I posted about the cedar shakes we had gotten last week, but didn’t really explain the process of adding them to the tiny house. So, please allow me to do so now…
Long before we started building, in a land far away, we did a lot of research on alternative home building. One method we seriously considered is cob building. Cob refers to earthen homes, built with a mixture of clay, straw, sand and water. It’s a very cheap way to build using natural supplies, and the designs can be completely customized. Imagine a life-sized sand castle, but with a little more stability. We ultimately decided against cob, at least for our main home, but all that research led us to steam bent shingles because so many cob homes have them.
Steam bending is pretty self-explanatory, but I had never heard of it before we decided to do it so I thought it was post worthy. There’s more than one way to steam bend a shingle, as they say, but here’s our homegrown method.
We started with a turkey roaster. Just your average, $30 turkey roaster. We flipped the inside rack upside down, put a shake or two at a time onto the rack, added a decent amount of water, and cranked that sucker. You literally steam the shingles, like you would broccoli, until they’re just pliable enough to form to the shape of your roof. Since The Artist created a wonderfully curvy roof, most of the shakes needed to be steamed so they’d conform nicely to the shape without cracking. It’s been a really fascinating process to watch.
Even though steam bending is pretty time consuming (since you can only steam a shake or two at a time using an average turkey roaster), I’m glad we went that way. It’s made the entire tiny house look so storybookish and welcoming. And ultimately, that’s what we’re going for
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