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  1. #1
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    How do you eliminate foot bunching in tight spaces

    I have been sleeping in a hammock at home for over a dozen years now. For the past four years going into year five now I have been sleeping in tight spaces, with the spacing getting tighter and tighter, aka smaller and smaller, aka more and more energy efficient. I'm down now to using a 3x6 room wrapped in R60 insulation. Even the home built room, 4x8, that I was using the past two years I still had some problems with foot bunching, now I have it big time.

    I sleep in the hammock straight not at angle to the direction of the hang of the hammock. Since I am highly active it helps with recovery overnight to have your feet above your head when you sleep. The position is very comfortable other than the bunching of the material down at the feet which also like to put a crease up the derriere. I am using a 60 inch wide piece of, I think, polyster, which I have tied the knot into and hung up through the u-bolts I inserted into the walls. I do need to go back to sleeping with knots tied in the fabric versus using any of the other crazy methods as it seems the hammock keeps slipping on me each night because of an insecure knot, aka the wrap the string around the folded over hammock method.

    The problem I am seeing is the ridge which forms right in the center of the laying po sition. It makes for small, annoying foot pockets, and my feet are not that far from the u-bolt. It also puts a crease right in the center of the laying position, feet extending up to the butt. It's almost like having a ridge and half of your body in one side and the other half is on the other side.

    Is there any way to get rid of the problem when sleeping in confined quarters?

  2. #2
    FLTurtle's Avatar
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    For the past four years going into year five now I have been sleeping in tight spaces, with the spacing getting tighter and tighter, aka smaller and smaller, aka more and more energy efficient. I'm down now to using a 3x6 room wrapped in R60 insulation. Even the home built room, 4x8, that I was using the past two years I still had some problems with foot bunching, now I have it big time.
    Ummm...why?

    Is there any way to get rid of the problem when sleeping in confined quarters?
    Sleep in the fetal position?

  3. #3
    all secure in sector 7 Shug's Avatar
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    Maybe try a Mayan type hammock.
    They are often hung at a steep angle.
    Shug

    Whooooo Buddy)))) All Secure in Sector Seven

  4. #4
    Senior Member ecologito's Avatar
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    It depends on how tight, have you tried a bridge hammock?
    If you are under control, you are not going fast enough - Mario Andretti

  5. #5
    FLTurtle's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by ecologito View Post
    It depends on how tight, have you tried a bridge hammock?
    OP mentions a 3x6 area...

  6. #6
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    time to come out of the closet.

  7. #7
    Senior Member oldgringo's Avatar
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    This is interesting. We're not going to be much help here, because the community has no depth of experience hanging in tiny spaces. Not to say it hasn't been done, but only rarely. We stand to learn from this discussion.
    Dave

    "Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self."~~~May Sarton

  8. #8
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    If you don't spend the money, aka on energy to heat the house, then you dont have to make the money. If you don't have to make the money, then you have more free time available to do the things you would much rather off be doing rather than supporting people who want nothing more than a free handout from you. Your tax money goes someplace and it goes to help support those who are not willing to help themselves. I don't buy into that philosophy.

    Back in 2014 as the tiny house movement was gaining momentum I started looking around my house, a 468 sq ft shack. By definition anything under 500 sq ft is called a tiny house. Compared to what I was seeing on internet I wouldn't call what I was living in a tiny house. I started taking a deeper look at what of my house I was actually using for living space. I knew ever since I bought the house I was using/heating only around one half of the house. When I started looking I come to realize by the way I do things I could easily live in something down around 50 sq ft.

    In the fall of 2014 I built up a dummy room, 6x8 and wrapped the walls with R60 insulation. I figured that would get me by on body heat only to heat up the room. Little did I know... Yeah, the ceiling in the house has little to no insulation so that was not helping matters any at all. I spent two years in the room and realized, especially after my 2015, 8300 mile bike trip, I did not need 48 sq ft. I was typically living on the open road on a 4x8 space with no problems at all. I realized I was using my house essentialy for nothing but storage, even the dummy room.

    In the late summer/early fall of 2016 I decided to drop the size down to 4x8. I also decided to drop the ceiling down a bit and add R30 insulation over the top. Last year I decided to go under the floor and add R30 insulation down there as well. It has brought the heat bill down nicely, but the heat bill is still there. I hardly use electricity for anything else. During the summer I typically use 4-5 kW a month. Winter months is generally over 100 kW...all the extra for heating. If I could get myself off electric heat, or anything other source(oil, propane, gas, wood, etc) of heating I could pretty much go completely off-grid and get the toxic smartmeter off my house and not spend the darn money on the electric bill anymore. I spend more each year on the being hooked to the power grid than on the electricity I get from the power grid...so why be connected. I have only been heating the actually living space the past four years and nothing else. I don't have running water or anything else to worry about. I guess you get used to that kind of life style after thru-hiking the AT and doing long distance bike trips. You get used to living on nothing.

    Back this spring while researching something completely different I came across a forum post, on another website, talking a guy trying to cut his electric bill by 87%. He was going to heat the body and not the air. He was keeping the rest of the room at around 50 degrees and using a 43 watt light bulb to heat the upper body, a heated mouse pad and heated keyboard for the mid section and a heated doggie pad for the feet. Him and a women were sitting around in t-shirts nice and comfortable after a few minutes of being in the environment. Reading the posting got me to looking even more at the environment I was in and the wasted heat I was using to heat a bunch of air I wasn't using. I decided back in the spring to do another room makeover and shrink the room down even closer to what I am actually using. I looked and saw between the end of my feet and the back of head when I was in the hammock was around 5 feet long and the distance from the bottom of my butt and the top of the feet was around 3.5 feet. I knew I needed some margin for changing clothes and putting on shoes so...

    I decided to put insulation under my butt, R60. That equals 18 inches, pretty much the same length as my lower legs. I knew it would make for the insulation underneath and a nice sitting position as well, as long as I didn't have the stiff sides of the hammock to deal with like I had to deal with ever since the previous room redsign, now the problem is pretty much solved as the hammock hangs a bit lower and now I don't have cold air under my butt. I knew I would put R60 around the walls like before would also drop the ceiling down and be able to easily make it so I could have R60 in the ceiling as well. Now with having very little air space to heat up I don't have to waste the money heating air, the most ineffiecient thing known on the planet. Instead my main focus is heating the body, by limiting the air space which has to be heated. 3x6xroughly 3.5. I spend most of the time at my house in the hammock, 90%+ of the time.

    Last night I walked into the room and watched as with only a CFL bulb and a laptop computer I rather quickly warmed the room up from 68 to 76 degrees while the room outside the heated area was only 64. This morning outside the heated area was 54 degrees, outdoors 35, in the heated area it was a very comfortable, warmer than I used to having it, 70 degrees...with only body heat from around midnight until 7AM. I still have a bit more insulation I need to stick under my butt yet as I could see daylight under my butt this morning.

    I want to stick with the hammock as it is too comfortable, hence why I have been sleeping in a hammock since shortly after the 2006 ALDHA Gathering. I know I just need to find a way to have my cake and eat it too. I stuck a closed cell foam pad in the room this morning before I left and thought I might try that to see what would happen. Right now I know I am going to be away from the house for ???, at least a few days. I'm not sure exactly what is coming right now.

    I thought this morning about the idea of maybe using a straight line(flat not gathered) hang up method but I know I don't like the feel of not having sides on the hammock, I have always been used to having sides on the hammock to give the side support. A flat laying hammock doesn't give the side support like the sheet with a knot in both ends provides. I just need to get rid of the crease which sits right in the center, right between the feet and right up the center of the butt. It does seem like right now I am noticing the back area seems to be tighter than I have noticed it before which does seem very strange. It's almost like it is rigid versus flexible like it always used to be. I'm not sure how much of that is caused by the shorter stretch of the hammock versus something else going on.

  9. #9
    HandyRandy's Avatar
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    How do you eliminate foot bunching in tight spaces

    That’s not a tiny house! That’s a MICROHOUSE! Maybe you should try a rectangular shaped house that allows for a 10’ or 11’ hammock. That will be much more comfortable.

  10. #10
    Senior Member oldgringo's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by HandyRandy View Post
    That’s not a tiny house! That’s a MICROHOUSE! Maybe you should try a rectangular shaped house that allows for a 10’ or 11’ hammock. That will be much more comfortable.
    More like a bunker. I get what he's trying to do. It's an interesting exercise.
    Dave

    "Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self."~~~May Sarton

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