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675-square-feet Small, Off-grid Float Cabin in Coastal British Columbia


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Meet and Margy and Wayne Lutz who live in a 675-square-feet small float cabin in a placed called Hole in the Wall in Coastal British Columbia.

It’s completely off-grid with water access only. They used a combination of solar power, wind, and thermo electricity for power.

Their home is the third cabin that their friend John built and they purchased it for approximately $25,000 in USD back in 2001.

Next to the home, is a beautiful docked boat that Wayne enjoys using to write and use his laptop in which has a solar panel on it as well for power.

In the video that you can watch at the bottom of this post he’ll explain the complete set up which uses two golf cart batteries to store power collected from panels, wind turbines, and the heat generated by their fireplace.

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Small Off-grid Float Home in Coastal BC

Photo Credit Faircompanies.com on YouTube

Wayne and Margy’s home, garden, and shed are all held by cedar logs that are large and very buoyant. In fact, their homes log float originally served as a helicopter landing pad for a local logging company.

The area they’re in, which is in Coastal British Columbia is known as Hole in the Wall. Their home is permanently docked and they’ve built floating gardens with four raised beds to grow their own asparagus, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and more.

Floating Garden Beds to Grow Vegetables Off-Grid in Floating Home

Photo Credit Faircompanies.com on YouTube

It’s important for them to keep as much weight as they can off of the main float where their house sits, so that’s where the floating shed comes in hand to collect and store wood for the long winter months.

Here in their off-grid home, they have no internet and no television. Wayne says that it’s a great place to write and be an author because there are no distractions.

Landscape View of Wayne and Margy's Off-Grid Small Floating Home

Photo Credit Faircompanies.com on YouTube

Believe it or not, the couple used to live in Los Angeles working for a school district. Today Margy is a consultant that helps write grants for a school district while Wayne focuses on being an author.

You might be wondering about their experimental thermal electric generator that’s attached to their wood stove and Wayne will give you an overview of how it works in the video tour by Faircompanies.

Thermo Heat Power Generator inside Off-Grid Cabin

Photo Credit Faircompanies.com on YouTube

As far as water goes it’s all hand pumped in the kitchen over the sink and comes directly from the lake, as Margy will show you in the video along with their relatively new composting toilet. Before this, they used to have to go up several flights of stairs up the cliff to an outhouse where they’ve also created a gravity fed potato garden using two rain barrows to collect water and hoses running down the slope to feed the plants.

This post was brought to you thanks to Kirsten Dirksen over at Faircompanies.com and Wayne J. Lutz of Powerll River Books. Wayne also has a blog you can visit based on his books, stories, and adventures.

 

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Alex

Alex is a contributor and editor for TinyHouseTalk.com and the always free Tiny House Newsletter. He has a passion for exploring and sharing tiny homes (from yurts and RVs to tiny cabins and cottages) and inspiring simple living stories. We invite you to send in your story and tiny home photos too so we can re-share and inspire others towards a simple life too. Thank you!
{ 13 comments… add one }
  • mark
    July 29, 2012, 12:11 pm

    Really cool!! Some real interesting ideas, from the water/woodstove system to the floating gardens and sheds. More!!

  • Olive seeker
    July 29, 2012, 12:40 pm

    Wow, so much innovation, peace and beauty.

  • Travis Carter
    July 29, 2012, 11:05 pm

    Hi Alex do u have an email to contact u directly. I know I probably missed it somewhere(:

  • sesameB
    July 30, 2012, 12:29 pm

    Excellent. Wonderful. Years ago, and I mean years ago on the Kettle Falls river (Kettle Falls, WA) in a one room cabin with a loft in an apple orchard, with bears and all. I totally identify with your lifestle.

  • Bob
    October 27, 2012, 10:35 am

    O! I Like water house, but in my contry it is not reality!

  • DDearborn
    October 25, 2013, 12:06 pm

    Hmmm

    A couple of questions; First what legal mechanism grants them the right to live on the water? Second what happens when the lake freezes solid in winter? And finally how are taxes assessed?

  • Torger
    March 23, 2014, 10:12 am

    I agree with DDearborn. Those were honestly the first questions that ran through my mind. What’s to stop any lake from being congested with housing on the water? What is the legal mechanism?

  • Jody Nuttall
    June 13, 2014, 3:56 pm

    DDearborn – Albernie Lake is on the coast of BC and doesn’t ever freeze in the winter. The question regarding the legalities of building floating homes is a good one. Not sure of all the ramifications. They may have acquired tenure from one of the logging companies that were there originally, as they mentioned in the video that logging companies originally constructed buildings on floats in that spot.

  • Linda
    June 14, 2014, 5:18 pm

    You’ll CERTAINLY never run out of water for the garden! Also, I saw this floating cabin several years ago and the owner told me that the hand pump in the kitchen goes to the water underneath the cabin… which means they are using the lake water… supposedly they are filtering the water before drinking!

  • Helen
    June 23, 2014, 2:06 pm

    I love it all!! Envy, envy! What a wonderful way to live! It must have cost quite a bit to put all that together though….something I’ll never be able to accomplish but it’s so lovely to dream about. h

  • david driggs
    August 31, 2015, 7:57 pm

    is this place for sale 675 sq ft float cabin in hole in the wall

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