One Hole Down

I bought the tiny house in July 2024. It came prebuilt as a shell, so my dad has spent the two years since finishing the inside, on and off. Walls, floors, electrical, kitchen. I moved in the following spring, and there are still a few projects left. I helped where I could, but he did the work. I don’t know much about building.

One of the projects was installing through-the-wall fans for room-to-room air transfer. We cut holes in the wall above the bathroom and bedroom doors, and then the fans never went in. Those holes stayed open for almost a year. Just a gap in the wall to look at every time I walked past. It is annoying. So why did we want the fans in the first place?

Because there’s one AC, a split unit in the living room. The living room gets all of it, and the bedroom and bathroom don’t. Neither room has an outside vent, so I keep both doors open all the time just to get air moving. Once both fans are in, the rooms should hold the temperature I want whether the doors are open or closed.

That was the worry when we built the place. We put the AC in the living room, and I questioned whether it would keep the other rooms cool in the summer or warm in the winter. A year without fans turned out fine, though. Most nights the bedroom keeps cool on its own in the summer, and it warms up a bit in the winter. I can feel the cold at times, but it doesn’t bother me.

Dad came by last week and finally installed the bedroom one, and now it pushes the hot air out. The trim on the living room side isn’t up yet. The fan had to go in first, because the grille has to sit flat on the wall to be screwed on. Now that it’s in, the trim is next, and he said he’d get to it when he’s ready. One more fan to go: the bathroom. He said he will definitely have it in before winter.

As I said, both rooms are manageable on their own, so I may not need the fans much. But I still wanted them installed in case I need to use them. Good news is the fans have a temperature controller, so they turn themselves on once the room gets past the temperature I set and shut off when it’s back down.

My dad is amazing. He’s in his 70s and still goes out and does hard work. It’s getting harder for him than it used to be, and I’m patient about that. My projects aren’t the only ones on his list either; he helps a lot of people around here. So it means a lot that he didn’t forget about mine.