HEATING

Heating a little house is usually much easier than heating a large one.
Not only will it require less heat, it will also be far simpler to get that
heat to the entire house.  However, though little houses use less energy
to heat and cool, they actually have proportionally more surface area
for their floor area.  This is due to two factors; one, the smaller size
means the walls are taller in proportion to the floor area, and also
 proportionately more linear feet of exposed wall, because there are
no other areas with which the space can share any common walls. The
result of this is that little houses can not afford to have thin poorly
 insulated walls, any more than any other house can, and will gain just
as much from having their smaller area of walls super insulated as
the same area would save on a house of any size.  Of course, thick
walls will take up a larger percentage of the floor are of a little
house, but again, each foot of thick wall will take up the same
identical floor area in a house of any size.

A sound strategy of insulation, should include insulating your
windows, either with high Rvalue, Low-E glass, insulating coverings
like thermal shutters, shades, curtains, are panels, and a smart design
which utilizes passive Solar approaches for most of the heating.  A
little house can need so little backup heating that it will not require
a standard heating system.  Any additional heat that it will need can
come from a very small solid fuel (wood, etc) stove, or perhaps be
'borrowed' from your water heater, which may also get most of
its heat from the sun, in any of a variety of simple ways.