Tiny House Cabins
Tiny House Cabins

We've been supplying cabins to customers over the last few years, this can be either a finished cabin or a drawings only option for customers to build their own. These can be from our own range or designed to customers own specifications. The cabins we supply are designed & built to a starting U value of .2wk/m2 in walls & roof but lower values are achievable if required. A wide range of insulation can be used, depending on the customers wishes, giving an extremely high level of thermal comfort by keeping the cabins warm in cold periods but also help cool them in summer too. 

We use a ventilated rain screen system on our cabins, which eliminates problems with damp, rot & condensation, which can commonly occur in single skin or log built buildings. The ventilated rain screen also allows for a wide range of external finishes, from traditional timber cladding to profiled metal or even brick or stone slips. We have a experience in designing & installing this wide range of finishes & techniques, allowing our customers to create an individual look to their cabins.

With tiny house cabins & garden rooms, there's a few options regarding planning requirements etc. If the cabins are delivered fully erected they are classed as mobile homes, the same as caravans, so no planning is required if the cabins are to be used as an annex to an existing property, same as parking a caravan in your garden. If the access won't allow for cabins to be delivered pre built then the other options are flat pack kit, or site build. With these options then you can either go with permitted development, which has specifications which the cabin must comply with regards size, position on the property etc which can usually be found on your local planning authority website. The last option is a planning application, if you require a cabin that doesn't fit into the permitted development spec. We can provide planning applications for your cabin if required. If you plan on using the cabins for a business to rent out for guest to use, then full planning will be required, no matter how the cabins are delivered.

Which ever option you decide to go down we'd advise customers to confirm this with their local planning dept just to prevent any future misunderstandings.

If you would like a drawings only package to allow you to build your own cabin, there are a few options available, either the original tiny house or the new 1 bed tiny house we have recently completed. As well as these options we can design a cabin to your own requirements & supply the drawings for you to complete the cabin yourself. Please fee free to get in touch for more info.  


Fintry 1, Scotland
Tiny House Cabin supplied & fitted at Overton Farm, Fintry, which is available for potential customers to rent for a short stay, to spend some time in the cabin & experience the comfort levels achieved by the increased levels of thermal insulation & the passive solar design in a real world environment. The cabin is now available on AirBnB, in Fintry, Glasgow, G63 0YH. 

As part of the passive solar strategy we included a south facing conservatory with views to the hills beyond. The heat from the conservatory can be used to heat the whole cabin, even providing warmth on days when its slightly over cast. This cabin was designed to be as off grid as possible, utilising solar power from the farm itself, a composting loo which was designed & fitted by us, as well as having water supplied from a spring up the hill from the farm. We also supplied & fitted the water filtration system required for the water supply.

The cabin has been designed with a ventilated rain screen system, comprising an external rain screen which is a combination of pressed metal cladding & vertical larch sidings to give a contrast between rustic & industrial finishes. 

Internally the cabin utilises a mezzanine sleeping loft above the kitchen & shower room, whilst also having a sofa bed in the living area to accommodate up to 4 guests. Heating is supplied via an electric underfloor system which compliments the warm air from the conservatory as well as. 
In the cabin we have went with a birch faced ply internal finish, with 10mm shadow gap, rather than go with a plain painted finish. This was mainly due to aesthetics but also to prevent future problems with cracking at the joints if we went with plasterboard.
Internally the mezzanine floor creates the ceiling over the kitchen & shower room. We incorporated the kitchen worktop into the stairs to the sleeping loft above. With tiny houses it's best to try to get as many uses from an item as possible due to the reduced space available. 
The shower room, although small, still manages to fit an 800x800 shower, cloakroom basin & loo.
On the mezzanine we incorporated both a sky light above the bed to allow guests views of the stars, as well as a south facing window at the foot of the bed giving views from the bed of the hills beyond.

A drawings package for the Fintry 1 are available for customers to construct their own cabin if preferred. This allows the customer to save costs on labour & accommodation etc. Drop us a line at staylortimberframe@gmail.com to find out more.

If you are interested in taking advantage of the "try before you buy" option, please feel free to check out the cabin on airbnb using the following link:-

Fintry 2

The latest cabin for our customer on the Fintry farm, is based on the original Tiny house cabin but also includes a downstairs bedroom as well as the sleeping loft, to create a cabin more accessible for less mobile guests & larger groups as it can sleep up to 6. The roofline has been split to break up the outline of the cabin too.

Inverness


This pair of cabins were constructed to create additional living space to the existing cabin on site, creating a pair of additional en-suite bedrooms. Due to the access on the site being quite restricted, we fabricated the kit on site. We constructed the foundations for the client & whilst waiting for these to cure fully it allowed us to build the wall panels in-situ. Once the panels were complete the foundations were by then cured enough for us to construct the cabins. Not only did this get over the poor access problem, it allowed the customer to reduce the number of contractors they needed to deal with & actually saved the customer money as the cost of 1 additional weeks accommodation was less than the transport cost of the kit from our facility in Northumberland.

As well as reducing costs it also reduced carbon footprint of the kit as we were able to use local timber merchants for materials rather than transporting a kit from Northumberland up to Inverness.



The cabins, again used our standard timber frame details with a ventilated larch cladding laid horizontally with a 10mm shadow gap between the boards. 120mm P.U. insulation was used in the walls & floor, with 150mm in the roof to give excellent thermal properties to the building allowing for a minimal heating strategy to be used.

The client asked us to copy the design of the existing cabin which had no overhangs at the eaves of the roof. The roof was finished in profiled metal sheets with a roof window added above the sleeping loft to give views of the night sky.


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