THE YOUTUBER & THEIR GRIDFREE TINY HOME SET-UP
Karen & Hayden document their off-grid lives online, and that includes the way they power up their DIY Taumarunui tiny home.
YOUTUBER KAREN and partner Hayden could have spent a huge amount of money connecting to the local power grid.
“But it’s just too much,” says Karen. “We’ve also learned that the power bills in the area are insane, so solar power was the way for us to go.”
The couple spent four years travelling in an RV and found it easy to transition to living on solar power. They bought their kits from GridFree after seeing the company’s work on Facebook.
“I really liked the whole concept that it was affordable for the average Joe, and people were able to install it themselves. I reached out to them to learn more about a kit for my caravan, ended up interviewing them for my Youtube channel and just found the staff so approachable and genuine.”
Hayden also loved the kitset approach. “It’s really easy just to get the kit, and everything comes with it so you don’t have to go and search and match up sizes and everything, you just get the whole lot all at once.”
They also found it simple to figure out their needs.
“We looked on the website, and the Bach Kit was a step up from the Weekend Kit, ideal for powering a tiny house,” says Hayden. “And I still got a good amount of power that I could run my table saw and things without too much drama. It’s now running all our kitchen appliances, lights, washing machine, basically everything, with a generator to help us along on those overcast days. We also got the Starter Kit for lights in our cabin.”
Hayden is a keen DIYer and completed the solar installation alone while Karen was taking care of newborn Reese.
“All the bits were there, there were instructions in the box. What I found was that you could pull it all out and put it together without use of the instructions, and that’s a good sign to me.
“There’s not much difference between the kits from an installation point of view – if you can do the little one, you can do the bigger ones. It’s been great, I’d recommend GridFree to anybody.”
Hayden’s GridFree lesson
There’s a learning curve when you start managing your power, water supply, and gas.
“You can’t just flick a switch or turn on a tap, you’ve also got to produce it. Power and water are suddenly on your mind a lot – you’re aware of the hassle that happens if you use too much!”