Tiny houses have big potential
Tiny house workshop shows possibilities when building a small living space
When people tour Kenton Zerbin’s tiny house and see a five-burner stove atop of full-sized oven, he said they usually react one of two ways — “That’s awesome!” or “That’s stupid.”
It’s unexpected to see such a luxuriously-sized appliance in a tiny house, and while it’s a perk for some, others might see it as a waste of already limited space.
For Zerbin, it’s a sign that you don’t have to compromise your lifestyle to live in a tiny house.
“This is the thing about tiny homes that’s the most exciting,” said Zerbin. “You pick your lifestyle and what you want out of your life and then you have your house help you get it.”
An Alberta-based teacher of permaculture and tiny homes who is passionate about practicing what he preaches, Zerbin teaches workshops across Canada on how to design and build tiny homes. This weekend, he held a two-day crash course in Regina, his first time bringing the workshop to the Queen City.
“A lot of people are interested in the movement. They want to know if they actually want it,” he said in an interview Sunday. “They can watch the TV shows, but what’s the reality?”
A tiny home has numerous definitions, according to Zerbin, but the characteristic most commonly agreed on is the size — anywhere between 100 and 500 square feet. It can be mobile or not.
Zerbin and his wife have been living in their tiny house for two and a half years on farmland just outside Edmonton. He said the biggest adjustment was going offgrid.
“We collect all our own power. We hold all our own water and we manage all our utilities,” he said. “That was a big learning curve.”
Looking for ways to shrink their environmental footprint, Roger Watts and his wife both took the workshop over the weekend.
“We’ve been thinking about what our next home’s going to be,” said Watts during Sunday’s lunch break. “Maybe we can do something that’s a little more environmentally conscious.”
After downsizing to live in the Netherlands for a few years, he said they grew to love the simplicity of it.
“As we’ve moved and downsized, you realize ‘Ok, we don’t need as much as what we thought we needed,’ ” he said. “It was quite a liberating experience.”
Zerbin said the tiny house movement is gaining momentum in Canada, especially in environmentally conscious places like B.C., where the climate is more mild, and in housing-challenged cities like Toronto.
In provinces with harsh winters, there are of course special considerations to be made when building a tiny house, including extra insulation, good windows and heat recovery ventilators, but it can be done, he said.
It cost Zerbin $90,000 to build his tiny house, which he and his wife paid out of pocket. They focused on making it as efficient as possible, but also spared no expense, splurging on top quality materials. Scaling back a little, he said it can be done for between $40,000 and $60,000.
For people who think they could never downsize to a tiny home, Zerbin has two messages.
“Our great-grandparents and even often our grandparents, they were in single-room houses and there was often 10 of them,” he said.
“They had less square-footage than the average tiny house today. For those who don’t think they can do it, it’s interesting to try.
“They’re bigger than you think.”