Zero Utility Bills And Ultimate Freedom In This Epic OFF-GRID Tiny House!

If you love the idea of never having to pay a utility bill again, then this next story is for you. This is an incredible off-the-grid tiny house and so much more. Hey Perlin, it's great to meet you. Bryce, good to meet you. Dude, this is quite a place you've got here. Thank you, thank you. Isn't it gorgeous? Super lucky to have this spot. And yeah, close to the beach, close to Byron. It's um, yeah, very nice. Yeah, the views absolutely just stretch on here and having all of this just tucked away in the orchard like this, it really is quite special. I actually built the house at my dad's property near Grafton, about two hours south, and then came up and I was looking for land. I looked at a few places, but luckily there was the owner of this property who was a friend of the family and it was just the best choice by far because it was, yeah, so close to the beach and privacy. I had like, you know, no neighbours close by and lots of space to expand with different buildings that I keep adding on and yeah, getting into building tiny homes. So I've got space and I can use all my loud tools and stuff without getting complaints. So it's really the ideal situation for me. Yeah, and you have added onto this house quite a bit. You've actually got your own little tiny house compound here, don't you? I know, I just keep expanding. I mean, it's good that I've got a bit of a pad, so it's like a bit of a border, you know, I can not expand too far. But yeah, I've got the home office, which is brand new, I've just completed. And so in there, I'll be able to do all of my computer work and book work and YouTube videos. And it's also a spare bedroom for friends or family to come to visit, which is great. And yeah, just more space. And I've also got my shed, which I built first with the solar on top because that gets the most sun of the site. And I've got all of my tools in there and it kind of just expanded. I was like, oh, I'll just put a solar. And then I was like, oh, I need a shed. So I made it bigger and I was like, oh, I'm going to build tiny homes, so I'll get a bigger shed. So I just kept expanding up. I built the carport for my Tesla, which I'm super excited about. And just decked out all of that with solar as well. So now I can charge my Tesla. It was a big goal of mine to be as sustainable as possible and, you know, get off the fossil fuel bandwagon. So yeah. That is amazing. And then you've even got the shipping container there as well. Next door neighbor was just selling it and he knew I was doing tiny homes. And he's like, oh, do you want to turn this into a tiny home? And I was like, oh yeah, that'd be great. I mean, I don't, I didn't want to turn that into a tiny home, but I needed storage for wood storage and just other stuff. So I put a roof on that because there was a few holes in the top. And yeah, so now I've got that storage as well. So yeah, I just keep adding on all over the place, but it's great. I'm loving it. That is so cool. And what started all this? All credit to your channel, right? I was traveling overseas on my birthday when I was 29 and I'm 35 now and I saw one of your videos and I was immediately like, oh, that's amazing. Because I had a bit of building experience building some sheds and stuff. So I was like, oh, I could totally build one of these. You know, it's cheaper than buying a house. I could be in this area, which is quite expensive. And so I just ticked so many boxes. And so I made it happen. Yeah. You made it. That's the important thing. And obviously super impressive solar system that you've got here. It's awesome that you're able to charge the EV, but you've got a lot more off-grid stuff happening on this property as well, don't you? Yeah, yeah. So I've got the solar, which is running all of my power and batteries. I've got a evacuated tube solar whole water system, which sounded great. And I do believe the technology is good, but that system itself, I've had a bit of trouble with. And I got it from a company in Victoria, which they just shipped it up. So I had to put it together myself and there's no one close by to come and fix it if it breaks or isn't functioning properly. And it is currently leaking. So it hasn't been the best experience that system. But now that I've got the upgraded solar, I've got enough power to get electric whole water heating. Very impressive. It is one of the huge advantages to having a bigger solar array as it does give you more electrical options, obviously, eh? With the setup you've got with the EV, is that able to extend your house batteries or is that completely separate? Yeah, no, it's all part of the same system. So it all just feeds in. I've got three lithium pylon tech batteries. So that's about nine kilowatts of battery storage. And with the extra panels, it just means that they get charged up extra, extra fast. And so even if I take them down a lot at night, they can charge up super fast. And then any extra energy that I get just goes straight into the car. And if your house batteries for any reason run down, can you feed your EV battery back into the house? No, not currently, but that's 100% going to happen in the future. Yeah, and so then I've got rainwater collection as well. So I've got a big 10,000 litre water tank for the main house. And then I've also got a smaller tank, which is on my shed, which has got a big roof coverage that fills up really fast. And then I just pump from one tank to the other to fill up the main tank. So yes, that's my water collection, which works great. And what about your greywater? What are you doing for that here? Yeah, so my greywater, I've got all of the pipes coming down and then it goes underneath my brick path and then up into a gravel pit. So I had an ICB container that I cut in half and one has got a reed gravel pit in it. So the water goes in there and the reeds clean them. And then it goes across into a wicking bed where I've got a bit of gravel at the bottom and then a garden bed on top where I've got some flowers. And so that's always got enough water because the evaporation pulls up the water into the soil. And then it just goes out. Anything left goes out into a bucket, which I can then use to water the garden. And then from there, it just goes onto the ground next to the forest. So great solution. Very elegantly done. Thank you. Thank you. And you said that you had a little bit of building experience before you took on this project, but this really is quite something that you've accomplished. Can you talk to me about what it was like putting all of this together? It was great. I mean, it was challenging for sure at different times, but I just watched a lot of your videos, watched a bunch of other videos on how to build stuff. I had my dad helping me. So that was amazing, especially at the beginning for the outer shell and just sort of figured it out one step at a time. And what size is the tiny house you've built here? So it's 7.2 long, 2.4 wide and 4.2 high. And it's got an extra 500 kick out for the sleeping loft. Great. And can you tell me about the design of the home? Yeah. So I got all of the windows and doors first and then sort of designed the home around that. And so they're all recycled. These doors, dad actually had in storage from an old pub back in the day that he's kept for like 20 years. And then I actually found a steel company and they helped me design the structure and all of the bracing and engineering with the windows. And they did it all up in CAD and then flat packed it and shipped it to me, which is great. So then me and my dad just, you know, lifted up each part of each wall, bolted it all together and I had my frame. And then for the outside cladding, most of it is in the blue color bond. My favorite color is blue and there's only one option in blue color bond. Yeah. And then the weatherboard is amazing. So this is VJ Western Red Cedar and it just looked amazing. And I've always loved having a bit of a feature wall on the front of the tiny house in different videos that I saw. So I wanted to do that. And then of course you have extended your home with this fantastic deck. I love these posts that you've used to support the awning. Thank you. Thanks so much. It rains a lot in this area. So it's always a bit of a hassle to have it raining and have to walk straight into the tiny house and wet shoes and everything. So building this deck was a must. And yeah, I always liked having a big deck and having it covered to protect this wall. So it didn't go gray too fast and just to have space. And these poles are from my dad's property and this curved pole we saw and we were like, oh, that's so cool. Such character. Yeah. I get a lot of comments on that pole. I'm not surprised. Well, already I am very impressed with everything you've done here and I cannot wait to see what you've done inside. Can we take a look? Absolutely. Come on in. Thank you very much. Oh, this is very nicely done. First off, I love all the timber in here. Thank you. Yeah, yeah. So do I. I really love timber and love the feel of it and the look of it and it's all nicely oiled up. And so I really tried to use as much timber in here as I can, but I always love the white walls and timber accents look as well. Created as much sort of timber feel as I can with keeping it light and airy. Yeah, especially what you've done up here on the ceiling. I especially like this. Yeah, I always wanted to have a nice dark red timber ceiling and this is actually Australian hardwood, Tungroof hardwoods that's second. You can't use the flooring. So my dad had a sling of this hardwood. So I picked through it, got all the best pieces and yeah, put it up on the ceiling. Beautifully done. And immediately we enter into the lounge space and this is great. A beautiful leather couch right next to a fire. Who could ask for more? Yeah, it's great. This was such a good find, this couch and it blends nicely into the floor and it's just long enough that I can lay full span, you know, which is hard to find a couch with arm rest that goes that much. And I've always wanted a corner couch. And so with the ottoman, I can slide that around. I can have a corner section. And yeah, just looking at the fireplace, such a nice evening routine. And in the winter, you know, the fire's going morning and night. So it's a great lounge. And moving into the kitchen, again, beautifully done. And what a celebration of timber again with that bench top. Look at that thing. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that was a great find. This is a brush box, single piece slab. Super lucky to find it just locally in Lismore. And it came up a treat and then cut out the sink and the double burner cooker. And yeah, it looks amazing. Yeah. And it's an impressively sized kitchen as well, which of course makes sense given your past life. Yeah, yeah, I'm a qualified chef. So I do all of my cooking at home because, you know, I've got the skills and I also work from home. And so the kitchen was important. And that was a big thing for me moving into my own space to have a really nice kitchen that I can work with that flows well. Yeah. So as a chef, what were your tiny house kitchen must haves? Well, definitely having knife storage on the side. I modified it a bit. So at the beginning, I didn't have a dishwasher because I thought I didn't need it. And then I quickly found out how much bench space having dirty dishes and the drying rack took up. So having a dishwasher means I can put all the dirty dishes in there. And then when they're clean, I can just pack them away. And I've got all of this space for prepping and cutting and having space to work, which is great. Absolutely. And obviously a good amount of storage in here as well. So I've got the open shelving at the front where I've got all of my cups and bowls and pots and pans. And then I've got the dishwasher. Then I've got some under sink storage. I've got a row of drawers for all of my cutlery and different things. I've also got an electric oven, which is great. And then a little bit of shelving above the bench for tea and coffee and spices, which actually also came from the off cut of the bench when I had to create a straight edge. So using every last bit of timber. Fantastic. And then you've got this lovely bifold window as well, which really connects the kitchen to the outdoor space. Yeah, that was a great find. And I can open it up to get lots of breeze. I've also got the outside bench so I can pass anything through. So the window is great. And I've also got a LED strip lighting underneath, which is a cool effect. Very nice. And over the other side underneath the stairs, you've got more storage? Yep. So on the other side, I've got storage. I've only got two drawers, mostly the stairs are all drawers, but I decided to put my washing machine originally underneath the stairs, accessed through the bathroom. But then when I built the shed, I moved the washing machine out there because I had the space and it was also rocking the house a bit. Yeah, they do that. So I've got some drawers there. One of the drawers is my dry storage and the other drawer is just sheets. And then in the bathroom, I've got all of my clothes storage where the washing machine used to be. Great. And can we have a look in the bathroom? Absolutely. Let's go. All right. Oh, yes. I love Riverstone shower bases. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. My auntie had one in her bathroom and I loved it. So I really wanted to have that. And so I found it, put it in and yeah, it feels great on your feet. So. Oh, yeah. You absolutely can't beat them, eh? And with the vanity again, really, really beautiful. Lovely seeing those pops of timber again in this room. Yes, I made it from scratch. I used leftover wood that I had from the front wall, the Western Red Cedar. And with the bowl, I found it from a guy in Armidale that was making these. And I really love blue. So I wanted to feature that. And so I got the bowl and yeah, it all works well together. It certainly does. And then, of course, over here, we have the toilet, which is connected to the biogas system. How does this all work? Yeah. So this one works great for, anyone who's wanting kind of a flushing toilet but still want to be off grid and doesn't particularly want like a bucket system or something. The way that it works is there's a hose on the side that you use to fill up the bowl. And then you just hand pump the water out and you just keep spraying and pumping until it's all gone and clean. And it just goes into my biogas, into the bottom chamber. And that just all breaks down. And yeah, it's the closest I've found to an on-grid flushing system, but for off grid. And then I've made this drawer underneath because with this home bio toilet system, it doesn't go down through the floor. And so I've managed to put a drawer down there, which I can use to open up to get toilet paper. Cool. Very, very good. And the coloured glass adds a really nice pop in here as well. Thank you. Yeah. I actually had a crack in one of the panels when I was sanding it all up and I wanted to replace it. And mum actually gave me the coloured glass as a gift because she's really into coloured glass. So she saw some and then she came up and we took it all off, sanded it back, put in the coloured glass and it's a really nice feature. A lovely gift. Thanks, mum. And upstairs is the sleeping loft. Can we have a look up there? Yep. Let's check it out. Let's do it. Oh, this is really cosy. I really like that light feature. Thank you. Thank you so much. Instagram made me buy it and it works really well. It just plugs in and spreads across the bed and it gives a nice warm glow at night, which is great for reading because it's sort of behind my head. And yeah, it's a great one. And with this roof, this is actually designed to pop up in a bit of a wedge shape that I've seen on your channel a few times, a few people doing it. And I saw that design. I was like, oh, that's great. Right. Oh, so that's why you haven't put trim around the top of the walls because all this is still to be extended. Yeah, exactly. So you can see the metal frame and so that's going to be raised up and then it's going to be finished with lining. And I'm going to have some big windows in here. And so there'll be even more natural light coming in and I'll be able to stand up here. But at the moment, it's great for sleeping. Yeah, absolutely. You've got lovely views from up here. Yeah, I've got the window, which I get nice morning light coming in. And I wanted to have a window on this side as well for the cross breeze. But I found this super long window that runs along the side of the house with louvers so I can open up some of those to get the cross breeze in summer, which makes it nice and cool and works well. And so, yeah, with the floor, this was found at dad's property. And so I've oiled it all up and sanded it. So super nice. So this is very old cypress pine. So this looks great. And it also gives a nice wood feature for the bathroom underneath where you can see it as well. Yeah. And for the top, I wanted to have a more oiled wood. And originally I had a different wood here, but I had big flooding a couple of years ago where it hit the whole region and Lismore and everything. And in that big storm, this roof actually came off, which was very extreme. Like it blew off. It blew off. Whoa. Yeah. So this was my bad because of the raising it. So I hadn't finished it yet. And I just hadn't secured it properly. It was basically just sitting there. And a gust of wind just got in the right spot and blew the whole roof off. Oh, no. It was so bad. And me and my girlfriend at the time were in bed. And, you know, it was about 3 a.m. We were awake because it was such strong windstorm. And the wind blew it off. And all of a sudden, it was like open sky above us, raining into the house, into the bed. Oh, no. It was so bad. Super lucky with the farm owner the next day. It stopped raining for a little bit. We came up with tarps and we tarped it all up and got it all dry. And then I had to, like, strip everything in the house and, you know, fix power points. And it was mega. But rebuilt it and got some new lining and oiled it up. So it doesn't quite match the rest of the house, but it's still a nice wood look. And most importantly, it's dry now. Yes, most importantly, it's dry. So it was, yeah, it was a big event. I mean, that is a nightmare to have gone through. But fortunately, looking at the house now, you'd never know that that happened. Yeah, yeah. Thanks. It was a lot of work, but got it done. And yeah, it looks great now. So very happy with it. It sure does. And so how long have you been living here now? So I've been in this situation for about three years now. And so, yeah, built the tiny house at my dad's property for about a year and then brought it up here and finished off all of the inside. And so I've been living in it as I've been finishing it. But yeah, about three years on this site. That really is a hard thing to do. Most of the time, if you move into an unfinished house, whatever wasn't finished stays unfinished. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's been a journey, but as I was going, each thing that got built was such an upgrade. So yeah, I got to appreciate every last little bit that got finished as it was happening because I lived without it. This place means a lot. It's by far been the biggest project that I've taken on. And because it was me building it all, I had to come up with a lot of motivation for a long period of time, many, many years to keep pushing and getting it done. And obviously a big financial investment. But now that I've got it, it's a great asset. So yeah, I've set myself up to be sustainable financially and environmentally. Obviously, you have done so much here, not only with the tiny house, but also extending into the outdoors with the auxiliary buildings and the solar and all of the off-grid stuff. Can we talk about the cost that was involved in making all of this happen? Sure, sure. So yeah, so I did most of, pretty much all of labor, but I've got a bunch of buildings. So I've got it on my phone, exactly the different pricings for everything. Okay. So the tiny house was about 90,000 all up. And then I've got the office, which has been completed. That was 20,000. The solar with the upgrade now has come to 25,000 for the solar and battery setup. The shed, carport, shipping container, that comes to about 8,000. So it's about 143,000 all together with everything included. That is incredible. I mean, you have got a lot of bang for your buck there, but of course, the real reason for that is that you have poured a tremendous amount of your own labor into making all of this happen. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, blood, sweat, and tears, and a bit of cash, and I made it happen. So I'm very happy with the result. You sure did make it happen. Congratulations. And with this now all complete or nearly complete, save for the pop-up roof, what does the future hold for you now? What's next? So now it's just building more tiny homes. I'm getting into building tiny homes as a business. And so I've got the whole setup with the pad and my tools and my shed. So I can work from here, building tiny homes for other people, and also maybe make a course about how to build tiny homes. And so, yeah, just getting more into building because I've got the skills and I love it. So that's what the future holds for me. Clearly a sucker for punishment. What can I say? I love working with wood. Absolutely. And that is really evident in this home. You have done a truly beautiful job building this space. Thank you so much for sharing it with me. Thank you, Bryce. Thanks for coming. My pleasure. What Perlin has created for himself here is just fantastic. The house itself is beautiful, but the way that he's also expanded on this with the incredible off-grid systems and all of the outbuildings really is a tremendous accomplishment. What he's built for himself here, this is impressive.