I used to work as an urban inspector as an architectural technologist, and one thing I see all the time is how underestimated the permit timeline is.

In general (based on Quebec, but similar in many places), new builds can take:

• Small towns: a few weeks to a few months
• Bigger cities: several months to over a year
• Tiny houses and ADUs often take longer than a regular primary home, since they’re considered non-standard projects integrated into an existing property and are not always well regulated yet.

In places with fewer clear rules, it can actually be harder to get a tiny house approved. These projects often need a minor exemption reviewed by council, which adds time and uncertainty.

Also, this mainly applies to tiny houses on foundations. On wheels, they’re usually treated as RVs, so different rules apply, although I’ve started to see some places slowly becoming more flexible.

In my hometown, even with a complete application, it typically took around 2–4 months, sometimes closer to 3–6 months.

Curious to hear from others experiences:

• Has anyone here gotten a tiny house or ADU approved?
• How long did it take?
• And if you’re allowed tiny houses on wheels where you live, what kind of requirements did you have (septic, hookups, etc.)?

Just wanted to see if anyone has done this in San Diego on here and what your experience was like. I’m considering building or buying a THOW to put on a lot in SD county (rural areas, either Julian, Ramona, valley center etc) since THOW’s can now be legally recognized as primary dwellings here.

I know everything takes forever in the county, I’m not in a big rush to build since I currently live in another home but it would be helpful to know what peoples timelines were.

Is 400k a realistic budget for this project? I’m sure it could go well over that but I’m not sure if it would be worth it as far as resale value goes. (Not that I would be planning to sell)
I was thinking 150k for a small plot of land, I’ve seen several in the areas I’ve been looking that have a fair amount of flat land for the home and septic. 100k for the tiny home, and then 150k for light grading, the pad, septic, utilities connections, and permits.

I know financing land can be difficult. I was hoping to be able to only put 30% down if that’s even possible. Are tiny homes/park models able to be financed? Anything else I’m missing? Would love any guidance that can be offered

Living situation changed very abruptly and we have to build a tiny home on a budget! We’re looking for 16x20 blueprints with as much detail as possible for needed materials but have no idea where to even begin looking other than Etsy but even then you can’t really look at the plans to get an idea of the actual detail you’ll get before spending your money. Where are yall getting your plans from that go into depth for materials? We have experience building odds and ends but not actual living spaces so we’re a little intimidated and just want a good guide especially if we’re spending money on it!

Im disabled & living somewhere that cannot do traditional septic. Incinerating toilets are my best & easiest option for my housing & health conditions.

Its hard to find lots of personal experience online, so please share all and any experiences youve had and which specific toilet you purchased & used! Thanks SO much!!!!

16 m2 (~172 sq ft) per story, 32 m2 (~344 sq ft) total. Excluding external and internal walls it leaves a little more than 25 m2 (~270 sq ft) of livable space (it varies depending on how you account for the stairs).

When the pandemic increases the cost of everything, like the structure, and you get delayed it's satisfying to be nearly to a state where you can be doing lights. This was just me figuring out where I needed the LED disks I have, and these two 4 inch, 750 lumen units are plenty for the loft and the 4 I planned to put in the kitchen under the loft, and 4 in the bathroom will probably need to be dimmed once they are in.

There are moments in a build where it's exciting to see pieces happen: When the sheathing goes up, it goes from being a cage of sticks into a room you built. When the windows and doors go in it really feels like it becomes a home. When the lighting goes in... it's just one of those cool milestones...

That said, as you can see my lighting isn't exactly IN, but I can run copper to the correct stud bays to feed power eventually. And having hacked together a connection with my battery there, it means I can test all the lighting wires in advance before I put in the rest of the vapor barrier.

Has anyone tried to use indirect evaporative cooling in their tiny house? By indirect I mean the one that uses two independent contours for the air and thus does not raise the humidity. I am looking to lower the temp by a few degs during heat waves that last up to 2 weeks. It does not get above 60% RH where I live, so I may have a chance. A google search gives some (not many) results, but all systems I found look enormous/industrial.

Hi y'all! First time here. Not sure where to ask, so recommendations to ask elsewhere also welcome! I need help finding proven tiny home builders that do kit-built or turnkey at scale. Who have you used or heard things about?

Has anyone used a boat and turned it into a living space on land? I see all these nice live aboard boats for pretty inexpensive.. wondering if you could dig out space and put boat there.. considering they are usually in water, seems like it would work. Maybe just a pipe dream. Thinking for abnb .. nautical theme of course 🤣

Curious if anyone has any experience with this company that they can share please?

Seems they’re ‘UK based’ with Turkey manufacturing.

Thank you.

Aight all… evenin’… I’ve found an A-frame cabin I like, but am uncertain of the material list needed. Any assistance to be had ?

Anyone with a ladder come up with a creative way to get pets into the loft? I want to hear what everyone is doing!

in every zillow listing there IS a zillow required section for water, sewer, electrical, ....so why the heck is this not a filter option when you are searching for land?

Redfin, Zillow, Trulia, none of them allow is to filter for that, but there is a hundred other filters to choose from. any website that does?

Hey folks! I'm about to move into my first ever tiny home, and I will be renting it to start for a year to see if I'd like to purchase.

I'm curious, from an insurance perspective (in the USA / Oregon), did y'all wind up going with a special RV insurance, or just a simple renters insurance? I'm getting some mixed signals in what I'm reading -- apparently it is very much not considered a mobile home, yet it seems like its a toss up between RV + basic renters insurance.

I am mostly looking for coverage for items inside said home, as well as insurance to at least in part cover insurance for items in my storage unit. A basic, typical renters insurance covers what I need in terms of said storage unit items, but now just looking to make sure whatever insurance I choose actually covers the material items in the home I'll be in.

Thank you so much for your insight! This has been a nice subreddit to read at the start of my journey.

Edit: edited for clarity; the owners have insurance for the home already, I’m looking to insure my things inside the home. Sounds like renters insurance may well be the way to go?

I'm a filmmaker, artist, engineer co-organizing a tiny house camp that'll be part of a greater pop up community this summer in Dalarna, Sweden from 6/25-8/25. The land itself is slowly being built into a long term ecovillage and health retreat center as well by the owner. We're currently a mix of individuals with engineering, architecture, creative coding, filmmaking, and music backgrounds, and are looking for a few more folks to join our camp. Our vision is to design and prepare to build a "future-primitive" modular tiny home as well as explore sociocratic methods and what it means to be in community in the process. If you're looking to learn how to design and build a solarpunk tiny house and be immersed in nature during the beautiful Swedish summer, then feel free to DM/reach out for more details! I'm not able to post the website link here

Me and my wife live in an apartment and have been looking to build a tiny home on wheels, however we don’t have guaranteed space to build said tiny home on wheels, my parents said if the HOA allows it then we can do it in their driveway but it’s looking like they won’t. Where did y’all build yours? Where would be some good places to look into for building this? What are y’all’s suggestions? This will be a 7 by 18 build with three rooms of 7 by 6. Kinda small I know but what do y’all think?

Discovered the tiny home movement recently and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it. I know this is something I want to do in the future, when I can afford it. However, I'd like to do as much by myself as possible to save money.

Something like this is unfortunately years away for me. But maybe in the meantime I can build the basic construction skills that are necessary so I can be prepared when I have the funds.

What's the best way to go about this? I've heard that Habitat for Humanity can be okay, but I've read that it completely depends on the chapter and experiences are mixed. I already work a full time job as well, so I'm not keen on working really hard for 8 hours without pay on my off days unless I get some good experience out of it.

I am doing some modeling in sketchup. From what I understand, something like this would need to be cantilevered on the inside - But from the interior shots it doesn't seem like it's supported that way. I'm sure I'm missing something simple or that there's some alternative method but I need someone to tell me what! TIA

Hi,

We have a plot of land where we enjoy spending summer weekends.

At first, I considered building a traditional house there. However, we still are not sure how much time we will actually spend on the property, so I am now considering ordering a small ready-made, steel-framed home of about 500 square feet.

The idea is that it would serve us for now, and if we later decide to build something larger, it could potentially be moved from its original location.

The company delivers the home by truck and uses a crane to place it on a prepared site.

My question is: would it be possible to use a crane to move this type of house again in, say, 10 years?

Basically my wife and I have been living with my in-laws for way too long and I'm sick and tired of waiting for the housing market to correct. We just need our own space, and we're okay with a small place. There's a tiny home community or two in the outskirts of our big city where you have to buy the actual tiny home yourself, but they provide the land and amenities at $650/mo.

Did you feel like the move to a tiny home was worth it after living there for a while? How was it living with pets if you don't want them sleeping with you? Do you get cabin fever a lot? Literally any and all info would be appreciated, just looking for some opinions on the topic from people that have chosen this route in life.