Brittany Petrenko

Thanks everyone! All great information!

The fan suggestion for circulating hot and cold air; is this suggestion for the fridge or for the cook top? I don't want to lose our heat so I think we will get a very sensitive CO detector and see how that goes.

We were told the amount of propane the fridge would be burning wouldn't be much especially since we know our home isnt completely sealed. In summer months we always have window open anyways!

Hi Kevin,

Unfortunately we don't have room for a full stove so the bbq and counter top burner are our only options!

Now al,
I've heard of fridges freezing because of the venting in the winter but wouldn't it be dangerous to not vent the fridge outside?

Thanks Richard!

Thanks for the tip on throwing hot water down the drain to thaw anything!

It's now -17C and the grey water disposal is done, now for the true test, fridgid cold Canadian winters!

Michael Newby wrote:Another thing to keep in mind is that if you chose to run butane for your stove you're probably going to have to make some changes to your refrigerator to enable it to run off butane or you're going to be dealing with two systems.

I agree with Al, I would stick with propane if it's readily available.

Thanks Michael, yes it doesn't seem worth it when we can have everything hooked up to propane instead of going between the two!

Thanks for the info Allen!

We are in Northern Ontario Canada, So our winters are typically -40 Celsius! So this is what we prepare for! I'm thinking propane would be our best bet. We have a CO detector right now because we have a propane heater so i'm thinking we should just stick with propane! I haven't heard of anywhere up here providing large butane outdoor tanks, im thinking because if how cold it is!

We will be venting the fridge so we would need another form of ventilation for our stove top. Any suggestions? From someone who has a propane stove like this? It states it is suitable for indoors for cabins, RV's and hunt camps. I assume with proper ventilation?

https://www.homedepot.ca/en/home/p.1000806618.html

We bought our tiny house set up with electric appliances, the previous owner ran it off a generator all the time. We currently have a generator but because we want to live there full time we have set up solar! We have a dickinson boat heater (propane) that works wonders and uses no electricity (the fan runs off our batteries but thats it) we are looking to use a propane or butane cook top. We have a propane fridge coming that we will be venting! If anyone has any DIY examples of propane mini fridge venting that would be helpful as well!

I read butane burns cleaner than propane, which as my main thought for purchasing this. However we would be going through small bottles like crazy! We would like to keep a 100lb tank outside to run our appliances so this is why we keep moving back towards propane.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Ideas?

Travis Halverson wrote:Also, will you post more details about the separator on your composting toilet in the Composting Toilet section of permies? I'm curious how you're doing it.

Our bucket toilet fills up quick with all our per.

We have a Seperatt Villa http://www.separett.ca/villa-9200-ca! It came with our tiny house, the urine is seperated in the front part of the toilet and drains to a hose which is connected to out grey water pipe that disposes outside!

Thanks everyone for your input regarding our grey water! We have insulated the piping and dug a hole for our leaching pit! We are currently adding bales of hay to the outside of the tiny house to insulate underneath further! the floor is getting cold as its already -10C many night so far!

Hi Everyone,

I am new to permies and new to the tiny house community! We bought some land and have moved our tiny house there and setting it up for off the grid living. We have our composting toilet & generator & solar. Turns out we don't get great sun in the bush where we are so we might be using our generator more than planned. Everything is great in the summer months however where we are in northern ontario our summers aren't all that long and we're already starting to get frost at night! We have gravity grey water piping right now. the separator from the compost toilet, the shower and the kitchen sink all drain out under the tiny house (we only use biodegradable soaps & use food catchers mainly so we dont attract animals).

We want to dig a small leeching pit below frost level away from the tiny house in case of ice build up underneath. We want to put insulation around the base of the tiny house to insulate the floor better (basically foam and or hay bails) which would give us limited access to the pipe that drains out.

The leeching pit isn't an issue its how to stop the pipe from freezing that runs down from the tiny house underneath. I can only assume it would freeze even though we will be insulating around it?

Does anyone have experience with this? We want to know the best way to keep that foot or so of piping from freezing!

We have heard of those heated lines you can run however those suck a lot of electricity.

Thanks