What makes a Tiny Home Off Grid?

Tiny homes allow Australians to immerse themselves in this stunning land like never before. To have all the comforts afforded by modern life, in a beautiful and secluded natural setting, is arguably the new Australian Dream. You have your special plans, you have your tiny home. But how do you bring those modern comforts with you?

Going ‘Off the Grid’ involves setting up the essential services that have been readily available ‘on the grid’ for typical Aussies all their lives, especially for those accustomed to urban living. This means finding practical alternatives to conventional utilities such as electricity from coal-fired power plants, gas supplied from refineries, water from vast dams, waste management through sewer systems, internet connectivity via fibre optic networks, and trash collection by garbage trucks. Taking a tiny home off the grid requires innovative solutions to replicate these services, ensuring the preservation of modern comforts in a simpler life setting. Thankfully, the growing enthusiasm for sustainable living has spurred a wave of technological advancements and options. These innovations make the shift towards an off-grid lifestyle not only more feasible but also more comfortable than ever before.

With daily living costs on the rise more and more Australians are opting for Off-Grid living options. Tiny Homes require fewer materials to build, run and maintain leading to exponential savings and return both in the long and short run. Tiny Home living is ideal for people wishing to become self-sufficient, downgrade from traditional large homes and for the environmentally conscious wishing to reduce their environmental footprint. This promotes minimalism and leads to positive behavioural and lifestyle changes. Living Off-Grid means relying solely on standalone power systems and to do it fully there are key things to consider and invest in.

Energy

Energy supports just about everything that a modern lifestyle requires. From hot running water, cooking over a stove, running fans, and electrical appliances, taking control of your energy production in a tiny home is one of the most straightforward aspects of taking your tiny home off the grid!

Electrical Energy

There are several ways to get electrical power to your tiny home:

• Direct hookup, ‘on the grid’
  • This involves running a cable from a power source such as a nearby building that is already connected to the grid. All tiny homes should come with at least a 15 amp caravan style connector for this purpose.
  • Cable management depends on where the tiny home is placed and how long it is intended to stay there – do you dig a trench? Do you protect it on the surface? Consulting a local electrician for advice here is always a good idea.
  • Connecting directly to the grid without an existing connection is generally cost prohibitive – it’s not uncommon for costs to be as high as $30,000 to connect your property to the grid, even if the power lines are only a few metres away on the street!
• Establishing an ‘off the grid’ solar system
  • Electrical power is easy to generate locally thanks to advances in solar panel and battery storage technology. Although it carries a high upfront cost due to the cost of the batteries, this cost is quickly amortised over several years and can result in a low, of zero cost, energy bill for years to come. It is almost certain that a new off grid system will cost less than simply establishing a connection with the grid, if an existing connection doesn’t exist on your property!

Key things to consider when choosing a solar system for your tiny home include:

• Your usage
  • This one is tricky to estimate because it depends on… YOU! Will you primarily cook on electrical power? As a rule, anything that involves heating something will cause a BIG load on your system – think boiling water, cooking large meals, powering an oven. Will you be using gas kitchen appliances? Will you be powering a beefy computer? Do you want to run air conditioning to heat in the winter?
  • Who else will be using the system? If you’re using the system yourself, you will quickly become familiar with ‘driving’ the system, and you’ll be able to meet your needs with a more complex system. If other people unfamiliar with off grid systems will be using the tiny home, we strongly suggest making the system as simple as possible. For example, if you’re renting your tiny home on Airbnb, don’t install an air conditioner if you’re fully off the grid – it’s too easy for someone to drain the power by running the air con!
• Your location
  • Are you in a sunny location? Shaded? North or South? Consult a locals familiar with solar for advice on solar systems. There are free online tools that can calculate your usage at a given area!
• The system’s size and orientation
  • It’s great to fit the solar panels and off grid components at the factory – this makes the whole tiny home package trivial to turn on when the tiny home is established! This isn’t always possible – be it for weight limits, height limits, or size limits – tiny home roofs are only so big!
  • If you need a system larger than the tiny home, or oriented slightly differently to where you want your tiny home to be situated, building a system off the tiny home is a great idea. Building one locally and ‘founded’ – ie with council approved foundations etc can be very expensive – it is often better to go with an off grid trailer. This way, your off grid system can be installed quickly and moved later! There is of course additional costs here because of the trailer. Chat to us if you’re interested in solar trailers.
• Backups
  • Of course no system is perfectly immune to faults, and often it is economical to design a system that we know won’t perfectly cover all situations all the time – there are diminishing returns with solar and battery systems. We always recommend having a generator installed adjacent to your off grid system on standby – ready to kick in if you ever have a spell of bad weather and can’t charge the batteries, or if you really need to use a lot of power!
• Hot water
  • Heating water with electrical energy generally isn’t practical. It is possible to design a system that can heat your water, but gas systems are so well established, available locally all over Australia, and inexpensive, that they are the way that almost all of our tiny homes’ hot water is heated.
  • Some clients may choose to use electrical heat pump tank style solutions. These are possible to use, but need to be installed on site due to the size of the tanks. It’s important to consider the energy usage of your chosen tank system, and to understand what this means for your off grid system! Will you be OK with the hot water running out in winter, after a week of poor weather?
• Your technical ability
  • Taking control of your electrical energy can be a freeing and exciting activity, and many people love to learn every detail and nuance of their system. At a minimum, it is necessary to devote time to learn about your new system, its components, and how it works. Not everything goes to plan, and sometimes things need troubleshooting – thankfully we use the very best components on the market with reputable companies that offer specialised support of these components. Please consider your ability to manage an off grid system before diving in!

Cooling

• Cooling is one of the most energy intensive things that Aussies spend their power on, closely behind backyard pools as the biggest drivers for our power demand. On those hot summer days, be sure to adequately shade your beautiful large windows and skylights to limit that hot solar energy pouring into your tiny home. Skylights, while incredible for stargazing, are particularly tricky here.
• Fortunately, the volume of air in tiny homes is small, and our tiny homes are built very air-tight. This means that the air volume tends to stay at the temperature that it’s set at, as long as solar energy can be controlled. Also, using air conditioners to COOL your tiny home is actually very efficient! On hot summer days, your batteries will be fully charged very early in the day. For the rest of the day, all that surplus energy can be used to run your air conditioner… for free!
• Just make sure to control that solar energy with shading.

Heating

• Due to the size and air-tightness of the tiny home, heating is actually easier than cooling! Be sure to design external shading to allow that low winter sun to pour energy into your home through the large windows!
• Heating your tiny home is best done with more traditional means – using your batteries to directly heat the inside of your tiny home is not the best idea. Using your off grid system to heat your tiny home places a lot of stress on the system – you’re asking the system to produce a lot of energy, at exactly the time of year when solar energy is at its lowest. Best to avoid this.
• Gas heaters can be used, just be mindful of other health impacts related to gas heaters.
• The best option for heating your tiny home is to use a small wood-fired heater such as the mini meg or the charnwood aire, which will not only heat your home but create a spectacular ambiance! Note that fireplaces generally must be installed on site, if the flues would exceed transport size limitations.

Water

Water can be tricky, for two key reasons:

• We use a lot of it. The average Australian family uses 30,000L of water per month, with the average Australian personally using 100,000L of water per year! 
• Water is heavy.

Here are the most common ways to source fresh water for your tiny home:

• Local waterways
  • If you’ve got a reliable, fresh, local stream or waterway on your property, congratulations! This is by far the simplest way to ensure you have plenty of usable water. Of course, be sure to check your local regulations and water management plans.
• On site bores
  • On site bores are modern wells that tap into ground water. They can be expensive, and they can sometimes be unreliable. If you’ve got an existing, reliable bore on site, congratulations! This is also a very easy way to get water to your home.
• Rainwater collection – from an existing building
  • The next easiest way to get water to your home is to source it from an existing watershed, such as an existing home or garage on your property. Be sure that the catchment area is sufficient given your climate’s rainfall to meet your needs.
• Trucking in water
  • If you have a spectacular location, but can’t make any of the previous ways work, the last available option is to get water trucked in. Most localities ave companies that specialise in this, and you’ll be able to periodically fill your water tanks. This of course has additional costs, so your site must be extra-special!
• Wait, where’s the option for tiny home rainwater collection?
  • Collecting water from your tiny home is a great notion, unfortunately the small size of tiny home roofs means that their ability to catch water is insignificant. Take for example, a 9m x 2.5m tiny home located in Sydney. Sydney gets on average of 1,175mm of rain per year – this means that your large tiny home roof will collect 26,400L per year! A great start, but unfortunately it will need to be supplemented with another supply. This supply will also arrive seasonally, not evenly throughout the year. Many tiny home owners don’t bother hooking up their roof guttering systems, at all.

We recommend setting up filtration systems for drinking water, and of course factoring in the costs for water tanks, pumps, pipes, and anything else your site needs for onsite plumbing! Be mindful of any specific features of your property and area that could affect water collection or quality.

Liquid Waste

Liquid waste (also called Grey Water systems) is one of the trickiest aspects of taking a tiny home off the grid. Of course, our tiny homes can be adjusted to make use of existing plumbing, including flushing toilets and regular appliances. Most properties don’t have this luxury, and you’ll need to explore a range of options to treating your liquid waste from showers, kitchens, and toilets. Will you use a grease trap

Off-grid toilet solutions have become increasingly popular, as the costs associated with septic systems climb ever higher. Composting toilets are a particularly great solution for tiny homes due to their simplicity and size, sliding right underneath tiny home trailers, allowing us to make the most of transport height limits with clever design!

Some properties are suited to disposing of their liquid waste through effluent beds or natural pond systems, some are not. You may need local council permission to install a greay water system. Most effluent bed systems can be readily installed in a day.

If it is not possible to dispose of your liquid waste in the ground for any reason, you can always opt for a tanked system, where all liquid waste is stored and pumped out periodically. This way, the waste never touches any part of the environment!

Solid Waste

Solid waste is largely up to you – do you have local garbage collection? Will you make periodic journeys to the local tip? Will you recycle your cardboard waste on site? Will you recycle food waste to grow a vertical garden? This step cna unleash creativity for green thumbs and nature lovers.

Internet

Fortunately, wireless internet has largely been solved through services such as starlink, meaning that anyone can live remotely and stay connected to friends, family, work, and the world. 

Taking your tiny home off the grid in Australia is easier than it has ever been, enabling so many to pursue a sustainable lifestyle free from rising electricity and water bills. The journey involves careful planning, investment in appropriate technologies, and a mindset excited by efficiency and doing more with less. Off grid living is not without its challenges. It requires ongoing maintenance, and a willingness to embrace a simpler way of life.

The decision to take your tiny home off the grid represents a commitment to living in harmony with nature and embracing the principles of resilience and resourcefulness. For many, the lifestyle offers sustainable living that prioritises simplicity, efficiency, and environmental stewardship.