Off the Grid in a Tiny House with Rob Greenfield

Welcome to the Teeny Greeny. My name is Rob Greenfield and this is my off-the-grid, in-the-city, tiny house adventure. After years of simplifying, I've gotten down to a completely debt-free and bill-free lifestyle. I moved here four months ago with only the possessions that fit on my bike and my trailer, and I bought this little house for $950 and been living very wonderfully and simply and healthfully the last four months. So today I'm going to give you a tour of the place and show you what's going on here in my off-the-grid, in San Diego, tiny house life. So first of all, let me show you the house. All right, come on inside. So I was planning on buying something a lot bigger originally, but I went on Craigslist and found this bad boy listed for $950. I was going to build my own, but I just couldn't resist. It's not quite tall enough to stand in, but by not being able to stand, I don't spend most of my time in here. But this is all 50 square feet of it. Pretty simple living in here. All of the woodwork is just refurbished wood. The shelf I built myself and these as well. This is just a simple mattress for $75 on Craigslist that pulls out. And yeah, pretty simple on the inside. This light is powered by the solar panels, which I'll show you. It's a three watt light bulb. And my clothes, my books, and some of my basic necessities are over here. Hardwood floors, repurposed materials. So that's the inside, but what's more important is the outside. A lot of my life revolves around food. So I'm going to take you to the kitchen next. This is really simple. This is just a little camp kitchen that I got online used. The sinks are right here and the water just drains down into this five gallon bucket. Right here is the refrigerator slash cabinet. Pretty simple. All of my food is stored in jars. I buy all of the food in bulk at the local co-op so that there's no packaging. I brew my own kombucha, sprout a lot of my own things, and then I do lentils, things like that. Got my fresh vegetables. The amazing thing is that this thing actually stays cool. Even the coconut oil doesn't melt on a warm day. So this thing is natural refrigeration with the air that's in the doors. A kitchen wouldn't be complete without a stove. This isn't your typical American stove. This is a rocket stove, which is built out of a couple dozen of bricks that I found in an alley. I just use wood that's fallen from local trees and use it to cook up whatever I want in my simple pot and pan. Pretty much have oatmeal for breakfast almost every day and then lots of things like veggies, fruits, and grains. One of my absolute favorite parts about living off the grid is drinking rainwater. This here is pure water straight from the sky. No chemicals like chlorine or fluoride needed whatsoever. This is a simple Berkey filter that uses a very natural filtration system. You simply fill this with a five-gallon jug and you don't have to worry about any chemicals, bacteria, protozoa, viruses, or anything like that. But you're probably wondering, well how do I get the rain from out of the sky and into my Berkey? I'll show you the rainwater harvesting system. So rainwater harvesting is extremely simple. Those are some old 55-gallon drums that used to have something like applesauce in them. Those are some simple gutters that I built. And then it's just as simple as channeling the rainwater from the roof into the gutters and into the barrels. And there was a huge storm about two weeks ago and I managed to collect 200 gallons of water, which for me, using only two gallons of water per day will last me about a hundred days. This is my only source of water. The average American uses a mind-boggling 80 to 100 gallons of water each day. For me that's a one to two month supply of water for everything I need. 200 gallons of water is what I have right now in May and that's going to last me probably till the next time it rains towards the end of the summer. So for me, it's really important to use water wisely. That 200 gallons is used more like more than 200 gallons of water though because I use every bit usually two to three times. So for example, first I might wash my hands with it, then wash the dishes with it, and then it goes down into this five-gallon bucket which I will then use to either water the plants or put in the compost. Behind me you'll see my bathroom which cost me about 50, 60 dollars to put together. Again, very simple. So this is a simple compost toilet. When you got to go, you just sit down, you go. It goes into a five-gallon bucket which then after you go, you just cover it with leaves and amazingly the leaves take care of all the smell. And then once this bucket's full, you take it out and you put this in the compost. Also in the bathroom, we have the bathroom sink area which is just simply a pitcher with water you can use here to freshen up, wash your hands. And here's my simple bathroom items which isn't much. Got a mirror, toilet paper which is found in a CVS dumpster because they throw away all sorts of crazy stuff. And that's a simple bathroom. So let's head to the compost. So this is the compost which is a fundamental part of living an earth-friendly lifestyle. Rather than sending stuff to the landfill or to the treatment facilities, taking care of it right here on the spot and turning things back into soil. So the black tarp is just to keep the moisture in since this is a dry area. But what you see here was originally food waste and human waste and yard waste. The amazing thing is that there's really no foul smell whatsoever and if you're doing compost right, even with humanure, there won't be a smell. This is new to me but I'm amazed at just how fine it is. Smells like earth. For the last four months living here, I've been buying all my food at the local farmers market, the co-op, as well as doing a fair amount of dumpster diving especially for my fruits and veggies. But soon I will be growing my own food. So right here, these are called wicking bed gardens and really great for drought tolerant gardening. I live here in San Diego where we don't have a ton of water. So basically how this works is you water through this little pipe here on top and that fills a reservoir below and that's basically rocks like this and then burlap over that and the water wicks up through the burlap into the soil and then waters the plants. I have a couple of basil growing right now. But I'll be starting to grow food in probably this weekend and soon this will be covered in high quality organic greens mostly. You'll have noticed that there's not many things around the yard that I need electricity for. I've got my computer, I've got my bike lights, my headlamp and the light inside the house and maybe a few other small things but for the most part I just don't use much electricity. I just use good old-fashioned manpower and nature to a large extent. But I do have a that I am using. These are two solar panels and they charge simple batteries that I then use to charge what I need. My computer, my bike lights, my headlamp and my light inside. And one of my favorite parts of the day is sitting in my bird's nest. I just sit up here and read my book or eat my oatmeal, do some writing and just sit and take in the beautiful ocean view. Life is pretty simple. Life is pretty good. I don't have a cell phone. I got rid of that about four or five months ago and I don't have internet here by choice. Reason being is when I'm here I'm extremely connected to my surroundings and disconnected from the computer and the phone and all of the stresses of life. So when I do need to use the internet or get in touch with people, I hop on my bike, open my gate and I head out to an internet to a cafe or to the library and I can choose when to be connected and when not to.