Cooling a Tiny House

If you’ve been thinking about downsizing to a smaller living space, the Tiny House movement may have caught your attention. Many of the scaled-down living spaces are extremely efficient when it comes to using space, and some are also transportable when placed on trailers.

As small as some of the tiny houses are – no more than a few hundred square feet, if that – it would seem that cooling and heating those sorts of spaces wouldn’t be that great of a concern. However, if you’ve ever walked into an outdoor shed on a warm summer’s day, you know that heat can quickly build up in any space, particularly a smaller one.

One proponent of micro-houses is based in Washington, DC, where summers can be hugely uncomfortable due to a mixture of heat and humidity. As Minim House states on its web site, the search for a cooling solution became simple: “We needed real air-conditioning (not evaporative coolers).”

The organization came up with three essential possibilities for cooling tiny homes – after having done everything possible to maximize the space’s insulation and sealing up all areas where air could potentially leak: Mini-Split AC Systems, which use an exterior evaporator and an interior air handler that are connected through the wall; Potable AC Units, such as those that can be moved around inside, so long as they can be vented to the outside through a window opening; and, Through the Wall AC Units, which are preferred over window units because, in a tiny house, why take up valuable window space?

A number of factors will likely influence which system owners of tiny homes will choose, including efficiency (SEER), BTU rating, indoor footprint, multi-speed options, voltage requirements, availability of service when needed and, of course, cost. Those who live in less temperate climates may want to consider whether to choose a unit that can also supply heat.

After all, when scaling down for a simpler lifestyle, it only makes sense to choose one appliance that can effectively do the work of two.