Spartan Giordano was 28 years old when he designed and started building a zero fossil fuel energy home In Greenfield, Massachusetts. Two years later he and his partner Hannah got the occupancy permit on the very day their son, Max, was born. Nine years later Hannah and Spartan have a 2½-year-old daughter and Spartan has … Read more
This high-spec tiny house is designed to be totally off-the-grid and is packed full of brilliant design features. Built by owner Mark, this handcrafted home has been incredibly well designed and constructed using top quality materials. Mark was inspired to build a tiny house after being introduced to the concept by his daughter. Looking for … Read more
This man built a beautiful off-grid cabin with the help of friends for $65,000 CAD including the cost of the land. There was no road access to his lot so he had to bring in all of the building materials using a 4-wheeler with a small trailer, and then load them on a material elevator … Read more
www.firespeaking.com has a whole page devoted to mass heaters combined with staircases, which seems like a great idea to me. Both mass heaters and staircases take up quite a bit of floor space, so if you combine them into a unified structure they conserve space and add a lot of interest to the room. Below … Read more
Marlena and Eugene built their homestead in Blanco, Texas using salvaged windows, doors, wood flooring, tile, a bathtub, a lot of plywood, and some lumber. After over a decade of building, they now have a completely off-grid home, workshop, garden, and rental cabin. They bought all six of their 500- to 700-gallon rainwater barrels for … Read more
With walls made from old tires packed with earth, as well as upcycled glass bottles and cans, Earthships have always been built with mainly found materials. The home provides its own energy (with photovoltaics, passive solar and geothermal tubes), water (rainwater and even dew-water capture) and grows food in the greenhouse (necessary for temperature regulation … Read more