Category: Life In The House

After the summer…

lingcl

This is how our house looks like after the summer. We have almost finished our kitchen. We bought 2 cupboards and the sink from Ikea. There is a shelf in between the 2 cupboards, we probably will get a mini oven to fit in the lower shelf.

Our water system in the kitchen is very old school, basically we have 2 tanks, one for fresh water with a pump in it, one for grey water and there is 10l of water in our heater (the Truma heater). We fill up the water tank every 2 days, depend how much is our water usage. We empty our grey water in our compost, I have read from my permaculture guide book that grey water is super nutritious for garden, it is not that bad as we think.

We also got a water filter from Berkey, we are very happy about it, it filter up water we are having here very clean. It is written, we can also filter or purify rainwater or lake water. It seems like a great product to have, just in case if there is water shortage from ground in the future. There are 2 filters in it, which allow us to filter around 10,000 liter water before we have to change it.

Toilet update: We are very happy and satisfy of having this compost toilet after using for 5 months. You may think, it is a bit disgusting without using water to flush or clean but actually it is extremely cleaner than usual toilet. We also have saved a lot of water, we just have to pour a little bit of water after peeing. Normally it uses at least 6 liter water per flush, older toilet use even more water in flushing. For the dry part, it mixes with coconut fiber, we also install the ventilator to keep the container not too moist for the poo to be composted. We clear it out every month into a compost bag and transfer the bag to the big container which prepared by the landlady here to continue the composting process. https://flowwiththetiny.home.blog/2020/06/24/compost-toilet/

Advertisement

Compost Toilet

lingcl

During Corona time, we were happy that we can spend time on this beautiful place and we were pretty productive, we built up a little garden, created a compost box, installed lights in our kitchen, got our own fridge, built a shoes rack, installed door for our closet, got a second sofa from our neighbour, sewed curtains for each window, got a small electric cooking stove and etc.

There is no perfect place, except the experience be able to spend such a nice time in the nature, we also experienced the imperfections, the closest water tap to our house was not working, the only 2 toilets in the common area here were nearly not working, we were unable to connect any WIFI for month. We did a little research about compost toilet and we decided to buy one for ourselves instead of building one. We have been using Nature’s head compost toilet nearly a month, it is just great. It is a urine and poo separated toilet, we don’t need any water to flush anything away. The container for urine, it gets normally full after 2 days, we just empty it under trees or on the grass. The part for poo, we put coconut fiber that came with the toilet, each time after using it, we have to mix/stir it with the handle on the side. It gets full after 60-80 times of use, we would said for 2 people, we need to empty it after 1 month.

On our camp site, there is a compost bin with lid for us to continue compost the poo, we can simply empty it inside. After 1 or 2 years, they will be very great soil for the garden.

After 5 months staying here without our own toilet, this is like a little upgrade for us, we can now use toilet comfortably at home, without going anywhere. The most important fact about this toilet is, it does not smell, it has only a little smell of soil or smell from the coconut fiber. This toilet is pretty expensive but we have no regret about our decision.

For more information – https://www.natureshead.net/

Step by step

lingcl

We have been living by this beautiful lake for 2 months now, it is just so precious and lucky that we have the chance to live in the nature. Every time, after we make a day trip to Berlin, we just feel so happy to come back here. We can also truly observe the change of our surrounding, we can see swans strolling on the lake or flying above the sky like a plane, we are happy to create this connection with the nature before it disappears.

At the moment we do not have kitchen or water supply yet in the house but we have the feel that we are actually having a pretty luxury life here with a warm and comfy shelter where we call home. We have a common shared kitchen, shower room and toilet on this land, we are actually not in the rush to have all this in the house, but hopefully we will have a kitchen by this summer. Our life now is like someone would pay more than 200euro a nights for a glamping experience in the nature but we are actually living in it.

By now, we have installed 2 very important systems in the house which is the heat exchange ventilator to decrease the humidity in the house and also a heating system that run by gas. Beside that, we also already have electric supply in the house. The house will be slowly be completed.

There is nothing perfect in life, perfection is boring.

I just can’t wait to start growing some vegetables. I have actually created compost heaps here and there to cover the open soil. I also have created a garden bed, I would like to do a small experiment of what I have learned in the past few years. I have collected horse manure, rotten wood, our veggies waste and also coffee ground from cafe to make the bed. Hopefully worms will find the cozy home very soon that I have created for them.

3 weeks in the house

lingcl

What has happened?

In the last 3 weeks, we have been adjusting our life here in the tiny house. We don’t have heating system, water, kitchen, shower room, toilet in the house yet but we have a least an extension cable from outside through the door corner. Luckily we got an Infrared Heating from someone, we can at least heat the house before we get the heating system installed.

The biggest problem we have is the humidity inside the house, as the house is so properly sealed, in a small a space with 2 people breathing, the humid air has no way out from the house. And another reason the house is so humid is that the house was new and never get heated up, after the house got heat up for the first time, we could see that all of our stuffs in the house were full moisture as well as all windows and door.

We borrowed a measuring tool from our neighbor to check the humidity level, it shows always 70%-80%, one morning it showed 90%. The normal level should be between 40%-60%. We open our windows 2-3 times everyday for the air exchange. The worst thing happened that we did not realize earlier is our futon mattresses on the loft already have some mold after 2 weeks sleeping on it. We were sweating every night like crazy because the air was so humid, we only found out the reason after we found the mold 😀

We borrowed a dehumidifier from someone here and got slatted bed base for our mattresses, I think it improves a bit. At least there is no more moisture on our windows and doors in the morning. We will need to install heat exchanger for the house.

The upcycling staircase 🙂
It looks pretty cozy at the moment.
I have installed some of the plugs 🙂