Loft Railing in a Tiny House on Wheels: RailFX on the TinyLab Stairs

BIG THANKS TO MY MOM AND DAD FOR ALL THEIR HELP WITH THIS ONE! Our 210 sq ft high performance tiny house on wheels (https://buildingperformanceworkshop.com/tinylab-experience) has never had a loft and stair railing because we couldn't figure out how to make it beautiful AND safe AND low maintenance. Now that the cable railing is in from RailFX (http://railfx.net), the house is ready for our 3 kids and for overnight guests!

See the entire TinyLab playlist here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsc2-5fAgMq51-6Gwm3m7HXjRhgt9X7RK

Watch the first-ever TV series about the Science of Homes, starring this tiny house: https://HomeDiagnosis.tv

2 Years Later: is #TinyLab Still the Highest Performance Tiny House on Wheels?

Grace and Corbett built the world's highest performance tiny house on wheels in 2016. It was perfect. Then they toured it 13,000 miles across America and let 7,000 people come inside to feel, hear, and smell what perfectly tuned home performance is like.

What's the house performing like now, after all that torture? And under 2 inches of snow in Atlanta, Georgia? See for yourself in this 20-minute tour, complete with testing, demonstrations, and metrics that show Proof Is Possible, even for people who have never built a house before. The #TinyLab is still the undisputed most scientifically superior home performance demonstration in the world, and we sincerely hope others start challenging our work!

Tour the #TinyLab: Tesla of Tiny Houses

Take a tour of the #TinyLab, built and lived in by Grace and Corbett Lunsford, and an example of high performance building for homes of all sizes and shapes. See how the Proof Is Possible Tour teaches homeowners to control ventilation, pressure imbalances, air quality, moisture, comfort, and durability.

Inside a Tiny House on Wheels While it's Moving

Join Corbett and family inside the #TinyLab on its way down the road after it's clocked 4,000 miles! Fun sounds and shaking for all!

Airsealing Membranes and Tape for the #TinyLab

Home performance guru Corbett Lunsford explains 475 Building Supply's Intello air barrier with vapor variable control. See how you can ensure control over drafts, condensation, and air quality problems. Feel the difference yourself on the Proof Is Possible Tour!

How to Frame a Tiny House to Withstand Earthquakes + Hurricanes Simultaneously

Corbett explains advanced framing techniques and components for making as strong and as efficient a tiny home (or any home) as possible! Get a quick tour of anchor bolts, hurricane straps and ties, jack and king studs, headers, top and bottom plates.

And come see the Tiny Lab when it's done on its 20 city Proof Is Possible Tour in 2016: http://ProofIsPossible.com

How to Frame Up a House in Two Days (like a Boss)

Corbett and Grace (assisted by lots of family and neighbors) assembled and erected all four walls of the Tiny Lab in two days over Thanksgiving weekend- watch the process accelerated 100x!
Find out more about the Proof Is Possible Tour and where you can see the finished Tiny Lab at: http://ProofIsPossible.com

Wondering where that snazzy song came from?  You can Shazam it or check it out here: http://cdbaby.com/artist/mysteriam
"Velvet Giver" from the album UNMISTAKABLE

If you really want to dig deep check out the music video starring Lennie Johnson, one of the most amazing performing artist we have ever worked with: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=174LvV_qOeE

Tiny Lab Floor Deck and Anchoring System

Corbett demonstrates the anchoring system that ties the wall framing to the trailer of the Tiny Lab, a touring tiny house on wheels. See also the weird lesson learned with having a trailer that's wider than 8'0", and the solution we went with for our tiny house on wheels.

Tiny House Building Lessons Learned

We've been working on the Tiny Lab for almost a full month now, and there are lots of videos still in the queue, but here are the first few glimpses into the world of building a high performance 200 sq. ft. tiny house on wheels:

The Tiny Lab Begins: a Touring Tiny House on Wheels

Grace and I picked up the 24 foot steel trailer that will become the foundation of the Tiny Lab- a touring tiny house on wheels. We drove it 150 miles to the build site, and in this video we point out many of the features of the trailer's construction that will help make it an excellent base for our future home. It will visit 20 cities in 2016 on the Proof Is Possible Tour- you can find out more at http://ProofIsPossible.com

How to Perfectly Balance a Tiny House Trailer

Today we ordered the fabrication of our custom tiny house trailer- big step, and it took a lot of sweat and time to get here. The process is like anything- the more you know, the more you realize you don't know, and it just gets more sweaty and time-intensive as you go. Here's what we learned about how to place the axles for your custom tiny house trailer:

1. Know how the balance should work on a tiny house. Because you're not building it to sit still, the balance should not be in perfect equilibrium. You don't want to let go of the front of the trailer and have it remain upright and balanced; generally you'll want 10% of the total weight to be resting on the tongue. This means if our tiny house is 10,000 lbs, the tongue will weigh 1,000 lbs. You will not be picking that up.
   You don't want the trailer pulling up on the back of your tow vehicle, and when you get it moving, the momentum will do weird things to the trailer's behavior if it has a shed roof front-to-back like ours. The wind is going to want to push down on the back of the trailer to flatten out the plane (we have not hired an aerodynamics engineer to find out how much, but we believe it's not substantial).
   There's a great article on managing tiny house towing weights here.
   
   
2. Know where your trailer fabricator likes to put the axles as a default. It's interesting- the two main trailer fabricators, Tumbleweed and Tiny Home Builders, put their axles at slightly different points along the length of the tiny house trailer as a default. Tumbleweed puts the center of axles 55% of the way back, and Tiny Home Builders puts theirs 58% back (both of these are measured from the front of the trailer bed, not the tip of the tongue). Either of these are approximately correct enough for most tiny house people, but if you want to use a more accurate engineering approach, then read on...
   
   
3. Know how much your tiny house will weigh. This is very challenging. You need to account for every stud, joist, insulation unit, fixture, piece of heating/cooling equipment, furniture, etc, etc. We did this by building a 3D computer model of our Tiny Lab and creating an inventory from there in a spreadsheet. Our engineer buddy John Bergman then figured out where the center of gravity was in the X, Y, and Z axes (vertically, front to back, and left to right). The Tiny Lab is estimated to be 9,300 lbs, with the center of gravity right down the middle, and 45% of the way back.
   
   
4. Split your axles over the point 10% of the way further back. Our axles are located 55% of the way back, which Dan Louche at Tiny Home Builders was easily able to include in our trailer design. Stay tuned for all the videos of the construction process, which starts in under a month!