First President Of THIA Endorses ASTM Tiny House Standards

19 Comments / Appendix Q Tiny House, ASTM / By

Thom Stanton President Emeritus, Tiny Home Industry Association 

I wish to offer my support of ASTM International guiding the collaborative development of standards suitable for smaller sized permanent homes, relocatable residences, and tiny home related housing products. Here’s a quick summary of my thoughts and reasoning. 

Why standards for small and tiny homes? 

We are in the midst of a housing crisis and yet special allowances must be made for the manufacture and use of smaller sized homes. There’s nothing innovative about small homes, and nothing different in their construction. 

So, in this context, I think the difficulty in finding a ways-and-means for the allowance of a smaller home illustrates the need to shift our perspectives, to better understand changes in housing needs, and to support a broader range of low-cost home ownership options. 

Further, and maybe more importantly, I believe the means to create a simple yet compliant shelter, to lower costs by reducing housing size, and to ingrain a solid sense of personal security and privacy are basic rights and privileges granted to all in an advanced society. 

That smaller homes break the price-per-square profit model or have fallen out of fashion doesn’t make them inherently wrong, maybe just less popular. And so we fight for the right to “go tiny!” 

Multi-use Plug-n-Play Specs 

Compliant home design is akin to a big puzzle as it leverages multiple sources for requirements that ultimately define site-specific design criteria. 

As one who already references multiple sources for guidance, I believe a strategically segmented and multifaceted series of standards will best address small housing needs well beyond what fits within a tiny-sized footprint, or merely suits one form of manufacture, or exclusively supports a more singular field of special interest. 

Such standards, when issued by an objective multidisciplinary body like ASTM, could be most suitably applied across various use case scenarios; for refining housing classifications; via multiple membership organizations; as output through many manufacturing methodologies; in untold administrative and regulatory scenarios. Housing is changing; we must adapt. 

Many of the manufacturers with whom I’ve worked produce Recreational Vehicles, Recreational Park Trailers, and Off-Site Modular Constructs. For most it seems that meeting specifications is as simple as having a trusted source for cited standards. ASTM seems an appropriate solution. 

A Means of Proof and Approval 

Of course for all planning and approval scenarios, it is necessary to illustrate adherence to specific criteria and provide proofs of compliance. While conventional housing has clear pathways for average size homebuilding, tiny-sized homes on foundations often face great opposition. And it’s harder still to garner authorized use of a fully compliant relocatable residence as they were built (to date) as an unclassified “tiny houses on wheels.”

In discussions with building officials, fire marshals, and state/municipal housing authorities, push-back usually seems rightfully focused on bridging concerns for safety and liability with a means of compliance. I’ve witnessed that where proper precedent exists, open minded authorities and other interested parties are apt to adopt changes that obviously enhance or appropriately append existing standards. 

Of course, new practices are harder to implement, and I feel it’s important to remember that all specifications were at one time an amalgam of best practices that fought to prove themselves worthy of standardization. Change is tough, but often good, especially when what were once advanced new products and practices settle in and become more “usual and customary.” 

For example, with tiny houses on wheels, what were once the most typical “alternative methods” are now quite conventional best practice. Once published as specifications, these standards become the basis of purpose-driven media like industry specific summaries of minimum requirements, role-based standard sets (e.g. design, chassis, frame fastening, ground anchoring, inspection, and etc.), professional certification criteria, in-depth seminars, video tutorials, how-to guides, workbooks, and much more. 

Tiny Standards: Bigger than Any One of Us 

It looks like a global cadre of designers, builders, manufacturers, and component suppliers are ready to bring standards-ready best practices into the formal development process. 

To me, the pledges of support and participation from invested organizations and other interested parties illustrate a broadly held desire to finally solve the small-and-tiny housing conundrum through the development of specifications for standardized components, assemblies, methods, and other criteria that may be used to meet multiple compliance requirements. 

I hope ASTM accepts its proposed role as an objective party to guide the process and help ensure equilibrium during the development of standards suitable for small and tiny homes. 

Thank you for your consideration and leadership. 

Thom Stanton 

Co-Founder/Chief Exec 

Timber Trails LLC & GoTiny! 

President Emeritus, Tiny Home Industry Association 

State Chapter Leader, American Tiny House Association (Virginia) 

Lead Organizer, Uniform Compliance Initiative for Tiny Homes 

Founder, RVA Tiny House Team (Richmond, VA) 

Email: Go********@gm***.com
804 714 6247

About Thom

As a semi-retired (yet sadly still working 🙂 design professional, I provide architectural and structural design services for small residences, modular buildings, accessory dwelling units, tiny houses on wheels, and custom chassis/fabrication. A creative to the core, I’m still a rules-related artist and process-oriented commercial designer who remains actively engaged in design for a wide variety of construction modalities including stick, steel, SIP, timber frame, shipping containers, and other forms of alternative construction. 

A staunch tiny housing advocate, I’ve written rather exhaustively about the progress of the tiny home industry and continually fostered the need for type-appropriate standards for tiny homes as principal residential structures, accessory dwelling units, and relocatable residences. I’ve bridged designers and builders with consumers while helping home buyers find areas that support smaller-sized housing opportunities. For those seeking a more mobile life, I’ve worked to implement standardization of best practices for design, engineering, manufacturing, inspection, and certification. I guess I’m just that kind of geek. 

Working as a tiny industry advocate, I established a local tiny house meetup group, supported many organic gatherings, participated in online events, hosted educational workshops, and presented at many in-person festivals throughout the U.S. I established the Uniform Compliance Initiative for Tiny Homes, a precursor to reestablishing the Tiny Home Industry Association during my role as its first president. As a State Chapter Leader for the American Tiny House Association, I’ve advocated for state and local efforts to expand land use allowance for tiny homes. I’ve formally participated in several multi-year efforts to introduce and enhance small and tiny-sized construction standards through code change cycles for the International Residential Code and Virginia’s Uniform Building Code. I’ve supported state house bills focused on housing issues, and participated in development of Accessory Dwelling Unit standards and their implementation. I helped secure a seat for tiny home interests in the ICC’s Off-Site Modular Construction standard development process, and wrote the design criteria section of the L.A. ordinance for tiny houses on wheels which serves as the basis for several tiny home related zoning ordinances. I’ve supported university and high school Building Science programs, and developed plans and systems of affordable tiny home construction for a local housing authority, homeless outreach groups, disaster relief organizations, and U.S. veterans. 

Many with work-a-day lives say “man, you’re livin’ the dream!” I’d say we’re simply working to live our tiny lives to their fullest. Six years ago we sold our big house, moved into a huge RV, and downsized through two smaller ones while we traveled to tiny house festivals. We designed, built, and now live in a tiny house on wheels. We just sold the sailboat we bought to test the liveaboard lifestyle, and still travel extensively in our antique overland ambulance. 

While we gladly live the tiny life, we live on that thin and tenuous boundary between our proudly intentional nomadic mobility and an anxiety-inducing placelessness. We willingly took our chances and still live along that fragile fringe. We hope our efforts to “legitimize and legalize” tiny living options opens the door more widely for others to enjoy a small-n-simple lifestyle.

We appreciate all the paths that Thom has forged for the tiny house industry and his support of the development of new global ASTM standards for tiny houses.

 

Janet Thome is the Founder and President of Tiny House Alliance USA and is leading the exploratory ASTM

Tiny House Initiative To Develop Tiny House Specific Standards.  Please contact Janet to be added to the stakeholder’s list.

ja***@ti******************.org

Learn More About The ASTM Tiny House Standards Opportunity

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