MARIE’S TINY GRIDFREE HOME
A French native goes green for her off-grid Kiwi dream home.
WHEN MARIE first arrived in New Zealand seven years ago, the French native fell in love with the country, and decided she wanted to live a greener life and build a tiny home.
“I realised really quickly that if I wanted to make a change I needed to start with my own lifestyle. The only thing you need is to be willing to make lots of mistakes, because you can teach yourself anything.”
She watched countless videos on Youtube, then attended a Tiny House Building workshop.
“You didn’t learn how to build a tiny house. You learn how you’re gonna struggle building a tiny house.”
And she did.
“One of my biggest mistakes was my roof. A friend’s boyfriend is a roofer, and I was so proud telling him about how I installed my roof with the screws in the valleys, and he said, ‘that’s illegal in NZ, you can’t do that, but hey, next weekend I’ll come round and help you fix it,’ which was a massive relief.”
Despite the struggles, Marie says the process was immensely satisfying. She advises having good people around you: some friends, a good plumber, a builder, and especially a good solar company.
Solar power was the obvious energy choice. She uses it to power chargers, a fridge, washing machine, lights, and a mini portable projector, with gas for cooking, heating, and hot water.
“GridFree’s website was full of resources to understand how solar works, and their kits are DIY which is really empowering. They literally had ‘Tiny House Kit’ on the first page, and no one else was doing that. They’ve been with me the whole way, answering my questions when I have any. My dream is to be off the grid with my water as well as my waste, to really create a closed loop with zero footprint, and GridFree helped me to get closer to that goal.”
Marie’s big lesson
Two years after she first moved in, Marie is still working on improvements to her house.
“You really have to take your time to do things well, and when you set up a deadline for yourself, often it doesn’t happen but, once you start something, you get the momentum and it’s gonna be okay. There’s results straight away, suddenly you
■ consume less, you waste less.”