Appliances

Food Preparation and Storage

The Sun Oven is a good part time option for daytime cooking, when skies are clear. It can reach the same temperatures as conventional ovens, and can be used for baking, stewing and steaming. Shifting its position regularly will speed cooking, but it can also be used as an all day slow cooker. The fact that it's simple and low maintenance, as well as solar powered, is a big plus for someone with chronic pain.

Cube stove.

The Kimberly wood stove comes with a cook top, and accessories in the works include a baking option as well as one to heat water and another to generate electricity.

I also have the Cloudy Day Cube Stove for outdoor cooking when the Sun Oven won't work. I've used it to cook a whole meal on a handful of twigs while camping.

I will definitely need a refrigerator, and I'll be powering it with the sun. I plan to dehydrate food and store it dry. But I also want fresh produce and I eat meat and fish. Another option is a root cellar. While I won't have any earth to bury a container in, I could store winter squash and root vegetables, including onions, in an insulated box or drawer. I will have food storage compartments that are accessed from the outside, and one of them can have a root cellar box for onions, potatoes, and calabaza.

I will also have a small greenhouse--two feet deep, seven feet wide and five feet high--in the back of the Vehicle. The front of it will be made of three glass doors for small refrigerators, with gaskets that will contain the humidity. I can store some of my food on the plant.

As a person with chronic pain in my joints and muscles, and a lot of fatigue, I need tools that will help me prepare food on the days when I'm exhausted, and there's no one around to chop vegetables for me. So my Vehicle has to support a few culinary power tools. I use a Cuisinart Pro Classic food processor for everything from slicing zucchini to making chicken liver paté. I also have a Vitamix blender that can turn anything on earth into soup, and also makes my morning blender drink--at the moment it's almond milk and pea protein powder, or chicken broth, miso and kale.

Laundry

Drying laundry in Havana, Cuba

The first step for me will be to reduce my clothing down to the best loved, most well-made, beautiful garments I own, so that I won't need a lot of storage space. The reality is that I spend 80% of my time in 20% of my clothing. I'll need cold weather gear and rain gear, but mostly I'll wear layers of natural fiber clothing. I'm looking at a washing machine that's both water and energy efficient. While many people consider electric dryers unsustainable, I can't afford the risk of my clothing or bedding getting mildewed, so while I'll have a drying rack for sunny days, I do need a way to dry clothing in the rain.

Spin dryer from The Laundry Alternative.

Fortunately, there's The Laundry Alternative. They make a compact spin dryer that uses speed and centrifugal force to press water out of clothing, leaving it very close to dry. I already use it to cut dryer time down to almost nothing.

I am also going to experiment with the WonderWash countertop manual washing machine. Three minutes of cranking is said to clean a load of clothing. Three minutes of spinning gets it almost dry. In sunny weather I'll use a clothesline, and the rest of the time I can rely on a drying rack to finish the job.

Because tiny houses already have a moisture problem just from human breath, having an air filtration/venting system that also dehumidifies will be important.