Not only does it waste a lot less building materials to build (plus use a less resources to maintain) a tiny house, but it can save you a chunk o’ change. As Mr. Hay himself put it, “Living small means less bills, living big means more bills. I don’t want to pay big bills”.

Without further ado, I’ll let Austin take it away and give you a tour of his very own tiny house.

If you’re all pumped up now to go off and build a lil’ casa, take a looksie at this tiny house book, first, just to see what you’re getting into.

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I have to say, I enjoyed reading it a lot. If you have any questions or curiousity about living in a tiny house (or even just a smaller-than-normal house), then I recommend this book. It examines this lifestyle from many different angles, and covered some questions I didn’t even have a clue I had.

I’ll go into some of what’s inside Little House on a Small Planet here, in bullet point form:

Tiny House Benefits

• Resource Conservation – not only will a smaller house take up less space, but it’ll save you money (both initially and through lower heating/cooling bills). Also, it’ll require fewer materials than a bigger house to build. A typical new house sends around 3 to 5 tons of waste to a landfill and takes down a 3/4 of an acre of forest.
• Less Housework – some people dream of owning gigantic mansion. They probably don’t dream about the hours of cleaning (or money spent on a cleaner) that a large casa would need.
• Higher Quality – A smaller house is generally cheaper than a bigger house. Take some of the money you saved to buy high quality furniture, sinks, appliances, you name it.
• Efficient Heating/Cooling – If a tiny house is designed properly, it won’t need any air ducts (or air filters!). That’s one less thing to buy and maintain. Also, there are fewer unused rooms to heat and cool.
• Less Pollution – A typical new house’s construction adds 30 tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.
• More Time Outdoors – Less space indoors means you and/or your kids will spend more time outside. There are tons o’ benefits of being outside, so I recommend it.

Are Tiny Houses for Everyone?

There are many more benefits of living in small houses (closer families, less unnecessary stuff), but it’s not for everybody. Some people might not feel comfortable living in a small house, or might honestly feel like they need more room than the average bear.

Luckily, this book has tests you can do to see if living in a small house (on or off the grid) is for you. You might be surprised by how little room you use or want, or you might change your mind once you see some different kinds of small houses.

Go Get This Book

Whether you hate the idea of small houses, love the idea, or already live in a tiny house, I recommend reading Little House on a Big Planet. It’s chock full of pictures, diagrams, interviews, and all sorts of information about life in small houses.

If you don’t feel like buying the book, go check out your local public library and see if they have it. If all that fails, let me know if you’re trying to borrow the book and maybe we can work something out, ya dig?

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Well, if you’re a customer at good ol’ Duke Energy, then I suggest you CLICK ON THIS LINK and go get yourself some free CFL bulbs. Not only will using CFL bulbs help you use less electricity, but it’ll cut down on your power bill.

Once a CFL Bulb Has Died…

If your compact fluorescent bulb happens to smash or die from old age, por favor be sure to recycle your old CFL bulb.

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Earthship Video Uno

Earthship Video Dos

Earthship Video Tres

Dang, now wasn’t that informative? If you feel that your brain can handle yet MORE information about earthships, then head on over to Earthships 101.

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“What’s the big deal about a programmable thermostat, anyhoo?”, I hear you ask. Well, I’ll let the good ol’ U.S. Department o’ Energy tell you:

[During winter], by turning your thermostat back 10°–15° for 8 hours, you can save about 5%–15% a year on your heating bill—a savings of as much as 1% for each degree if the setback period is eight hours long.

Gadzooks. If your average power bill is $70 a month during the 4 coldest months of the year, a programmable thermostat can save you between $14 and $42 during those 4 months! Not to mention the painless energy savings.

But it doesn’t only conserve energy and save money during the winter, oh no. During those hot months, you can set the temperature higher while you’re gone, and have it cool down more when you’re actually at your house. Voíla, even more energy and monetary savings!

Read instructions carefully when installing a programmable thermostat

Me and some friends tried to install my thermostat on one of the coldest days of the year. We wired everything up perfectly, but the heat wouldn’t come on. A day later, my friendly neighborhood electrician fixed the problem by reading the manual and figuring out that you had to tell the programmable thermostat that we had a heat pump. Dang, that one night without heat was a cold night
indeed, but I learnt a valuable lesson about reading instructions.

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Not only is cat litter not great fun to clean up (and buy), but most clay-based kitty litter is made from clay that is strip mined from the Earth, which is horrible for the environment. The U.S. Bureau of Mines estimates that in 1994 alone, approximately 1.5 million metric tons of clay was mined to make clay cat litter.

A good way to avoid clay litter, and to reuse, is to just use old newspapers as cat litter. Here’s how to make your cat(s) some homemade newspaper cat litter.

1) Sprinkle some baking soda on to the bottom of an empty litter box. This is optional, and helps absorb some of that atrocious cat pee smell.

2) Tear newspaper into narrow strips (less than an inch wide). Pro tip: It’s a lot easier to tear vertically than horizontally.

3) Use your hand muscles to tear those newspaper strips into pieces that are about half a foot long. Use a ruler if you want to, kitty will appreciate the extra precision.

4) Make it rain. Flutter, throw, or somehow get all that newspaper into the cat litter box. It should be over halfway full (it’ll flatten a lot when it gets wet).

Et voila, you are finished. It’s recommended to change the wet newspaper daily, or else it’ll stink up your house. Hopefully your cat will give the newspaper litter the ol’ thumbs up, and you’ll be on your way to a greener kitty litter box.

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I guess they used to just expect you to throw away the paper and rubber band (committing a major sin against Mother Earth), but they have seen the light and are now reusing them.

Anyhoo, it’ll be good to see more and more business start finding ways to both help the environment AND save money. A hearty kudos to the Garner Southeast Library.

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A little while ago, I had the good fortune to talk with Aaron Vronko, the CEO of RapidRepair, and ask him a few questions. For your 411, RapidRepair buys your broken small electronics and uses their parts to repair other people’s gadgets. A prime example of a business that helps the environment while also making money. But let’s get on with this here entrevista…

Joe (Me): So, what does your company repair?

Aaron Vronko: Ipods, iphones, zune, mp3 players, handheld game consoles.

J: I heard you guys do electronics recycling; do people send in or come in in person?
AV: We get lots of walk-in business, but mainly people send in what they need to be repaired.

J: How fast do you guys fix most things?
AV: Our diagnostic process is free. We average about 1 day for diagnostics, then 1 day for repairs, so even if you mail your device in, you can get it back that same week.

J: How long have you been doing electronics recycling?
AV: We started our repair business 5 years ago, but didn’t recycle then. We didn’t throw away old stuff, just kept it around since it was all small electronics that didn’t take up much space. Then about 3 years ago we started recycling old stuff that we couldn’t use.

J: How much of what people bring in can you actually use?
AV: Very damaged items get recycled. We’ve used a couple different recycling companies, and usually have to call them just once a year. We don’t get any money for plastics or aluminum or batteries, but we do get a very small amount for a pound of boards.

J: Do y’all have any plans on expanding and opening new stores?
AV: We’ve looked at it, but we’re pretty comfortable. Our operations are basically at the center of country [Kalamazoo, Michigan], so it’s pretty fast to mail stuff to and from us.

J: What’s the biggest way that your company saves material from landfills?
AV: We use old parts to repair electronics. We take in old damaged devices and use them to make refurbished devices. Last year we saved 10,000 pounds of small electronics waste saved from landfill. These were small electronics, so 10,000 pounds represents a lot of iPods and Zunes. We just added consoles this year so the amount of waste saved this year will go up dramatically.

J: Last question: how many iPods do you yourself own?
AV: I actually don’t own any. I have an iPhone, and sometimes use that to play music. But even if I didn’t have the iPhone, I wouldn’t have an iPod.

I hope you enjoyed that interview. I know I did. The only question I forgot to ask was if I could have a free iPod. Dang! Anyhoo, if you need your iPod or Zune repaired (or want to sell your old or broken one), check out RapidRepair.

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‘Tis a good way to reduce waste and save some money, so give it a looksie. I shall end this brief article with a little more detail about how they aim to plant 10,000 trees today, courtesy of their press release:

For Earth Day 2009, Swaptree is working with The Nature Conservancy’s ‘Plant a Billion Trees’ initiative and will be planting a tree for every trade completed on Earth Day. While currently several thousand trades happen every day on Swaptree, our goal on Earth Day is to do 10,000 trades and plant 10,000 trees. While the average Swaptree user, given its emphasis on recycling and sharing, lowers their yearly carbon footprint by 180 pounds, with this initiative we hope to offset several thousand tons of CO2.

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So as not to be a complete scrub, I bought a cup o’ coffee there, insisting that the coffee wench use my handy reusable mug I had brought instead of one of those wasteful, disposable styrofoam cups.

To my surprise, she gave me a 15% discount for using my own reusable mug. She said she was only supposed to give a 10% discount for this, but she didn’t feel like that was enough. I thanked her profusely for this.

If every coffee place gave a big discount for people who brought in their own cups, think of how many disposable paper or styrofoam cups wouldn’t get used once, then thrown away.

So next time you’re going out for some coffee, try bringing your own mug and asking for a discount. If they don’t have one, suggest it (without being a jerk about it). If there’s a monetary incentive to bring your own cup, more and more people will do it.

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