Tiny House Tanzania Season 3 Episode 3

A tiny house in Tanzania, really most any house not in a city, is what we call "off-grid."  This means exactly what it sounds like.  We live off the electrical grid, the water grid, the sewer grid, the trash pick up grid.  It is vital to do your planning considering this situation.

The cats story will be at the bottom but since facebook uses the first picture in the blog I needed to move it up.

Windows.  Any house built out of anything other than mud and sticks here (and yes there are still a lot of those being built here) needs to consider how to get air circulating and bringing in light during the day.  Windows are the key to those two concerns.  Tanzanians are also security conscious.  It comes from the belief if you don't guard it or permanently attach it to something, then it is fair game to take.  I even have to watch my laundry while it is drying on the clothesline or the boys herding goats too close to our line will snatch my socks.  Because they are security conscious, that means you have some type of bars covering your windows so they cannot climb in. 

Most of the windows in the area are ones that the glass windows swing open to the outside.  The problem with these windows and bars is that you cannot put up a mosquito screen and still open the windows.  You really don't want to open them to the inside, especially on a tiny house.  Fortunately they make aluminum sliding windows with an insect screen here.  In the Singida region where I was at before, those type of windows were very expensive compared to the other windows.  Here in Moshi, the other windows are also expensive and so they cost about the same.

I have two large windows in my sitting room area that take up roughly 60% of the usable wall space in that area and all of it the prime wall space.  However it is wonderful at night when you get a breeze through the room.  The same is true of the bedroom though probably only about 45% of the usable wall space.  The kitchen has the obligatory window over the sink and the bathroom has the obligatory window for venting (no vent fans here) of the shower area.  

During the day there is rarely a problem with enough light to see things in the house.  But at night that is still a problem.  In addition I need to recharge the computer and my cell phone.  So I equipped the house with solar power.  Because my needs are relatively simple, I went with a 100 Watt solar panel, 100 Amp Hour Battery and 300 Watt Inverter (smallest in Moshi that was of any quality). 

I used the command strips to attach the lights to the ceiling

I once again installed DC (direct current 12 V) lighting so they would use less of the battery power and also so they would not require the use of the inverter to run at night.  Inverters have a fan that can be noisy so I like to cut mine off at night.  I got lucky this time and found 3 Watt DC LED tube lights in town that were not super expensive (not cheap either).  I put one in the sitting room and one in the kitchen, since they are separated by a half wall I put them on one switch.  I also put one in the bathroom and one in my bedroom.  Trust me 3 Watts is more than enough.  In fact after the evangelistic couple just left they gave me some battery operated magnet lights and sometimes I just use those if I am doing something on the computer. 

I also used command strips to attach the charge controller to the wall

The most interesting part of this venture was getting into and out of the attic space.  They put the access in the hall all the way against the outside wall instead of in the bedroom like I wanted.  I wanted in the bedroom because I was putting in the bunk beds which would be close enough to the ceiling that I could use them to easily access the attic area.  The hallway is not easily accessed.  (Here is where my mom should skip to the next paragraph)  The ladder I have is several feet short of reaching the ceilings.  The ceilings are roughly 9 feet off the floor so that heat from the day will rise up out of the living space.  As you can see from the photo my ladder is about 6 feet.  So you know that part of the ladder that says not a step, you have to stand on it and balance yourself to stand on the handguard above it and push yourself up into the 2 foot by 2 foot opening which has about 2 feet of clearance before you are touch the hot roof.  It got even more interesting as you dangle your legs out of the hole to step on the curved hand hold before the platform clearly labeled as "Not a Step" This was not fun and I could envision compound fractures when I fell but fortunately I got through it all.

(Ok mom you can start reading again)  Once in the attic space it is still a very tight fit and a lot of the hard work is here in the cooking box.  The ceiling really helps reduce the radiant heat from a tin roof, but when you are above that ceiling it is very much like an oven.  Even on cool days that roof gets hot.

for a reference that is about 16" between the ceiling and the first metal bar

All in all it took a day and a half to wire everything in the house.   It is great to have electricity inside the house.  On an unusual weather pattern note, we have already been able to test the number of sunless days I can have power.  As many of you remember we had more rain here this year than I have ever seen in Tanzania.   Well since the rain ended we have had a lot more cool days than warm days.  Cloud cover has been consistent.  In fact I have had several weeks where I have only been pulling 0.1 amp from the solar panel to recharge the battery at the peak hours of the day.  That would not power one of my 3 Watt lamps.  I went four days before I had to start rationing how I use power in the house (not like I was using it all the time anyway).  If I ration on the fourth day of no sunlight, I am able to keep the battery half charged until a day of sunlight.  If it drops below a half charge, the safeties kick in and I cannot run the inverter.

As for the other off grid items:  Using elevated water tanks to gravity feed water into the house has worked great.  I actually get some pressure on my shower, though not much in my kitchen sink.  The toilet flushes so I am happy there.  Unfortunately with all the cloud cover the tanks don't warm up much so the showers have been breathtakingly cold in the mornings.  We are reusing the gray water by discharging the kitchen sink and shower into an area where we are growing trees to replace the ones removed for the placement of the house.  For trash we have that wonderful discovery of fire.  We burn as much as possible then bury the rest. 

The story of the cat:  Tanzania has these holidays called saba saba and nane nane which are 7-7 and 8-8.  There are no holidays for the other months just July 7 and August 8 which are holidays for farmers.  So there was no Storyline Online video for the kids this week since Wed fell on  August 8.  Instead Pastor Stephano asked me to come to his house for lunch.  He had these three kittens which like Ms. Kindness we cannot wake up until the food comes in then two of them got up immediately and started moving towards family members.  Then their mother came in and ignored them as best she could but she did eat all the food put out for them.  Then when we finished eating, they all went right back to sleep.  So Cats are the same the world over.