Essentials for building off grid houses

I saw We the tiny House people a couple of years ago and it was very interesting. Inspired me to want to reduce my life down.

I've been a tiny house (TH) fan for years, firstly with motorhomes and now with containers as I'm sure everyone knows by now. I am happy to answer questions if there are any, after all I've been living in this sort of thing since 2001 so have ironed out a lot of the kinks.

We did the McMansion thing as well, dunno what I was thinking but that was in my 30s yuppie phase and that's just what most people do I suppose. Truth is I've been almost as comfortable under a tarp in the corner of an industrial workshop.


I lived hear for over a year while building Wothahellizat Mk2 (see the early frame work on the floor at the right). Note that this entire workshop and nearby house runs off solar, I built the truck here and only fired up a gennie on cloudy days or for heavy 3-phase welding. You can live quite normally on solar.

I reckon a TH is a good middle ground, BUT small mobile houses are IMO not suitable for long term SHTF because you just can't store all the stuff you need for survival. This is where the prepper and TH people have to part ways I think because the TH movement is about reducing the stuff you own and prepping basically means storing a lot of stuff to get you through the hard times.

That said selling a real house and moving into a TH would free up a lot of capital/debt and that in turn can make you a better prepper. A mobile home with a base might be the best combination (I probably think that because that's what I have ). If some thought was put into what we store I reckon we could live for a year or so in the truck parked up in the bush somewhere, that's not long term but long enough to lets the dust settle I would think.

Of course if you can hunt or otherwise live off the land then you could BO for as long as you like I suppose, TH or no TH.