Building an off-grid Tiny House from the Land

Hey everyone., Rob Greenfield here, and

over the next few days I am going to build
a tiny house.

From tree to tiny house.

Yes, that's right, from cutting down the
trees,

to milling the lumber, to finishing

a tiny house from scratch.

I'm going to walk you through the
entire process

and then I am going to move in.

(Music)

This isn't just any tiny house though.

This tiny house is going to be fully

off the grid and built completely out of

wood harvested on this property

as well as second hand materials

right here from the farm.

So this is a tiny house that's designed

to work within the land that it is being

built on and not be a pain to the land.

So where is all of this happening?

It is at Le Reve de Gaia which means the

dream of mother earth, here in Southern
France.

Now it's time to build the tiny house.

(Music)

Okay, so here we are at the wood saw now

and this is where the tree that we cut

down on the property actually turns into
the lumber.

He bought this land about 7 years ago and

this has pine forests on it that have

been used for forestry for decades now...
probably centuries.

And a lot of it was done in a very
unsustainable way.

Now he is transitioning this into

sustainable forestry and just moving it

back into, hopefully, a native forest that

is a place for humans, other species, and

the environment to thrive.

So, he is working on managing it

sustainably using this wood to build and

then also it's his source of income.

And behind me is his wood saw and
this thing is incredible.

This is the first time I have ever worked
with a wood saw.

He bought this for about $8000 prior

because of his work as a forester and it's

amazing what this could do in a community.

Imagine if a community had this they

could come together and build their houses

out of wood, locally harvested, and it

would pay for itself in no time, creating

jobs and opportunity and working with the

land rather than having things shipped and

depending upon huge corporations.

We are going to turn the tree into the
lumber.

(Music)

We are working with the trees right now.

Right here is a larger one and this will
make

the bigger planks. Behind me, he is

working with about...closer to the size of

the tree that we cut down today. And then

that is going to be used to make the
posts for the floor.

So, the larger tree for the planks.

Smaller trees are going to be used for

basically like 4 by 4's. All of these are

trees that were harvested from the land.

These have been curing for about 6 months

to a year so that they have the right

level of moisture to be easier to work
with.

(Music)

Alright, so we have finished cutting.

Again, a lot of stuff was cut prior to
today,

but almost everything here is stuff

that we cut today and I want to show you

the different things. So, these wide,

almost like 4 by 4's, these are for the
foundation.

And then these are for the foundation
as well.

And then these, what we are

calling planks, are for the roof,
slash, sides.

And then, these are the
floorboards,

which you can see are thicker.

All of these came from the different sizes
of the trees.

And we started with the trees,

now we've got the lumber and

then it will go from tree to tiny house.

(Music)

Okay, so now we've got the wood milled

and it is time to treat some of it.

We are sanding and we are treating...

staining just the flooring.
The reason is

that we want nice smooth floors for

walking on barefoot, you know, preventing
slivers.

But the rest of the house we are not

going to sand and we are not going
to stain,

and the reason why is we are

actually experimenting with a as natural

as possible build here,
and over time

it's not going to last as long as if it
was stained.

After the house is no longer

something you could live in it's just

returned back to the land. Whether it's

wood breaking down in the forest

or turning it into firewood.
So the idea is

that we are designing it extremely

naturally with the wood right on the land

and the wood can go back to the land.

Alright, our last step before finally

building the tiny house is to take some

of these planks and cut them into the

right sizes for the flooring, for the

walls, and we are using, basically a table

saw or a skill saw and if you really

wanted to you could do it with a hand saw

but we've got the tools.

(Music)

Alright, so we have the site.
Now the

first step is to create the foundation.

We are having a little bit of a harder
time

than planned with that because we

are on a bigger slope than we had thought,

so we are having to raise it up.

But first step is to create the
foundation,

level it, then we are going to put on the

floor, then we are going to create the

frame, then we are going to put on the

sides and the roof. And then the last

step will be to put in the doors and
windows.

So, we've actually moved the foundation

back a little bit so that we didn't have

to put it up as high. And one thing that

I want to mention is on the bottom we

are using Douglas Fir which is more

resistant to rot and will last longer and

then the rest of the housing is spruce.

So, a little bit of Douglas Fir on the

bottom that is contacting the ground and

the rest will be spruce.

We got the foundation pretty much set and

it is time to start moving upwards.

We just got this foundation set in really

just about an hour, which for me, was the

part that I was the most worried about

because I am really bad at making things

level or even. Angles, 90 degree angles,

that's what I have a really hard time
with.

So, that went really, really well.

Right now we are just putting these giant

screws through and I should mention

this is basically the one material that's

not second hand or from the forest.

These were bought new. And this is pretty

much the main cost, right?

Antoine: Yes, that's the only cost, yeah.

Rob: And some gasoline.

Antoine: Ya, for the chainsaw and the
saw machine.

Rob: How much gas do you think we
burned?

Antoine: Uh...in total, maybe about
5 to 8 litres.

Rob: Okay so...
Antoine: $16...about $20 in gasoline.

Rob: Okay. So, 2 gallons about, less

than $20 worth of gasoline, some screws,

and then the rest is from the forest and

stuff that was laying around in the barn.

So, it's looking pretty good.

Aright, the foundation is done and we used

about 18 of these and that's it.

Wood, 18 of these with the foundation and

now we are putting on the flooring.

Which is pretty simple.

We just have to line that up to

make it even and then we'll
have the flooring done.

Alright, so we have the foundation set

and I am pretty amazed. It's basically

2 ingredients, wood and screws.

And it's solid. It's feeling good...
yup, it's

looking solid and that only took probably

2 hours and next step, building it up!

So we are putting up the frame now.

The frame is about as simple as can be.

Antoine said this is the simplest

structure that he has ever built.

And so the frame is just the 4 beams.

We have one up and we have one

sitting here that's going to go up right
now.

And then in each of them there are about

16 screws...these heavy duty screws,

both at the top and at the bottom.

So total, for the frame, we've got about

30 of these big screws and then the next

step will be to put the planks right on to
the frame.

And we are getting pretty close.

(Music)

Alright, so now we are putting up the

walls which is super simple. We're just

taking these planks that we cut with the

machine and then we are just screwing

them on with a couple of screws.

And they have an overlap, and the overlap

keeps the rain running down the sides so

moisture doesn't stay on there.

And that's it. About as simple as can be.

We are going for simple and natural.

We are putting in the last screws to have

the sides and the roof done. On the top

there is just a little overlap to keep the

rain from coming in and now we just have

to do the front and the back.

Alright, once we finished up the sides

then we went ahead and put on the

front and the back in pretty much the

same method. It was just the overlap

and making sure we had enough overlap

to make sure that rain couldn't get in

and it would go down.

The other thing that I didn't mention was

the doors. We have the door in the front

and then door, slash, window in the back.

And we had to put in framing for that
as well.

Just some really simple framing

that Antoine put together in order for

those to go in. A little spot left up

there to do, and once we've done that

we'll have built out the entire house,

itself, and still a little bit to do on
the inside.

One thing that I do want to mention is

that I did lay things out in a specific

order, but after everything, there was

a lot of back and forth. We had to go back

to the saw and cut a few new planks.

We ended up cutting the sizes of things

many times throughout these couple of
days.

Here is the very basic framing that we did

in order to be able to put in the doors,

slash, windows in the front and back.

And you can see the frame here.

Just a very simple structure using the

same wood from the trees, right here,
on site.

So that is the inside of the house.

The house is complete.

It is quite small, as you can see.

So there you have it.

From tree to tiny house. That is the

whole process of building this very
simple tiny house.

Now, I want to say that this is designed

just to be used during the spring, summer

and fall here in southern France and

it's for woofers or volunteers who are

learning organic farming here at

Le Reve de Gaia. So it's not designed as

a year round structure for one person or

a few people to be living in.

And the key is, whatever you are building,

to design it for the use and the purposes

that you have.

I hope that this video has been helpful

in realizing how simple it can be to build
a tiny house.

Now, in the next video I am going to walk

you through the rest of the processes that

I did with the compost toilet and the

compost bin and the outdoor shower and the
kitchen.

I'll walk you through that in

the next video and give you a tour of

this place as well.

If you got a lot out of this video then

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world.

I love you all very much and I'll see you
again real soon.