Alexis Stevens is the co-founder of tiny house expedition, the DIY tiny house, dweller and advocate. Along with our partner Christian Parsons, they inspire others to rethink housing through thought, provoking storytelling, educational events, and resource sharing.
Their work includes the acclaimed educational documentary [00:01:00] series. Living tiny legally. Living, tiny legally. It was featured on Washington post NPR business, insider parade magazine, curved entry, hugger. Cool. What were some of your takeaways from listening to this episode? Well, I'm in a real kick right now with mobile dwellings.
So it's really fun to banter with Alexis who is equally wonky about tiny house on wheels regulations. The tiniest moment is very fractured and stealthy by nature. So it's fun to try to anticipate how the stealthy movement will actually play out. In the future technology has enabled mobile dwellings, like RVs vans, tiny homes, and park model RVs to be far more convenient and practical than they would have been for living 20 years ago.
And I expect that we will look back almost consoling only to the days when tiny houses on wheels weren't even legal to live in, in residential zones. And think how weird it was that we didn't allow people to live in mobile dwellings.
Kelsey, what were some of your takeaways? Alexis is incredibly personable and we had a great time chatting with her.
She has traveled the country in search of knowledge [00:02:00] and experience of how tiny house communities are collecting and advocating to improve local regulations, to make this lifestyle more accessible.
Let's get to our interview with Alexis.
Kol Peterson: As, as Kelcy was introducing you, my Alexa device was responding and I was like,oh shoot, ,that's going to happen this whole episode -got unplug that. That that must be so annoying.
It is so annoying.
Alexis Stephens: We recently filmed in like three tiny houses with Alexas and they had to turn them off and yeah, it gets old and Alexa got creepy. I don't know if it was because I was there and she felt competition,
Kol Peterson: What a bummer, huh? [00:03:00] I mean, you can change for your own self. You can change the name of Alexa to somebody else, but like everybody else is still going to have the default Alexa. So it's going to pester you for the rest of your life.
Your bio was just read, but let's just hear a little bit about your personal endeavors with living in tiny homes. Some people have a little bit of context for your history, with the you know, living in one.
Alexis Stephens: Sure. Back in 2014 Christian and I ordered our, our trailer and built our tiny house over the next nine months.
And he was the main builder, but I helped, I learned a lot of new skills and we had a lot of great help for friends and family. And like so many people in tiny houses, we fell pretty hard down the rabbit hole. Before we decided to build and research like crazy for, you know, for personal choice to simplify.
It was a time in my life that where that just felt so right, [00:04:00] but I'm just an all or nothing person. And as I was researching, you know, I really fell in love with the movement and how creatively tiny homes are being used to address personal and community needs. And so I got the idea to travel around with our tiny house and document the movement.
And so I pitched Christian on both at the same time, I was like, let's build a house. Like I want to build a house and I have this documentary idea. Do you want to do it with me? Because we'd only been dating for a year at that time when I pitched it. Fortunately he was a really good sport and really loved the idea of it.
The rest is history. And after we finished our house at 2015, we ended up traveling for about four and a half years zigzagging across the United States, peaking into Canada. And it had just the most wonderful adventure. And most of that was around documenting as much as we could of the tiny house movement, the people, communities legal action that was happening.
And then of course we threw in some, some fun stuff [00:05:00] and some family visits, but I'm really happy to say that now we just traveled three months out of the year and have a home base in central Oregon.
Kol Peterson: Awesome. So this is not going to be so much focused on your personal experiences but rather the tiny house movement at large and specifically the regulatory things that are occurring in the U S so, and, you know, tying that into ADUs to some extent, but just more generally legalization of tiny homes on wheels.
We're going to talk about your specific documentary series on that later, but let's talk more about the nuts and bolts of it. So can you attempt to define tiny homes on wheels?
Alexis Stephens: Yeah, absolutely. You know, the term tiny house is a slippery one. That's for sure, especially in the media, but a tiny house on wheels, also known as a movable tiny house is built on a trailer using traditional housing materials and techniques for the most part, but at its core, it's a hybrid [00:06:00] structure that has a lot in common with like a travel trailer, as far as mobility, but with more durable materials construction, more kin to a traditional house than at RV, which makes it more suitable for a year round living, you know, think insulation, you know, is a big one.
The difference between an RV and a tiny house is night and day it's, it's a residential house versus a camper. It's, that's what we're talking about.
Kol Peterson: Would you say that there's a universally agreed upon definition of a tiny house on wheels in terms of size? Obviously it's on wheels. Aside from that, is there any other like core definitions that we should bear in mind or is it kind of all over the map?
Alexis Stephens: The term is, is still squishy, so to speak. And, but I will say that in tiny house, on wheels or movable tiny house zoning ordinances it is starting to get a little bit more formalized.
And in most of most of those you know, what I, a version of what I said and more formalized language [00:07:00] is, is becoming more widely accepted. Typically they'll say a chassis instead of a trailer. And, and in some areas, particularly California, they do like to distinguish a tiny house from an, a traditional RV, because, well, I'm sure we'll get into this word later.
They are trying to discourage, you know, RVs in backyards and, and want something that looks like a cottage that resembles an ADU.
Kol Peterson: So what roles do you see tiny homes on wheels playing in housing, a formal legal housing on residential properties?
Alexis Stephens: You know, I love a tiny house on a residential property because it's so, so flexible is great as a caretaker unit and not necessarily, you know, it could go either way. It could be like your mom, your mom, you know, comes to live in your backyard. Cause you've had a baby and she just can't stand to be away, but you maybe can't send, have her in the house.
You know, or vice versa where you, you or a [00:08:00] nurse comes and lives in a backyard in a temporary fashion to take care of someone. We just visited someone in Eldorado Hills, California doing just that. Her parents health is starting to wane and she lives on their property, but doesn't plan to be there forever.
So very, very flexible. Yeah. Besides this, the caretaking idea is just another housing option. A long-term more affordable housing option. That's very mutually beneficial for the homeowner and the tiny dweller. You know, I think sometimes people look down on tiny houses on wheels in this like temporary mobile fashion that they are as, you know, taking advantage not paying their fair share.
When in reality, the majority, I mean the majority of tiny houses in my personal experience on residential property are helping pay the mortgage, the property taxes. We just visited a great situation where a woman was divorced, a single income. [00:09:00] What is she going to do? Her whole life is there.
And so she welcomed a couple of tiny houses onto her property to pay her bills.
Kol Peterson: So sounds pretty similar to ADUs in that way. How would you differentiate the roles that tiny houses on wheels and ADUs can play in housing on residential properties?
Alexis Stephens: You know, it's, there's a lot of similarities, like you said. I think the main difference is the flexibility, you know, it's flexible infill housing that can be removed as needed, which is kind of, kind of great because you know, dedicating to an ADU is a very long-term permanent situation where, you know, this, the cost of it alone, you know, I mean, you're not going to want to take it down once it's up where a tiny house like it, you know, if you need it to back could be gone for when you need to sell the house or if your situation changes.
Kol Peterson: And I'll chime in with a couple of responses after my questions, because I have a lot of thoughts about this [00:10:00] too. So forgive me. So I would also say that tiny homes on wheels are vastly less expensive than ADUs in general. And B to your flexibility point. There, this opens up this whole other marketplace of potential things that don't yet exist, but marketplace actors such as third parties that could own the tiny houses and lease it to either the dweller or to the owner of the property could exist.
Whereas with with ADUs, you could theoretically come up with some way to do that, but it would be really challenging. Tiny homes on wheels definitely afford some really innovative new business models.
Alexis Stephens: Yeah, excellent points. You know, the cost is a big one. You know, it's, it's incredible how much money you can save when you, when you skip the foundation.
And the price range of tiny houses. This is so great. I know people complain about that, but you really can get something that's suitable to you. And the loans are just becoming more available all the time.
Kol Peterson: This wasn't one of my questions, but like how much does a tiny house costs, what is the range that you offer? And then can you briefly [00:11:00] speak to this financing option?
Alexis Stephens: Sure the range is tricky because it varies greatly on size customization. The materials used. Also, we got the pandemic factor, you know, with prices going up. So I'll try to be a little bit more generous you know, on the low end from a builder $50,000 and that, and that might be pre pandemic times, but we'll say low ends, $50,000 high-end it's $115,000.
The majority I would say would be probably between 65 and 90 from a builder. Now, if you have the time ability, ability to learn a place to build, you can build for much less by being resourceful. We certainly did. Of course I was many years ago, but we use a lot of salvage and reclaim materials that we got for free or low cost. Oftentimes the cost was our sweat equity into like tearing down the walls off an old farmhouse. [00:12:00] Those opportunities still exist, but it's just not accessible or realistic for everyone
Kol Peterson: And financing?
Alexis Stephens: So financing. So there are a number of credit unions who will lend for a tiny house. They're the biggest player.
And then a number of personal loan. Oh, what's the word I'm looking for? That you can get personal loans from a lot of like online sources now. I would say the most, well-known right now is Liberty Bank of Utah. Even though the Utah bit, they service the nation and they work with a number of builders, they require certification.
There's still feasibility, I think, for a DIYer, but they have very reasonable, reasonable terms. They do 15 to 20 year loans. So something that could be paid off much quicker maybe than a 30 year loan and I'm blanking on the, on the exact rates or whatnot, but they're lending all the time, which is fantastic.
Now I'm like, oh, yay. [00:13:00] There's like a couple of handfuls, you know, I know this is a, a big country, but that's a big difference from a few years ago.
Kol Peterson: Yeah. And I mean, there's both financing opportunities emerging as well as like insurance opportunities emerging. And we don't go into too many details on that, but one point I'll just make for people on the call and maybe you can respond to this.
It's like ADU construction, loan financing is based on like GSE sponsored you know Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac sponsored Types of loans, whereas this type of loan is not secured against a property, is that correct?
Alexis Stephens: Exactly. Yep. These are unsecured loans you know, personal loan. So, you know, there's ups and downsides with that.
Oh, I also have to give a shout out to one of my favorite nonprofits is Operation Tiny Home. They have a fantastic grant program as a down payment assistance grant program. And what, you know, you think, well, what's the down payment on a tiny house, you know, for some people it's a drop in the hat, but for a lot of people who really do need to get into affordable housing and can't [00:14:00] afford a monthly, tiny house payment. And you know, probably a lot lease too, they, they struggle with the upfront money and that's where operation tiny home comes in. They're also launching a secondary grant program. If you haven't heard of them, I highly recommend you check it out.
Kol Peterson: People sometimes ask me like how many people would actually want to really want to live in an ADU. And I'm like pretty much any one and two person household could definitely live in ADU. It's not, it's not that big of a deal to downsize to 800 square feet or 1000 square feet or whatever.
And, you know, that might seem like a weird concept to downsize to an ADU, but once you've been in an ADU, you see that they're actually just like, you know, decent, a good size, comfortable, luxurious. Tiny homes on wheels are a little bit different. They're significantly smaller, oftentimes 200 square feet.
So with that factor in mind, but other factors as well, what percentage of the US population would realistically consider living in a tiny house on wheels if they were just as [00:15:00] legitimate as a single family house in terms of the legal structure for doing so?
Alexis Stephens: Yeah, those are really good question. You know, for, I like to preface by saying, I often find that tiny houses on wheels work really well for a number of people for a season of their life: starter home, retirement home, transition out of divorce. Raise my hand here. There's a lot of ways that tiny house would fit, but not forever. For most people. Fortunately, there was a study done at the end of 2020 by a Fidelity National Financial affiliate and it's not a huge sampling, I think only 3000, but nonetheless 56% said that they would consider living in a tiny home.
That's huge. I think. And I mean, and more than that 86% said they were considering it as a first time home or as a retirement option. And I do feel like that reflects where we are awareness wise of tiny houses, [00:16:00] say from 2014 to 2021, you know, the shows helped make it cool, you know, with a lot of unrealistic expectations, but now people, you know, it's, it's rough out there.
And I think, you know, a lot of people living in a room for most of their adult life, you know, in a shared housing situation, you know, if you think about it in that context, all the single people out there, there's more single people than ever people without children. And if you're used to having your roommate.
What's that difference between a room in a tiny house, really at the end of the day, except that you get a kitchen and a bathroom?
Can you review some of the common regulatory barriers that tiny houses on wheels suffer from in terms of placing them on residential? Yeah. So I mean, very generically building code requirements zoning, you know, but you know, I'll dig into that more. I think really what I've heard the most [00:17:00] is cities just saying, "I don't know how to deal with the tiny house. Like where does it fit? Is it an RV?" And there's a lot of communities that are very opposed to having RVs around. And so I think, and there's a reluctance to. There's a reluctance to go outside of the box, you know, because it requires more work and a lot of aggravation from maybe say some NIMBY groups who don't want, you know, poverty, you know, poor people, housing, as some people see it close to them, because it really what's amazing to me is that you can create a tiny house zoning ordinance overnight.
I mean, it doesn't take long. I mean, in the, the ones that exist out there, it can happen in two months. It can happen in two years. You know what the difference is is people, I'll just be frank, bitching and moaning about it, because it's not that hard, especially now where you have templates for big cities, small cities you know, it's really easy to [00:18:00] copy and paste.
I think it's important to note, which, you know, this is pretty elementary, but you know, there are still a minimum square footage requirements. And, you know, in certain areas that especially who work on outdated versions of, of building code you know, I, I really love seeing the California and I think we might get into this later, California is embracing like some RV standards because building departments are overloaded.
And so I can't understand that this is a real challenge because figuring out how to use the residential building code to apply to a movable structure is really tricky. You know, the IRC, appendix Q can address a movable tiny house from the trailer up, and then really you can use alternative means and methods to address the trailer.
But it, it just is something that requires a lot of extra work that I, I don't think cities are that willing to do.
Kol Peterson: Some of the common barriers , going into the building codes a little bit, from my vantage are things like minimum headroom [00:19:00] requirements. Like you have to have six foot eight inches of headroom on the lower level, not to mention the upper level and tiny house. And the wheels are 13 and a half feet high because they have to be road legal in order to be pulled down the highway once in their life or twice in their life or whatever.
And it's almost impossible, therefore, to fit a legal second story, which is by default where most sleeping areas are in tiny homes on wheels, because you don't want to put it on the ground level because there isn't enough space because it's such a small structure because it can only be eight and a half feet wide.
And that's just one example of a building code regulation that doesn't really mesh well
Alexis Stephens: Yeah, and actually I'm such a tiny nerd that I realize maybe not everyone knows what appendix Q is. So appendix Q was created for houses 400 square feet and, and below to address some of those exact things like head height, emergency egress alternative.
Vertical access to the loft, you know, allowing for ship's ladder, which take up much less floor space. Cause it's very hard to get a code compliance set of stairs [00:20:00] in a house that's under 300 square feet, you know, most times. And so it really looked at those pain points and, and addressed them and made it much easier.
There is a catch it's a fabulous step forward, the catch is, it doesn't encompass everything for instance, you know, in the code, which I find ridiculous there's things like how much room you got to have around your toilet or whatever for servicing purposes has nothing to do with safety. Why is that a requirement?
And then the law comes down to the inspector then, right? Having an inspector who looks at what you're doing, let me pause and say that in the Lake Dallas Tiny Home Village in Texas, this is the first community on a local level that adopted the appendix Q and then applied it to moveable tiny houses.
And what they did is they require a tie down requirement and that you have to be skirted and have your electrical connection inspected locally. The houses also have to be inspected by a third [00:21:00] party. Now, what I know is a third-party inspector. In this case, he will look at the tiny house. Does it meet the appendix Q? Does it meet the intent of the code? Not so much the letter of the code sometimes.
Kol Peterson: I think there's a, as you alluded to, there's a host of different building code barriers, aside from just leaving sleeping lofts, insulation requirements. If you have an eight and a half foot wide, tiny house, you can really only fit two by fours. Two by fours aren't you can't meet the insulation energy code requirements for a lot of jurisdictions.
You can't easily put in guardrails to get up to the front deck to get inside to the tiny house. There isn't, as you mentioned, you know, the minimum room sizes of 70 square feet. My opinion is we're trying to put like a square peg in a round hole with this stuff, and I'm really hesitant to try to formalize or squeeze tiny house on wheels, development regulations within conventional IRC codes for all of these reasons.
Alexis Stephens: I can really appreciate [00:22:00] that. It does feel that way. And I mean, it's just amazing how dense, you know, the IRC has become over the years and I think you nailed it. It just doesn't, it feels like apples and oranges sometimes. It shouldn't be that hard, but you know, stuff doesn't work on common sense, you know, unfortunately.
Kol Peterson: And yet to the average person, it seems very odd that tiny homes on wheels that look cute, look like adorable ADUs, are not allowed. What's your perspective on this in terms of common perception of, you know, 'Hey, why, why shouldn't I be allowed to live in this tiny house?'
Alexis Stephens: Yeah, great question. I'm wearing a home is where you park it shirt today. But oftentimes I wear, I have a legalized tiny shirt and I also have a bumper sticker that says that I can't tell you the number of people who stopped me to say, well, what do you mean by that?
It's a great conversation starter. So I don't wear it if I don't want to talk to people , I'll tell you that much, because I think people [00:23:00] are like, are very confused by the idea that it wouldn't be allowed. Why not? One, I see it on TV and it's like, I don't, it's like, I'm not trying to talk down to people about, you know, by saying I see it on TV.
Therefore it should be a thing, but, but really on a grassroots level, we don't get educated on building codes and zoning and land use and all this stuff. The average person that was very little about that. And I, I think because of that, you know, people miss out on opportunities that exist to them, especially in places where there are ADUs, for instance, because they're not aware of it.
If you're not a super nerd. I digress a little bit. You know, I think a lot of common sense kind of people say, well, it seems practical to me is a great idea. I could just stick it in my yard. And voila, , I got a place for the kid when he comes home for college or whatever, people, people understand more and more people understand the flexibility of the use.
And so it is kind of [00:24:00] befuddling is that a word that they're not allowed?
Kol Peterson: Maybe tell us a little bit about THIA. . And what is the mission of THIA with regard to legalization of tiny homes in residential zones?
Alexis Stephens: Cool. So THIA is the tiny home industry association is currently the leading advocacy organization in the United States that we also collaborate with folks in other countries, especially Canada.
So we are on a mission to advocate for regulation changes develop standards, promote best practices, basically for the wide spread use of tiny homes as permanent and permissible housing. We try many approaches towards making permanent and permissible housing happen and using different tools that are available, whether it be RV standards, residential standards you know, we focus a lot on the movable tiny house, but we also do, we are huge fans of, [00:25:00] of ADUs.
And so I mean, we often do tell people, like if you, if your town is having a meeting on ADUs, a hearing on it, show up, this is for you because the first step and a lot of, a lot of times is to get ADUs allowed. And then, and then that leads the way to having the, the movable tiny house conversation.
Kol Peterson: What are some of the current regulatory approaches that you've observed in terms of legalizing tiny homes on wheels on residential properties?
Alexis Stephens: The most common right now in the most places. And most of those are in California, but they are sprinkled in cities across the nation is allowing moveable tiny houses as ADUs. So I know I really love that Portland didn't classify them as ADUs so that people can have multiple structures on their property.
That makes a lot of sense to me, but where it has I think why the movable tiny houses ADU has really taken off [00:26:00] is, is because that it bypasses the way these ordinances are written, it bypasses the building department in that they require them to be built to RV standards. Oftentime requires a certification and this takes a pressure off of an overloaded building department and allows the permitting to be done on a much more expedited level to, to meet, you know, the.
The housing crisis, you know, just, this is, I love about the cities who've embraced this, it's like finally saying, 'Hey, we have a crisis. Maybe we should do something different. Maybe we should allow something and actually expedite it so that people can implement these on their properties much more quickly.' And I think that has a lot of appeal to communities are really struggling.
So we try to hit on that a lot at THIA is, you know, look how practical and easy this can be. And yeah, so I that's, that's probably the best approach right now on the whole. And it makes the most sense, especially with land costs, to really focus on getting them on [00:27:00] residential properties and people using the ADU is the best way for people to wrap their head around it.
Kol Peterson: The tiny house on wheels being built to as a movable tiny house under the ADU code. Is there other parts that you've seen elsewhere in the country aside from Portland, which we can talk about briefly?
Alexis Stephens: Sure. So I mean, there's not, that's not a ton. That's that's the primary one though. There are a few pocket neighborhoods and like I mentioned, Lake Dallas is great. There's another one and Durango, Colorado called Escalante village, both very, very similar where they use planned unit development ordinance they, they put it in an.
Not always the most desirable place. So Lake Dallas is just walking distance to downtown. And they use a residential code but amended locally for the, to apply for the trailer to get over that that hurdle. And in those instances, those are cities where the RV [00:28:00] code didn't seem attractive to them.
And they like having a place for tiny houses, right. They like, they need a place, they need a park. And part of me doesn't like that because it's like, we shouldn't be pushing them to the fringes, but on the other hand, I've stayed in a lot of tiny home communities and they could be a wonderful environment to live in.
So I'm okay. I'm okay with that idea, especially I love Lake Dallas and some of the others you know, they're set up very much like a traditional pocket neighborhood was shared green space and landscaped very nicely. So it does feel like a neighborhood and not like an RV park
Kol Peterson: As somebody who's developed like a RV park for tiny homes on wheels. When, you know, one of the issues with, with designating or historically with like both RVs and with tiny homes on wheels would be that you can only do that within commercial zones. Commercial zones are more expensive. And if you can afford to do it in the size lot that you need, it's going to be on the fringe the walkable bikeable area, if at all. And so [00:29:00] like, yeah, it's a problem, you know, from a zoning perspective, if you're designating it designating, you know, RVs or tiny homes solely to parks you're, you know, essentially relegating them out of existence because of the economic, or at least in desirable, walkable bikeable areas because of the nature of how cities are zoned and the cost of real estate.
Let's briefly talk about Portland's code innovations. Take a crack at spelling out what you think Portland did differently than other jurisdictions have done with, with in terms of legalizing tiny homes on wheels on residential properties
Portland is a fabulously progressive ordinance regarding tiny houses and RVs, which began with an emergency housing ordinance a handful of years ago where they temporarily allowed them on residential property with some minimal restrictions. And as it was getting the sunset this year, Great group of [00:30:00] advocates, including yourself you know, help to rally, to push the city, to create a permanent pathway for that.
And the city very gladly embraced that. And so now tiny houses and RVs are allowed on residential property with minimal restrictions and tools to help overcome hurdles like hookup fees like sewer hookup fees by providing a grant program. But what's special about this is why they're on residential property.
Alexis Stephens: They do not, they are not classified as ADUs. So a homeowner can still build an ADU and have an RV or a tiny house on their property. Which is really wonderful.
. I think those are, those are some of the big points. And, and, you know, importantly they're not required to be built to park model RV standards.
Kol Peterson: And so when you were really, when you were alluding to the movable tiny homes, you, you mentioned have to build, be built to RV standards. Isn't it true that they have to be built to park model RV standards. And are those the same as RV [00:31:00] standards or is that a category of RV standards?
Alexis Stephens: Oh, that's a great question.
Both, both are, in some cases, either one is utilized I mean an RVs and RVs, just either a park model, a travel trailer in the, and the main difference, you know, in abroad in broad strokes is size and and you know, just to keep it really simple, you really get in the weeds, but at the end of the day, they're, they're very similar.
Kol Peterson: Interesting. Okay. I didn't, I didn't realize that I thought there was maybe more differentiation between the two, but I mean, one, one difference that comes to mind is like motorized non-motorized isn't that? I mean, cause you can have like. A motorized RV, but that's not what we're talking.
Alexis Stephens: Yeah. Fair, fair point. In the United States, when we use the word RV, we are referring to motorized and non-motorized RVs and it's true in the, the park model category is never motorized.. Where the travel trailer side of it can be, we'll see, I say travel trailer, but it's [00:32:00] travel trailer, motor home because I had had enough coffee and I'm blanking on the exact names of the codes at this moment and I don't want to say the wrong thing. But when you're outside a park model, it can be motorized. But in any time where you have a tiny house on residential property, they specify a non-motorized RV. Even if they use park model code, they just go out of their way just to say, you know, we don't want a house truck, you know, we're talking about something, built on the chassis period.,
Kol Peterson: Of the approaches that you've seen, have you seen any evidence of which ones are actually working in terms of tiny houses on wheels being put on the ground in residential properties?
Alexis Stephens: I'll tell you what's widely successful in a range of small cities, large cities, rural counties more urban counties is making the pitch that a tiny house on wheels is no different than an ADU except for the chassis.
And of course, we just talked about all the, the various nuances, but let's face it. The world doesn't run on nuance, [00:33:00] unfortunately, as much as we'd like it to. But Dan Fitzpatrick, who's the president of THIA, is an incredible advocate and we're so lucky to have him. And he, he created this wonderful presentation that all our members have access to and can customize for their local area.
But we have seen it's incredible. We have seen how showing how the, the numbers make sense how it could be a really great investment for a primary homeowner to create a spot for a tiny house in the backyard.
It really it's really seems to hit home. The key is to change some of the details. So that you're not talking, you're not talking about LA. when you're in a small Texas town, you got to, you got to make it in a way that feels relatable to them. And that's the benefit of where we are today is that so many different size places have accepted it, that you can slightly change the wording to be more appealing. I know this is oversimplified, but like it's incredibly effective.
Kol Peterson: Tiny houses on wheels have an embedded DIY [00:34:00] ethos. It's really stemming from the figurative godfather of the tiny house movement, Jay Shafer. What are your thoughts about the differentiation of RVs or similarities to RVs in terms of the development of tiny homes on wheels?
Alexis Stephens: Okay. So I guess there's two, two bits here on the differences. You know, a tiny house on wheels, you know, for the most part is highly insulated, sturdy, customizable, huge difference. Okay. This is not really possible in an RV. That's mostly stapled together. I mean, let's face it. That's how most RVs are.
Of course you can renovate an RV and it can look beautiful, but it's not going to change the bones of the structure. And a tiny house on wheels can hold up more like the life of a residential structure, unlike an RV that after 10, 15 years is looking pretty rough. Especially without proper upkeep. Now even though they can be moved most only move a tiny house one to three times ever in their ownership of that tiny [00:35:00] house, and that's typically for big life changes. And that's a big thing to point out because unlike an RV, a tiny house does tend to be a little taller and heavier. Though there has been innovation in steel framing kits to help reduce weight of some tiny houses on wheels.
But in RV as much more can be much more agile on the road. Not always, there's some beast out there. So that's that really boils it down. There's a very similar footprint, you know, between 16 to 40 foot long, typically eight and a half feet wide. Now I do want to let people know you can build a tiny house that's 10 foot wide with a very low cost wide load permit. It's when you get wider than that, where it gets complicated with moving where you might need to have a follow car and that sort of thing.
And the DIY aspect of it. Yeah. So of course, small homes, tiny homes really have been around since forever in its truest sense of just like square footage. And the RV in the 20th century really led the [00:36:00] way to tiny houses as, as artisan and, and creative tinkers started playing around with building different custom things that could, that could be mobile.
I think that's really like, that's a really where I think the movable tiny house came from was from totally from the RV world. Just so happens that Jay Schaffer who built a residential style house on a trailer in 1999, really popular, popularized it. Course he was on Oprah. She's a big tastemaker. So, you know, word gets out.
But what I love about Jay's roots and, and the creative RV folks is that there's something very American about it, very very much bootstrapping people getting creative and that's like, Jay he's like, 'Wow, okay. Building codes are really restrictive. I dunno where I wanna live. You know, I want to do something that [00:37:00] fits me.
That's not available in the market. So he built himself, the teeniest tiniest house on a trailer that he could move around to try to skirt these rules. And you know, on one day you can say, you know, he's rule breaking, but on the other hand, you can say, no, this guy is bootstrapping something that works for him.
And that's something that I love about the DIY aspect of the movement. And as it's become more popular, there's less people building their own home, but that's a good thing. And the reason why it's a good thing is not because I don't think you can build a safe home yourself. It's because more people have access to tiny homes than they used to, which means that we're doing something right, because not everyone realistically can build their own home.
Kol Peterson: Tell us about the third party certification process that DIY builders can use to build the park model RV standards.
Alexis Stephens: Sure. So the real quick, the quick thing about certification, is it certifies that [00:38:00] you're an RV and that just gives you flexibility for, for parking.
So you could park an RV park without any problems you can park and cities that have a certification requirement, which is more and more all the time. The main benefit of it is it's accountability, making sure some key things are done correctly. It's definitely not as stringent as building code, but there are third party certifiers like Pacific West Tiny Homes that do a remote certification process for both professionals and DIYers.
Kol Peterson: What order of magnitude would you guess there are people actually living full time in tiny homes on wheels and in RVs in the U.S. And I'm not, you know, you might not know the exact answer, but order of magnitude, are we talking a hundred, a thousand, 10,000 or a million
Alexis Stephens: Good question. That's a tricky one.
RVs is easier because of the RVIA and the way they track things. According [00:39:00] to them, there's maybe more than a million Americans living in RVs full time. I could totally believe that tiny houses on wheels, there are so many people under the radar. We don't have a registration system, but I would say more in the like tens of thousands you know, to be on the safe side,
Kol Peterson: What are some aspirations that you have for the tiny house movement in the coming years?
Alexis Stephens: I would love to see a cascading ripple effect from what's already been started, which is more local, tiny house ADU ordinances. I love that Oakland is following suit in Portland's footsteps, doing something very similar.
I would love to see more people do that because if we want more housing and shelter options, now the way to do it is to make it as easy as possible. And that's what Portland has done. Maine just passed the tiny house state law that says, 'Hey, tiny houses on wheels can be primary and accessory dwellings' .That doesn't solve local [00:40:00] issues.
It still has to get, have local approvals. But what it does is it takes away the question we hear all the time. How do I deal with it? Well, the state just told you how you can deal with it now, write it in, get it over with, I mean, so, you know, what's exciting is now having more east coast and west coast examples.
There's something for everyone. And so if we can really just get more officials to take this housing crisis, seriously, we can say here's a menu. Which one do you like the best let's let's get this party started.
Kol Peterson: Tell us about your new book and your documentary series on legalizing tiny homes and your YouTube channel.
Alexis Stephens: So we wrote a book it's coming out September. It's the beginner's guide to tiny houses what you need to know about 400 square foot living or under. It's a really fantastic, thorough overview of all the various aspects of the tiny house world. Useful for people who are complete beginners, but even if you have dipped your toes into the water, I know you're going to learn something new from this book and our [00:41:00] documentary series.
So we have a YouTube channel, tiny house expedition, where we cover the, the diverse and dynamic aspects of the tiny house world. And we're now working on third part of our documentary series, living tiny legally. And this one is really going to focus on the implementation of the most exciting tiny house ordinances and laws that exist out there from LA, Portland, Lake Dallas, which is a very small community and to show people what, what does it look like?
Because it was, is charming and there's nothing like a charming visual to influence it, but then what are the particulars like? How does the permitting work in the infrastructure?
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Kelcy King: That wraps up the interview portion of this episode of the ADU hour. As a reminder, these episodes are the edited audio version of interviews that we conducted via a webinar series. Good news. You can access the full video series via Kol's website, [00:42:00] BuildinganADU.com. Now for the second half of the show I curate questions from the audience that gives our guests the opportunity to dive deeper into a topic or address new ideas and questions.
Alexis Stephens: So from Joseph, how has title or deed regarding to tiny homes versus ADUs?
Very different, I guess, cause it's personal property bringing personal property. So it's not really associated with those at all.
Kol Peterson: And, and, and by extension it's also generally speaking, not going to be taxed as real estate, which is a nice, nice advantage of a mobile dwelling versus fixed dwelling such as and ADU. .
Kelcy King: Do you have any experience to share on prefab in tiny houses?
Alexis Stephens: Not a lot, but I will say that some of the biggest, tiny house builders or manufacturers out there can, can do multiple kinds of tiny homes like California Tiny House is a great example. And the modular code is very friendly to the tiny house world that they don't call it that, but it can, it can be used to easily build a [00:43:00] movable structure, which is great.
Kelcy King: I think this is from Gary and it was from earlier in the show. So I think that you guys touched on it. But just to reiterate, can you recommend a good, tiny home ordinance that might be a good starting point.
Alexis Stephens: Good question. It might, to me, it's going to depend on what size community you live in but I will look at what's happening in California. And if you go to the tinyhomeindustryassociation.org, search California on the blog, you're going to see a variety of different size communities. And they're all very similar, but there's some, some nuances, so that's a good place to start.
Kol Peterson: And I'm going to give a shout out to Portland's code.. I think it's a different approach. And I think, I think this is one of those areas where there's room for experimentation there isn't, you know, it's not evident yet to me that there's any one best approach yet. And I think we really need more experience with this and more data to support ideas of what is actually going to be the, you know, the best or most effective set of [00:44:00] regulations.
But, but that, that not withstanding, I think Alexis suggestion and needing on the T H I is content is, is a good suggestion for now..
Alexis Stephens: Great. Yeah, I agree. It's an all of the above approaches so we can see what sticks
Kelcy King: Where do you recommend people get started with figuring out what zoning and permitting requirements are for their area?
Alexis Stephens: You want to call your city planning department and ask them you can, a lot of times there's information on the website I've learned. I know people have learned the hard way is that sometimes things don't get updated from the website. So research ahead of time and then verify in person or on by the phone.
Kelcy King: Do you know of any tiny houses going into traditional mobile home parks?
Alexis Stephens: I do. And Durango, Colorado. Again, this is just one of my great examples because they're so traditional mobile home park and they have Tiny Town. They have a section for movable, tiny houses in it. This is one of, of numerous [00:45:00] examples of this happening.
It's one of those grandfathered in old mobile home parks. So I don't think they have any requirements or certification. So it's pretty lax, which is great.
Kelcy King: Are there any third-party inspectors who inspect IRC rather than ANSI?
Alexis Stephens: Yes. The one-off, I mean, you could probably find them everywhere. I would say if you, if you want Lake Dallas, tiny home village, you go to their website. They, I think they have a link. The third party inspector they use. And they've had a really great experience with him. Really gets tiny homes. Yeah.
Kelcy King: For the places that are allowing tiny houses, what requirements are put on the landowners such as concrete pads, what kind of hookups are required?
Alexis Stephens: Great question. I know this, this can vary. Sometimes the pad is required. It could be gravel.
Doesn't have to be concrete. Sometimes not, but often they are required to hook up to the primary homeowner's sewer. Sometimes they have to go to the street. It depends on the community. It's not always required to have a separate electrical [00:46:00] hookup, like a 30 amp or 50 amp. In some cases you can run directly like extension cord style from the main house.
Go cold. You want to,
Kol Peterson: Yeah, I'll speak to the utility connection protocols in Portland briefly. Number one, you do not have to have a parking pad at all. You could put it. Grass grass. I wouldn't recommend that recommend hard tap gravel or concrete, but you could do it on grass. You do not have to have plumbing, connections if there's no internal plumbing within the tiny house on wheels or RV. But if there is internal plumbing, then you do have to have a hose connection, which could be the primary house or a dedicated hose bib. For sewer, you would have to do it, a sewer clean out that it is compliant with however they're going to spec out the regulations for that, probably just a clean-out or perhaps a proper RV sewer cleanout.
And then you do have to have a dedicated circuit, 30 amp or 50 amp circuit for the mobile dwelling.
Kelcy King: Practically speaking, how do you prepare the electric and water [00:47:00] sewer and hookups for a tiny home?
Alexis Stephens: Well, I think we discovered a little bit of that. You know, typically a tiny house is going to be like 30 amp or 50 amp.
And so I mean, that's, that's very typical. They'll have a water inlet a lot like an RV. So it's really, I dunno, that's about it on that. Yeah.
Kol Peterson: Part of the elegance of this is it's so easy and so inexpensive to do the setup for these types of homes. It's going to be, you know, roughly $10,000 to get up, to get the infrastructure and parking pad put in.
So again, this is like vastly less expensive than an ADU.. And, and what I'm telling people in Portland now that it's legal is when you're putting in an ADU , you put in a parking pad or put in the connections for water, sewer, and electrical connection for an RV/tiny house. You don't have to use it. It's going to cost almost nothing. And then you can have an ADU and a tiny house on wheels if, and when you want it, but you don't have to put the tiny house on wheels there ever, if you don't want to, because [00:48:00] it's just, it's a marginal cost addition to that type of infrastructural improvement to your property.
Kelcy King: Could it be helpful in extending uptake of movable tiny houses to develop ways to make them attachable detachable to foundation?
Alexis Stephens: Yes. And that's something that has been explored and you know, is interesting thing. I think it could really be, I mean, you can make it complicated or you can make a really simple, a really simple way I'd say is like, if you had a pad and you had tie downs and then you skirted it and I mean, that's as simple as you can get, you could get more complicated where you're taking off the axles and that sort of thing, but kind of like why.
But that is something I, a lot of folks have, have explored to, to overcome that. And it does make a lot of sense if you built to appendix Q standards from the trailer up and you can have affix to some kind of foundation system, it'd be great if they, if a community accepted a mobile home foundation system. Cause that would also keep it very simple. [00:49:00]
Kol Peterson: I baulk a little bit at,at tying to concrete pads in that at least in Portland, like there, we don't have hurricanes tornadoes, like, do we really need to do that? I've never seen a need for that. Do you actually think there's a need for that or is that just a way to comply with IRC essentially?
Alexis Stephens: I think that's just a comply. It's like a, it's a thing it's like, sure. You want that? Sure. You know, there's a tiny community and North Texas, they have tie-downs because it's high winds in tornado alley, you know, of course you're not going to survive a tornado, but the high winds that come sweeping through there, it makes sense for them.
Otherwise it doesn't make a lot of sense in that the trailer the axles and the wheels, you know, are meant to, to hold the weight actually quite nice. When there's a little bit of, of, of wind, you know, it's very sturdy. You don't feel like you're in a boat or anything, but I'm willing to make little compromises to, to make it legal in more places.
The thing is like we've parked in so many places. We don't worry about being legally permitted permitted. It doesn't mean we don't want [00:50:00] to, but like, we're just okay with the risk, because at the end of the day, it's a neighbor complaints where we currently are all the neighbors like us, we've proven to be responsible and respectful neighbors.
And that works for us.
Kol Peterson: Yeah. And you know, part of the elegance of the tiny house movement is it's inherently like a flexible way that if you get busted, you can move, you know, like, and that's, that's part of the beauty of this, the way this whole movement
Kelcy King: Betsy would like to know where we can link to the Portland code and any progress in tiny home village ordinances, small camps, parks, or urban infill?
Kol Peterson: I'll I'll take the first one you take the second one. The tiny house on wheels regulations for the City of Portland have not yet been posted, but they will be posted by August 1st, 2021, which is when they will be legalized. So that's when you can start to find the real regulations that will be enacted on Portland's website.
So you'll just have to Google it. Alexis?
Alexis Stephens: In regards to villages and developments a couple favorite examples again, Lake [00:51:00] Dallas Tiny Home village- that's just a killer one. Very different would be Tiny Tranquility, which is on the Oregon coast where they use like a campground ordinance. And he weaved a really fine line with those guys is where he had approved that our tiny house was an RV, but then also how to make the case for them being attractive as a community.
So really, really odd. He's a lawyer and he's really good. And his name is Josh Palmer - the developer there, and he'd be a great person to talk to.
Kelcy King: Any experience with composting toilets permitted in tiny homes rather than sewer or septic hookups?
Alexis Stephens: Composting toilets are allowed in very few places. You know, there is an Oregon you can technically, I don't know, not even a tiny house it's complicated. I think more likely is if you really want one, like you feel passionate about it is that you just have to plumb it and then switch it out. Or go under the radar.
How do landlord tenant enforcement situations come into play or also, are there a two-part question? So [00:52:00] we'll, let's start there and then we'll come back to that one. Well, that's a tricky one. If it's an under the radar situation, like so many of us, they, they don't it's just an informal agreement and I think it'd be very hard to have anything legally binding, but you know what, I haven't really explored that topic too much in places where it has been allowed officially and that I would love to Kol, do you have anything on that?
Kol Peterson: It's an extremely interesting and complicated question. So I, I think landlord tenant law is going to apply in Portland. But I am not certain how all that's going to play out. I think it's going to be a really interesting process as we go through the formal codification of legalization of mobile dwellings on residential properties. I think it's going to open up a whole new set of questions about that particular issue, because the owner of the residential property might not own the tiny house on wheels. Right? And so are they, you know, so who's, who's responsible for [00:53:00] a roof issue that causes mold in the walls or whatever. Well, it's obviously not the owner of the property if they're not on the tiny house. So anyway, I don't know the answer to that question yet, but it will be litigated over time I'm sure. .
Kelcy King: And then last question, are people using any tiny house models for people with disabilities? You know?
Alexis Stephens: Yes. Typically more foundation-based is used for that though. I have seen a couple interesting proof of concepts on a movable chassis for that involving ramps and typically a wider, tiny house.
But there's some really great non-profit groups, including some habitat for humanity affiliates in this great group in North Carolina, Tiny Houses on Penny Lane is the name of their village. I can't remember the nonprofit name, but they're specifically developing a proof of concept village for tiny homes for people with disabilities.
Kol Peterson: I just want to mention that we have a tiny house on wheels that is built to ADA's actual ADA standards. [00:54:00] So it's been done because we did it. 10 feet wide.
Kelcy King: What type of vehicle is needed to move a tiny house?
Alexis Stephens: Typically, you're going to need a half ton or one ton truck pickup truck. We tow, we through our partnership with U haul. We towed our house for many years with a U- Haul box truck. And it's a great option.
If your house is 10,000 pounds or under and bumper pool, I'd like to share that because I think in this day and age of, of fires being so common that if you needed something in a pinch and you don't own a truck, because remember most people don't move. So they hire a professional or typically to do it.
But if you're stuck in a situation, you don't know anyone with a pickup truck, U Haul could be an option. If you're not a gooseneck.
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