The Tiny House Appendix that is being considered in the proposed Maine Uniform Building and Energy Code is a bad idea. Take the tiny house that would be stationary and on a permanent foundation: the current MUBEC standards and codes could not possibly be met, even with the proposed appendix giving some relief. And a portable, movable tiny house built on a trailer chassis would most likely not meet the standards and codes that apply to RV trailers.
It is simple really. Picture a house, think about some of the standards and codes a builder used when he or she constructed it. Now picture an RV camper trailer and think of some of the standards and codes they were built to. Did you come up with quite a different list? I bet you did. One is built to go down the road; one is built to stay put. These structures are two different animals and should not be morphed together without the use of solid standards as houses and RV trailers are today. I am far from having issues with Tiny Homes and the Tiny Home movement. And I realize many Tiny Homes are built solid with safety in mind. We need way more standards in place before we move forward.
Passage of this appendix in the proposed MUBEC drives the burden of a new morphed undefined standard down to a local level.
Russ Schmidt
Pownal
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