Heating and Cooling

One of the reasons I wanted to live in a tiny house was to find out what such a lifestyle would teach me. What I learned is that we don’t ask much of ourselves when it comes to external temperatures. We are used to a controlled household temperature of 68°. I heat my house with my buddy heater only when I really feel the cold. I upgraded from the (Little Buddy because the button on the Little Buddy was so hard to hold down with just my thumb.) By waiting until this point I have taught myself how to keep warm by putting on more clothes, by always wearing a warm hat, by drinking hot tea and insulating my hammock. My body also becomes acclimated to the cold and I find that I don’t have to heat the house until the temperature drops down to the mid ‘50s. And when I’m sleeping I’m fine under the covers down to 49°. 

I have also kept up with using my flower pot heater. It dries out the air, is a nice hand warmer, offers a warm glow as a night light and seems to keep the temperature from dropping as quickly once I turn off my buddy heater. I just let the candles burn all night. I made my own jar candles in my solar oven, melting down my collection of used candles that clients and friends would give me. When I finally exhausted this source, I upgraded to buying bags of soy wax. The soy wax burns nicely with much less soot so it keeps the house from getting so dusty. The homemade candles stay lit better than the votives I could buy because the wick I use is thicker. I can make candles during the summer in my solar oven or by boiling water on the stove at my support house. 

In the summer, temperatures have gotten hotter too. I got myself a little fan and a spray bottle. Also a large polyester scarf I use when traveling worked very well to turn myself into a swamp cooler. I just got it wet, wrung it out and threw it over my head. The fan blowing on me created the cooling effect.