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How thick are tiny house walls will be the main question answered in this 2023 guide.
One of the most crucial aspects of your tiny home building project has to be planning the interior dimensions.
With the minimal space, you have to play with; you need to ensure you’re taking advantage of every centimeter while ensuring you don’t overlook any area.
Now, the big question on the lips of every tiny home enthusiast is how thick are interior walls?
Well, read on for everything you need to know about tiny house dimensions.
After reading today’s post, you should know a thing or two about the interior measurement of each room, the thickness of your tiny house wall, as well as some brilliant tips on planning your tiny house floor plans.
But before we delve into the nitty-gritty of tiny home wall thickness, let’s take a minute to explore tiny home framing.
Tiny home framing: What you should know
Without mincing words, framing your tiny home is among the most exciting aspects of your tiny home building projects, especially if you decide to go the DIY route.
When you tip the wall up for the very first time, you can expect a dramatic change in how your home looks.
Once all the walls have gone up, you can finally sit back and enjoy the overall form.
For starters, framing your tiny home is among the critical steps you must take when building your home, and that’s because it’s the very backbone of your tiny home on wheels.
While framing, it is important you don’t rush the process as you want the walls to be straight and squared before you kick off the process.
Before you even lay the walls in your home, the base must be leveled, so taking extra time to get this right wouldn’t be a waste of time as it will make things a lot easier later.
Tiny home walls: How thick should your walls be?
There is a lot of confusion regarding the right thickness for your tiny home walls.
But guess what?
We have found just the perfect answer for you.
Read on to learn more about tiny home wall thickness.
Like we mentioned right from the get-go when building your tiny home, you’ll need to account for every inch, especially considering that you have limited space to play with.
Like every other aspect of your building project, you need to consider your tiny home walls’ thickness carefully.
Just so you know, the thickness of your tiny home walls depends significantly on the thickness of the timbers used.
This is further impacted by the thickness of the insulation used.
This is because thicker insulation requires using denser woods.
For instance, a typical tiny home that features a standard 2×4 wood to scale has exterior walls up to 5″ thick.
The interior walls of this type of structure are usually about 4.5”.
Read on to see our detailed accounting for drywall:
- The interior drywall usually measures 0.5″ inch thickness.
- A 2×4 timber frame should measure about 3.5″ after milling.
- Exterior sheathing for frame stabilization should measure ⅜.”
- Cladding or exterior sliding using wood or metal comes in at about ¾.
If you sum everything together, you’ll see that your tiny home wall thickness should be between 5 inches or 13cm thick.
Even though 5 inches may not look like a lot, keep in mind that you’ll need to add this to both sides of your tiny home.
So at the end of the day, your wall will use up at least 10 inches of your 8’6 inch width.
And if you’re going to be living in colder areas, you’ll need additional 1-2 inches of foam insulation.
This will end up adding extra 2-4 inches to your existing wall thickness.
If your goal is to have robust and formidable walls, then you’ll need to aim for at least a 9-inch wall thickness.
This will protect you from harsh weather when the time comes.
Include wall thickness in your floor plans
When it comes to building your tiny home, no aspect should be taken for granted.
So when designing your project, please ensure you include the wall thickness in your tiny home floor plans.
As you must have come to know, the exterior walls of your tiny home project can take between 9 to 12 percent of your entire home width.
To this end, you must factor wall thickness into the floor plan.
With paid floor plans, you will most likely find this included as this aspect matters greatly to professional builders.
On the flip side, most free versions of floor plans you see online are missing this crucial aspect.
So before going for any free floor plan, make sure it has walls thickness included.
And if it doesn’t, you can simply get a professional to tweak it for you.
FAQs
How wide should your tiny home interior be?
When it comes to tiny homes, every aspect matters, including the interior, which is one of the most critical areas in your home.
In terms of interior size, we have found that most tiny homes have up to 8 feet wide interiors.
And if that’s the case, it means that the length of your tiny home is the primary variable that determines square footage.
In terms of general size, most tiny houses measure around 200 square feet, and that’s because many tiny home enthusiasts want to have a structure they can easily move around.
How thick should your tiny home loft be?
To answer this question, we would like to mention that there isn’t a minimum range for loft thickness in a tiny home.
While your typical ceiling height would be anywhere from 3 to 4 feet, we have seen most people use lofts between 3.6 to 4 inches in their homes.
So experiment with this and see if it works.
What is a tiny home in square feet?
For a structure to be considered a tiny home, it needs to measure between 100 and 400 square feet.
Compared to traditional homes, everything in a tiny home is downsized.
