Okay, I have to admit, the threads that have popped up a couple times about the house-bike (the one that was recently torn apart and (?) rebuilt) have really intrigued me. Part of me really wants to see how far I could go in living with low expenses and little use of non-renewable fossil fuels. Right now I live in an apartment that's about the size of a big RV (it's shared between 2 of us) but I know that all of the essentials of life can certainly be had in less space.

I was also kind of inspired by those tumbleweed houses and the mention of people who live without paying rent by staying in a 8 by 12 foot trailer attached to their car, etc.

This is really just a combination of some outlandish ideas going through my head and I have no intention of acting on them, at least in the short term. But I was thinking about what I would want in my ideal tiny-home.

I figured that having it be a trailer rather than having pedals on the home itself might be best, because that would allow me to own only one bike and still have the option to ride somewhere without towing my whole living space. In my imagination, the home with its contents would weigh around 500lbs: light enough to bring up a fairly steep hill, but only with a lot of exertion and low gearing/ ~3mph speeds. I also envision it having some minimalist provision for cooking (a couple of my cooking favorites happen to be microwaves and toaster ovens, but I'd need a generator and if I had that, maybe i'd go for a convection microwave though). Another problem would be showering, and water-heat for showering, although in the ideal world maybe my generator would be a water-heater and a water-cooled generator.

I was checking out this diesel generator which weighs only 36 pounds, although on the down-side it would probably require some serious effort and know-how to adapt it for water-heater duty. (I've heard you can retrofit an air-cooled engine for being liquid-coold, and i've also heard you can use hot engines as a stove, I wonder if that would be workable with a generator.). Another problem, though, is that most microwaves, etc would be beyond the generator's power capacity. I did see one on the market that is only 800 watts and power adjustable though.

Part of the reason I'd want a generator, though, is for charging battery lighting inside and out. I guess there are always hub generators, but electricity is so useful.

The reason I might prefer a diesel generator was because of the possibility of using vegetable oil or biodiesel.

For ease of weatherproofing, for privacy, and for better insulation it might be better to have no windows at all.

Maybe the structure of the home itself could be based on rigid foam insulation panels. An idea that just came to me is that rather than weatherproofing with sheets of flat plastic (the sort that's rigid and maybe 1mm thick, and which lines my shower walls) one could cover the inside and outside of the walls (and ceiling and floors?) in corrugated plastic, which would provide a tiny bit of extra insulation. It might be tougher too.

Some of these things would be pretty expensive but if they were able to get me out of paying rent (and I'm not saying they would) then it would be more than worth it.