This Ontario Man’s Shipping Container Home Offers the Perfect Off-Grid Lifestyle

Residing in metal transport boxes has recently become a thing. So much so, in fact, that stories about it are already getting stale.

Then along comes Jason Rioux to show us just how awesome it can be.

[ad_bb1]

Jason’s summer home is an Panopticon-style showcase of container chic living near Bobcaygeon, Ontario, a town otherwise known as a Tragically Hip song. Except instead of watching prison inmates, the dwelling’s lofty octagonal centre offers a perfect vantage point for all seven container rooms that sprout outward like petals. There are several bedrooms, a kitchen, dining room, mudroom, rec room, and bathroom.

It doesn’t seem confined to the standard monetary modesty of this particular lifestyle, but his design is indeed very economical.

The 1,450-square foot Octopod comes at a cost of $130,000 (less than $100/square foot) and is incredibly efficient in its energy use. A 4-module solar PV system powers the entire cabin while a solar-powered DC trickle pump independent from the cabin’s energy hookup takes water from his well up into a 300-gallon water tower above the central living room. The water tower design allows gravity to dictate water flow instead of an electric pump.

A Finnish sauna and hot buckets of water for bathing are heated by a wood stove, which also heats the entire space through a DIY method of $2 computer fans dispersing hot air into all eight rooms.

Interestingly, Jason works at energy storage development firm NRStor, which will be bringing Tesla’s future-shaping home battery device, Powerwall, to Canada.

Some people have no patience.

All photos courtesy of Jason Rioux, David Dodge

[ad_bb2]