Builder’s Incredible Fire Resistant, Off-Grid, Passive Tiny House On Wheels

King Lake here in Victoria is an area that has been terribly affected by bush

fire

s just a few years ago. This property I'm on right now was completely engulfed in flames. It is for this reason that a

builder

has taken it upon himself to rethink the small

house

. design to try to make them

resistant

to forest

fire

s. Good morning Tom, hello Ross, how are you, mate, how are you?, very good, thanks for coming, oh, it's a pleasure, welcome to my

house

, this is a beautiful house, thank you now. This has actually been designed to be a fire

resistant

tiny

house.

This is a small fire resistant

passive

house. First of all, what really inspired you to design this to be fire resistant? We are on the side of the world. The worst bushfire behind us there are burnt trees in the background burnt trees houses sheds gone and I saw the Victorians building small houses that had no strength and I thought that could be improved so I came up with a design and here is what It goes into making a small house fire resistant, well, about 20 different things, a lot, from the materials, the design, the shape, the location where we are, the landing gear, the mechanical components, a lot of things, so First of all, this is actually a

tiny

house on

wheels

.

It's absolutely smooth sailing. I have edged the bottom to prevent ember branches from falling underneath to bend. The skirts fold down and you can ride with them on the

wheels

that I have removed because even with these protectors. they catch fire, they pose a fire hazard, they burn for a long time and they get very hot, so we don't want that under the house and then looking around the outside, here they explain to me the materials that you have chosen, yes, so I'll start with a corrugated iron, it's a very common small house siding because it's lightweight, relatively cheap and easy to install, it's also fire resistant, so starting with that, I have a one millimeter flat steel sheet as a feature on the sides . on three sides I have a wooden cladding and it is a ply cladding profile, it has three layers of fire retardant paint, inquiescent paint and all the gaps are also filled with intumescent cork, this is to prevent it from catching fire, we also have fire retardant. wood, this wood is silver ash, you can also use jarrah, which I have here on the door, ironbark, there is another one.

We have some great Australian timbers that are fire resistant so that's what I chose to use here, the problem with them is that they are very dense so you wouldn't normally choose a small house because of course dense also means they are very heavy, exactly, but they're also very durable, so you know, it's a plus, what's up? actually make a wood fire resistant, how does density help make it fire resistant? Density is part of it, it's more about ignition, so really, how hard is it to set fire to? A light wood like cedar would ignite very easily. and is used for lighting, for that reason these woods weigh around 800 kilograms per meter, so it is two or three times denser than some of the softwoods, for example, up to around 1100 kilograms per meter.

A very dense wood is very difficult to light if you put them in your fireplace, they will make excellent firewood, but you have to start them. This is a combustion test in a traditional Australian or even North American building. We have some softwood, cedar, Baltic pine and radiata pine, uh, we. We have some skill areas here that are going to contribute to this burn, i.e. the edges haven't been rounded, we have the end grain exposed, we even have some gaps between the weather boards and the weather stops that we have. Recycled materials are used here, but nothing has been filled in and we also have some maintenance problems.

Some brochures are piling up in the gutter. These materials here obviously aren't going to burn, but the gutter and roof combination are going to burn. It directs the fire directly where we don't want it, which is into the roof space, and then you mentioned it's a special type of caulking, how does it work? So I have two different types of unusual cork in this house. I have inquiescent cork which expands with heat so it separates the heat from what's behind it and the other one is heat proof silicon so it will keep its seal up to about 300 degrees so both products are very useful and what about the windows and doors here, so I made them all myself, we have two different types here, we have the window frame made of wood and that is glued and fixed and then we have this exterior here with a color bonding flashing a tin flashing which is unusual, which is made with the wood frame itself, studs and the glass is placed directly into which there is no wood reveal and the colored mod flashing forms the outer edge and was easy to the windows themselves They had the glass.

They are double glazed windows filled with argon with tempered glass tempered glass of fire retardant measure argon is for the insulation factor and double glazing, that is just excellent standard and what are these bars that you have on the windows to keep small houses warm very quickly, which you might have experienced in a normal house on a north facing window, we have a eve to protect it from the sun, the problem with the knee is that it sticks out, so your options would be a removable eave or canopy that screws on After you've installed it or this, these bars act like four little individual leaves to keep out the summer sun, that's very clever and they predominantly let in the winter light and being just a three mil strip it doesn't really They block a lot of your visibility from the inside, so I left the bottom one outside because my small greenhouse is inside.

What a phenomenal idea. He's so smart. I've never seen that before. What you won't have seen before either is this. a bracket to hold my fireproof shutters, so I also have some flat steel shutters that can be lifted with a human directly towards the window. In about a minute, you can make an entire house. It's such a good idea, so the obvious question for building a fireproof tiny house on wheels is a tiny house on wheels, why not just plug the house in and get away from the fire? That's an excellent question and it's a very dangerous premise.

I hear it a lot now that I understand that in the US and Canada there is evidence to suggest that small houses burn down less because people move them. These fires move very slowly. Australian fires move very fast. The fire that came from behind us moved at about 50 kilometers per hour and also came from both directions. I'm on a one way street and the end of this street burned down first so there was no way out of here, even fire going across the landscape can move at about 12 kilometers per hour on a really bad day. Wow, that's scary, isn't it? but really what a great idea the way you've designed this, what's up with these tie downs here?

They look great so one thing I had to do to be bushfire resistant was a lot of extra weight it had to carry, that meant I had to build the chassis very light so predominantly the top is very light , the trail below only weighed half a ton, so we can actually capsize in a storm until I put them on, so they make a great tie-down. and tight, hold it tight so what is this door here? This is a controversial fireproofing measure. This is a fireproof door with a gas bottle inside. I see that one problem we have with normal houses here in Australia is that the gas bottles are fixed right against the house.

There are new regulations that say they have to be between 10 and 20 meters away so that if they explode they don't set the house on fire, which is a common way for houses to catch fire, since it is now a transportable mobile unit that I can't necessarily put. 20 meters away and I pipe the gas into it, so I have a separate fire box here with a vent. This is any gas escaping through the compressed leaf of the lower wooden door quite tightly and then there's the deck here, the deck is a It's a very common ignition location for homes.

Why is there usually vegetation around the outside? They can be made of a light wood such as pine. They have slots that are great for catching embers, so I have a steel one. I made sure it was hollow so that the fire, if the embers fall under the flames, don't enter the house sideways, they go straight in and burn. The ending of the story is clever and we also have something fireproof. The stairs here again are silver ash, very difficult to light and are on a gravel base so we have kept vegetation well away from the house.

Great and you also have the ladder here, so you have access to the roof. Well, I can say it. you, that's a fireproof measure but it's not, it's a lot of fun, not at all pleasant in Sydney up there on an afternoon watching the sunset and a good way to get up and clean your solar panels too, clean your panels solar, clean your gutters, so actually, what is this thing you have here in your gutters too? Yes all fire proof homes should have a gutter guard and this in itself is not a fire proof measure, this allows the gutters to stay clean so they need to be cleaned The gutter guard will not clean them for you, you will still accumulate debris on top and that debris obviously poses a fire hazard.

It also acts as an excellent filter because it goes directly to our drinking water tank. What a great idea, so how do you actually collect them? rainwater and everything here, where does the tank go well? Let's go back and take a look, so I have gutters on both sides, the other side is very small, but I couldn't stand to lose 20 of the water, so this The top section here is a water tank, it's a third of this window . We have two entrances. We have our exit through our house. We also have a little drain point there for any dirt that comes out. it can sink right to the bottom it also has our outlet which is connected to our gray water system now that leads to a sprinkler system and a sprinkler system would be great it's a fantastic firefighting measure.

I don't have enough water or electricity in a A tiny house off the

grid

if you had an extra source of water and an extra source of electricity, they are absolutely a fantastic idea. One danger we have in trailers are these little ones, all the lights, there are a lot of them in such a big trailer. they melt, they burn in this situation here it is a very small line, it is a steel coating and I have also sealed the back part again with silicone so that it does not burn, but we have other larger ones, they are the tail lights and They are down here , so by covering them we can reduce the chances of ignition.

I can't stop them from melting. If this survived a wildfire, we'd have some repairs to make with all the materials you've chosen for the exterior. of this house, to what extent have you tried them? Have you carried a torch to everyone? I've had some fantastic experiments. It has been very fun. This cube is built in the same way as our house. The same techniques. and the same materials, so inside I'm going to put this glass of water and we'll see how hot the water gets, so after three and a half minutes of intense flame we can take a look to see what happened up here.

We had the inquiescent painting. Everything here is still intact. He didn't even touch the wood. He didn't even come close. This is our wooden wall. Here you can see that it is toasted from behind but without any ignition. And here we have the Taliban side. Here you can see the way the one inch cork has been puffed up at the bottom to protect the material underneath. This actually feeds, probably the worst of all the sides. We had some flame ignition along the side here that was the cork. the silicon was burning, uh, but it got wet, the fire went out very quickly, our glass of water is still intact and, would you believe it, it's still cold enough inside these walls, we have a pretty high density, uh, blowing insulation .

I spent a little more. money on it, but I think it's worth it because it's not to trap the temperature inside the house, it's in case of forest fires to prevent the temperature from entering the interior with the insulation and wood. It now has a 2.1 r, which is not particularly high, but is very high for a small house. In case of a fire, I would hope that you had somewhere else to retreat to besides the small house, but if you didn't, we don't want you to burn in there. You've really considered all facets of this, haven't you?

I hope I really hope I did. I'd love to see some science on this. I don't have it. I am a

builder

. I'm not an engineer. I have started with the building, I have two more measurements to makefire test to show you and they are right here at the front door. The first is an amber proof strip on the bottom. There are actually two of them outside and inside along with some fireproof beads. Inside, the last fireproof measure I have to show you is the electronics box that is usually located under the trailer chassis. It is the emergency braking system.

It's a battery. Batteries melt, burn and explode in a fire so we don't want that under the chassis of the trailer I have it inside in relative safety great it's right next to all my other electronics what a great idea great let's see the interior wow, I love the style of this place thank you so much, you've really done it I thought very three dimensional with this design, yes, so I wanted to obviously make it as open as possible, including not blocking one space from another. I started with the biggest aspects, the kitchen, the bed and the bathroom.

I tried to make it really light. I have used light woods, you will see if you look around like there are no large cabinets, everything is quite hollow and open without affecting the use, so what are the dimensions of this house? So, we have the total width 2.5, approximately 5 meters long plus the window at the back and with a full height. so I have 4.2, one of my favorite features is this window garden that looks so cute, so one thing I absolutely wanted was an herb garden ready to pick and use. There is nothing like fresh herbs, they are totally different when they come out of a pot.

It doesn't work and I have to walk all the way to the garden if you haven't seen the rest of the block. It is quite mountainous. I won't go there again, you know, for some basil. Yeah, so it's all here. I have it. a drainage system underneath, I can put eight to ten liters of water in at a time, it will last about two weeks and again, tons of light from the north windows are taking off very well and then there is a nice cooking space here, Yeah. So some pretty simple additions sink in with a chopping ball on top, double burners.

This also adds a hot water system. One problem we also have with fire restrictions is that I don't want gas outside or on the outside of the house. It was already hard enough to cloud, I didn't want the pipes going in and out and the hot water services to have to worry about too, so I made the hot water from the stove, it's on a pulley system and we have our own tap so You fill this, heat the water and then gradually it will show right to your shell. It's so clear that we have a temperature gauge and I also have an extra faucet to go directly to the sink off the

grid

.

The houses are going to go crazy for that, possibly I'm quite interested in the mechanism. I think it's working very well. It's incredibly loud, so I have a lot on my mind. Still, what a clever idea, talk to me. about the living room space here, yes, so we have a living room that functions as a dining room, so the chairs are designed as dining table chairs as well as lounges and then the tables in front can seat six people around the table , brilliant and We have an extra addition, which is that the legs of the table drop down to the height of the chair, the cushions go on your second bed, brilliant and then it looks like you actually have quite a bit of storage space here too. even an extra bed, yes a children's bed or I say children, I have more storage space left on the top which is obviously necessary and a little greenery to light it up and then we can see the bathroom so here we are, we are in. the shower curtain on the other side has its privacy, it has a fairly standardized shower, it's 900 square millimeters and our gravity feed faucet on top of it, so we also have a composting glue kit here with some shelves and a bathroom cabinet, so composting loads.

You need to vent properly, so how were the vents made? Because there would be a plastic pipe on the outside of the house, right? There are multiple vents, not just the toilet, but also a bathroom vent and a vent from the top. of the house to really act as a complete exhaust fan for the house during hot days and they are all covered with fire retardant mesh. Here's the best feature, uh, slate toilet door, if you want to leave your mark on us, okay? I love it. You can write all your inspirational quotes on your bathroom door.

I like that everyone who comes here leaves their mark and then sleeps here above us. Yes, so come with me long hangers so you can keep your robe nice and straight. It's very important that you have some shelves up here, enough to hold all your belongings and plenty of space in the room, and then this is another one of your fireproof shutters. Is this it? I'm going to say this is the last one. fireproof measure I have a problem with the shutters that are on the outside is that they act like a complete blackout and also you can't see if you are in an emergency situation, you can't see what's going on outside, so the last one Fireproof shutter actually opens from the inside which is very clever, it also acts as a curtain and a fantastic blackout if you want to sleep during the day.

One of the things I really like about the way you've done this house is obviously that you've put some thought into it. There's a lot about practical features and fire protection and all that, but it's also brilliantly designed and feels really homey in here. Good thank you. I mean, I thought about it a lot. It is nice. It's warm. It's really homey. Everything is really felt. organic to me so I am very pleased with what I got so we are on your property right now and did you actually own this land when it was affected by the fires?

I didn't move two years ago. The worst fires were in 0-9 so it was quite a while ago, much of the landscape still has those marks and I saw the fires with my own eyes and can understand what the people here went through and what it would take to survive. A fire like that, this property was hit hard, it took down a lot of trees, a lot of property damage was done here, a lot of homes were lost in this area and lives were lost as well, and I think we're a little underprepared for an event that has been basically predictable for a long time, so I like to see that standard removed.

We are finally in Victoria raising our building standards to match those risks, my friend this is such a brilliant design, the thought and attention you have put into every aspect of this house really impresses me and most importantly I believe which is a very relevant design for these times. Congratulations on a brilliant project. Thank you very much for coming to see it. It is a pleasure for me on our travels. We have seen so many places that have been greatly affected by the wildfires and this project is very exciting to me because I think it is so well thought out and includes so many features that we could easily design into our homes to make them a little more resilient right now.

It's very relevant and I think projects like this are very important to you.