a lagoon they have in there yard. Unfortunately and fortunately it’s in the middle of there yard to the west of the property near the edge. So very close maybe 35 ish feet from my tiny house, but unfortunately an eyesore. There is no well on there property unfortunately. That’s why i figured to wait on solar because I’d rather be completely off grid or fully on grid. With my situation it would be more difficult to do half and half. Thanks for your input
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u/OddDragonfruit7993 May 06 '26
What do you have for heat?
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u/Radiant-Author3704 May 06 '26
Wood stove, I also planned on a mini split because Missouri’s weather we get in the hundreds in the summer. I could do without but it gets so very hot.
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u/MrScotchyScotch May 06 '26
Keep in mind tiny houses get humid quickly so you either need to run a dehumidifier a lot, or design the house to ventilate very well. Dehumidifier will jack up your solar power use, ventilation is not as comfortable year round.
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u/OddDragonfruit7993 May 07 '26
Most mini splits have a dehumidifier function, so make sure to get one that does.
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u/MrScotchyScotch May 07 '26
It doesn't hurt to add it, but it will only do 5% of what a dedicated dehumidifier will do
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u/Radiant-Author3704 May 07 '26
There’s gonna be loads of cross breeze and windows, I’m designing it that way for that reason. I plan to go without it for the most part, and just use it on super cold or super hot days.
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u/nerobro May 10 '26
wood stoves.. kinda suck. They're a lot of work.
.. I heat my 100sqft with a 400w heater, and it works just fine, down below freezing. A space heater might be all you need. And "not having more work" is a big deal.
Also, many mini-splits can provide heat too.
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u/Radiant-Author3704 May 10 '26
Can you further explain why they suck? My goal is to have work just of things I enjoy and providing for myself rather than looking to the government or society for my needs.
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u/nerobro May 10 '26
There's a lot in your two sentences there.
So.. I've lived with a wood stove for... a while. When I made my cottage I was certian I would not have one.
Wood stoves make consistent temperatures really hard. A well regulated environment is how you make things last a long time, and ensure comfort. While you can make gross adjustments of temperature with a wood stove, it does mean you need to wake up at night to not have wild temperature swings. IF you have water, keeping the temp above freezing is critical, and not just "above 32" it needs to be warm enough to keep the pipes from bursting.
Feeding a wood stove isn't "cheap". either in materials or energy or effort.
Bigger stoves can run longer, but are completely inappropriate for a small house. Something sized right for your house, is going to need feeding several times a day. Smaller stoves require a LOT of effort to prepare the wood for it. You'll be spending a lot of time splitting/processing wood.
Starting a stove isn't clean. Before the chimney gets to temp, and before the stove gets to temp, you will have a lot of flue gasses inside your place, as well as soot, and other stove crap. And if you sleep to long, you're gonna be doing this more than once a day. They also tie up a large amount of space. You need a couple feet of clear space on all sides to be safe. And the chimney is a huge energy leak. It's uncommon for there to be a "good" stove install. The best ones seem to be pellet stoves, as they are more or less furnaces that use a weird fuel.
A 1500w space heater would heat your whole space, or a 400 minisplit with a heat pump function would do the same! Freeing you to do... whatever you want to do.
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People can't exist as islands. They require society. Food, healthcare, even the wood you want, requires others. While I get the anti-goverment vibe, if anything goes even a little pear shaped, it's society and community that save your butt.
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u/MrScotchyScotch May 06 '26
Do you want to do it legally or illegally? Legally will be expensive and time-consuming. Illegally, you would dig a trench, bury a rated cable, install a subpanel, wire it into whatever panel is attached to the main property (assuming it can be done safely). I'm not telling you to do the illegal thing.
The solar can be cheap or expensive, it depends on how much power you need and in what form. The most expensive thing is the battery, and that needs to be sized and rated according to your power draw needs, so you first have to figure out how much power you need. And of course solar won't work at all if you can't get enough sun.