What are the important aspects of a quality-built home?
Beyond the style and design of your tiny home on wheels, our standards for high performance building practices, materials, and products are essential to everything we do.
Whether on a budget, or seeking the latest and greatest, our ‘no shortcuts’ philosophy of building and design ensures that your tiny home is built to last and will continue to be beautiful and functional for years to come. Below are some of the industry leading standards we incorporate into every home:
Trailers
The most important aspect of any home is the foundation, which is no different in the tiny home industry. Built and engineered specifically for tiny homes on wheels, our recommended manufacturer is L&D trailers which is a proven and respected trailer manufacturer located in Sikeston, MO. Every trailer is custom built according to our specs for your tiny home, with standard features including brakes on every axle, structural wheel wells, corner leveling jacks, and metal sheet flashing underneath. L&D trailers are available in standard 8’ wide, 10’ wide, bumper-pull hitch, and goose-neck hitch configurations!
Structure
Standard: Wood framing is standard for our tiny homes, which is cost effective, more thermally efficient than steel stud framing, easier for DIY finishing (if purchasing a shell) and comes from renewably planted lumber forests (no heavy mining as with steel). Constructed of 2×4 wall framing and 2×6 roof framing, our homes are suitable for both warm and cold climates with heavy snow load requirements. With thermal efficiency, affordability, strength, and renewability as priorities, wood framing is the clear choice.
SIPs Upgrade: Want a high-performance tiny home with the best thermal envelope possible? Structurally Insulated Panels (SIPs) are pre-engineered panels, which fasten together to create a fast, strong, and highly efficient building envelope. With 2x the R-value as typical residential insulation, SIPs construction provides the highest possible insulation value available in tiny home building. For more information about the SIPs we build with, visit Big Sky R-Control SIPS.
Air and Weather Barrier
With our standard wood framing, ZIP-system structural sheathing is the ultimate choice for a sheathing with built-in air and weather resistant barriers. Unlike typical house-wraps, which are prone to tearing and difficult to properly install, ZIP-system sheathing incorporates an instant water-proof membrane on the surface of the sheathing, which also serves as an air barrier for the home. With energy efficiency and high-performance building as our standard, starting with an air-tight, waterproof home is critical to overall quality and longevity of the home.
Spray Foam Insulation
A well-insulated home will not only keep you warm in the winter, but naturally cool in the summer. With our tiny homes designed and built for all climates, a well-insulated home will be easier to heat in the coldest of winters, and easier to cool in the hottest of summers. Our standard choice of closed-cell spray foam insulation not only provides the highest R-value per inch of any insulation available, but also adds to the structurally integrity of the home. All trailer floor systems are insulated to R-35+, 2×4 wall systems are insulated to R-21, and 2×6 roof systems insulated to R-35. Stay comfortable in your tiny home, no matter your environment.
Anderson Windows
In small space design, windows are critical in creating a larger sense of space, while letting in the natural light that we all want. Just as important in the overall building envelope, a quality window will be more thermally efficient, longer lasting, and perform well in extreme temperatures. All MitchCraft tiny homes incorporate Andersen 100 series Fibrex windows, which are 2x stronger than typical vinyl windows and will not fade, chip, or peel over time. Andersen windows also provide a higher insulated window than their competitors, and a warranty which means no need for replacement for decades to come.
Standing Seam Metal Roofing
Perhaps the most important aspect of a long-lasting home, the roofing of your tiny home is the first line of defense against all types of weather. On every tiny home we build, standing-seam metal roofing is the only option. Unlike asphalt shingles or exposed-fastener metal roofing systems, standing-seam roofing has zero exposed fasteners, creating a leak-free roof on your tiny home for decades to come. Whether extreme rain, snow, wind, or hail; our 24 gauge standing-seam metal roofing will be the last thing you will ever need to replace.
NOAH Certification
We value quality, safety, functionality, and beauty in our homes above all else, which is why each home is built to meet the highest standards and is NOAH inspected and certified.
You can rest assured that your home is professionally constructed to last!
NOAH (National Organization of Alternative Housing) Certification provides a third-party inspection of each Tiny House to ensure nationally recognized safety, construction & energy efficiency standards currently used by the Home Building & RV industries:
– NFPA – National Fire Protection Association
– NEC – National Electrical Code
– IRC – International Residential Code
– NHTSA – National Highway & Transportation Safety Association (for Tiny Houses on Wheels)
NOAH inspects each Tiny House at specific phases of construction for compliance to the NOAH Standard:
– Foundation or Trailer Attachment Systems
– Structural Framing & Sheathing
– Insulation
– All-Trades (Electrical, Plumbing & HVAC)
– Final Inspection
NOAH certification goes above and beyond the current minimums set by the RV industry, which is why the NOAH Seal holds a much higher standard than any RVIA certification seal. We build homes to live in, not recreational vehicles to camp in!
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