We Visit an Off-grid Passive Tiny House in NZ | GridFree Living
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- Опубликовано: 9 июн 2024
- The passive house - New Zealand, is this the way of the future? GridFree founder Craig thinks so after our visiting to Steve's passive house NZ build. It all started with Steve's wife asking him, "Are we living our best life?" They moved to the Coromandel Peninsula to give it a crack. and even though he had never built a house before, the built a studio they are temporarily calling home, where he drafted the plans for his passive house, build in-progress.
Like most off-grid builds, grid power is not close and thus cost-prohibitive, which is why they opted to set up the GridFree Freedom Kit, providing them enough solar power to run all their appliances for comfortable living. Steve described the journey of off-grid living as both challenging and rewarding for his family - even though they have to deal with the hardships of a rural winter, they love the silence of being in the land and the bush in their own sanctuary.
Power, water, and even groceries have become so convenient in modern life, but you don't have that luxury off-grid. "Let's do more with less," Steve said and it's what prompted his passive house design in NZ. This means walls that are super-insulated, with thermal bridge-free construction, high-performance windows, air tightness, and a heat recovery ventilation system.
Installing our solar kit, Steve said, "The most fun bit is how quickly and easily it all comes together. It works. It does what it says it will do." Are you ready to power your dreams of gridfree living? We are ready to empower your dreams into reality. We are the off-grid solar energy equipment supplier with a DIY attitude.
Learn more about Steve:
Build Good Architecture: Steve's Passive House Design Business:
buildgood.co.nz/
Build Good Architecture's Instagram:
/ buildgoodarchitecture
Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
01:04 - Backstory
01:19 - "The Studio"
01:51 - Why did you choose to go solar?
02:05 - What do you love most about this lifestyle?
02:55 - The Freedom Kit
03:43 - Challenges
04:22 - Toilet/Shower
04:54 - Rewarding moments
06:04 - Passive House Build
07:21 - What makes it a passive house?
09:24 - GridFree Experience
09:49 - Best parts of off-grid living
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View The Freedom Kit:
gridfree.store/collections/co...
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#livingoffgrid #diysolar #offgrid #offgridnz #tinyhouse #passivehouse #offgridsolar 
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I enjoyed "checking out" Steve's place. It was great day
Awesome set up, giving me many ideas, thanks for sharing
Thanks! We really love sharing all these unique builds and interesting stories, so it's great to see people enjoying them.
Kia ora Steve and Whanau! Such an awesome and peaceful location, great choice. Just wondering how you go obtaining the land clearing consents.
Isn't it a fantastic set up?
That's a great question - this is Steves website: buildgood.co.nz/
He has some great content including a podcast on his passive house journey it might have some information about that in there.
Amazing
i wants one!! x
Love the attention to reporting the details about passive design. Given the site has been graded flat I wonder why Steve decided on a suspended timber floor on subfloor framing rather that a concrete floor that is typically much cheaper and would provide some heat retentive thermal mass.
Good question. Hopefully Steve see's this comment and can answer it for us
Hi Beng,
There's a few reasons for choosing a suspended timber floor.
1. The site has been cut and filled to create the building platform. Where craig and I are standing outside the Passive House there is 2.4m of fill. The driven pile is 7m long!
2. To achieve the required U-Value (1/R-Value) of the floor to meet the Passive House standard a concrete floor would require additional insulation and thermal breaks at the slab edge. A concrete slab straight on the ground would have an R-value of under 2 and the suspended timber floor is between 6 and 7. - Huge increase in performance! An insulted concrete slab with similar performance (R6-7) would be a very similar cost in $/m2
3. Then there is the environmental cost - the carbon footprint of the concrete slab is higher than the suspended timber floor and it has no embodied carbon.
There's some great PH details in this handbook that give cost and carbon footprint and storage - d39d3mj7qio96p.cloudfront.net/media/documents/ER70_High_Performance_Construction_Details_Handbook-PHINZ-LR12313.pdf
@@stevehughes5748 Thanks Steve. yes I suspected it had a lot to do with soil bearing capacity that didn't meet insitu good ground per NZS3604:2011. And to get engineered certified fill 2.4m deep plus insulation for a slab would tip the expense and performance scale towards a suspended floor. Thanks again!
Would love more details about the heat recovery ventilation unit?
This is the model that Steve has, the page includes specs and an explainer video: www.stiebel-eltron.co.nz/lwz-70-e
Was a RAB like ecoply used on this build? Is there any place for an insulated RAB in NZ (IBS RigidRAP®-XT) like they use in the States e.g Huber ZIP-R sheathing.
Hope you all are ok after the recent flooding and cyclone
Glad to report that they're doing fine! Their progress on their off-grid journey has slowed down a little due to the weather but they're A-okay 🥳
So they have a walk in wardrobe but there's no bedroom for the kids????
The girls get the studio to themselves once they move into the new passive house :)
@@GridFreeStore wow 😳😢