u/SkeletonInZeCupboard

👤 Context: Who I Am & Why I Am Building This

Before diving into the technical breakdown, I want to share my background so you understand the "why" and the "how" behind this project 

I hold a degree in 3D Animation and another degree in Software Development  I have been a hard worker since I was very young, working a massive variety of jobs: babysitting, strawberry picking, working as a farm boy during the summers, working day and night shifts at many fast-food places, kitchens, handling phone lines, and working as a waiter  Eventually, I transitioned into tech, VR/AR/XR Applied Research, coding applications, creating 3D web environments using Three.js, building mobile sales apps with Augmented Reality, performing industrial 3D scans with Creaform scanners, photogrammetry, and stereo photometry 

I am a deeply passionate self-taught hobbyist for a lot of things  I love art, drawing, sculpture, painting, 3D printing, woodworking, furniture making, and costume/prop/decor creation  I am extremely active, have ADHD, and always have a project on the go 

The "Why": I am taking a clean break from the traditional job market to spend a few years building a safe space  My dream is to achieve a self-sufficient retirement at 33 years old  A lot of people have told me this is way too "optimistic," but they don't know my history  I have lost two houses to bankruptcies caused entirely by natural disasters and unfaithful real estate agents and inspectors. I am a hard worker, I successfully secured that second house completely single, on a solo income with zero outside help whatsoever 

Last January, everything hit me at once: I lost my job when I became severely sick, had to estrange my family, and fell into a deep run of terrible luck. I ended up living in my car and in a friend's garage. That experience taught me exactly what my basic human needs are and exactly how "low" I can go to survive  I don't need much, just a safe space for my senior dog and myself away from the city noise that I absolutely cannot stand anymore 

When I lost my job, I was supposed to receive Long-Term Disability (LTD) insurance  I had to battle relentlessly for 13 months to finally get it  Now, I am terrified of touching that money, but it is safely there waiting to build this sanctuary  My houses have always been in forest or rural areas 

The Ultimate Goal: To achieve a life that is as completely self-reliant as possible, escape the city life and hustle culture, and prove to anyone who wants to try it one day that a low-impact, well-optimized, low-effort, highly automated Solarpunk homestead actually works  I want to build a community around it 

🏗️ The 24' x 68' Master Structural "Block"

The core philosophy of this 1-acre homestead is minimal disruption  The land will be kept as raw as possible, and I will only remove or dig the strictly required parts  To optimize the footprint, the main living and utility areas are consolidated into a single continuous, parallel "block" measuring 24 ft x 68 ft  From left to right, the land will receive:

• Tiny House (10' x 24' x 12'): The main living quarters  It features an aggressive thermal envelope with R40 insulation in both the floor and the ceiling, and R20 insulation in the walls  It is heated primarily by a high-efficiency wood stove paired with a balanced, engineered ventilation system specifically designed to keep the warmth trapped inside while ensuring a constant, fresh air exchange  Inside, it features a DIY loop shower system engineered with an automated bleach flush cycle to neutralize bacteria and prevent the heavy organic loading/odor that serves as the biggest downside to traditional greywater recycling loops.
• Covered Deck / Sunroom (20' x 24'): A central hub completely covered and enclosed to double as a sunroom for food production  To maximize the utility of the floorboards, some of the planks are engineered into a root cellar trapdoor  You simply lift the trapdoor right off the ground to access and fill a hidden, underground cellar 
• Shipping Container #1 (Workshop & Mechanical): A standard 20ft shipping container with a 4ft extra deck built at the front of the cargo doors, bringing its total length to 24ft to flush perfectly with the central deck  The cargo doors face toward the street for easy loading. Initially and moving forward, this container is mostly dedicated to a workshop for building the homestead. Only half of it is insulated to hold mechanical equipment 
• Parking Zone (22' x 24'): A dedicated open zone situated right between the two parallel shipping containers to park the vehicles  This zone is covered by a single-slope roof that bridges the gap between the two containers, functioning as a massive, unified rainwater catchment surface alongside the container roofs.
• Shipping Container #2 (Winter Duck Sanctuary): A second 20ft shipping container with a matching 4ft deck extension to maintain the uniform 24ft depth  This container features cargo doors at the back and houses the fully insulated 10' x 8' winter duck quarters .

⚡ The Triple-Redundant Power Matrix & Low-Draw Audit

To remain completely off-grid through brutal -35°C Ontario winters, the system utilizes three distinct power sources to manage a 50 kWh total battery bank :

1. Solar Generation (10 kW)

• I am deploying a 10 kW array of bifacial TopCon solar panels 
• The TopCon technology allows the system to harvest ambient light during heavily overcast winter days 
• The bifacial design allows the panels to harvest the ground albedo and light reflections off the snow on this flat ranch landscape

 

1. Wind Generation (6x GeoWind 1200)

• Because the property is located on a flat ranch, there is always a small breeze at a bare minimum  I intend to build 6 of the open-source GeoWind 1200 turbines using their free online build guides 
• These 6 turbines will be strategically placed directly alongside the two wind openings/channels created by the three parallel buildings  This configuration makes use of the Venturi / Bernoulli effect to naturally accelerate the airflow 
• To eliminate structural vibrations, the turbines will be attached using salvaged rubber tires as dampeners, fixed tightly to the structures to completely eliminate the risk of them flying away in high winds

 

1. Emergency Backup

• If I ever hit a worst-case scenario with zero sun and zero wind for longer than the battery reserve allows, a Propane generator will do the trick  It is powerful enough to completely fill back a week's worth of LiFePO4 batteries in just a few hours

 

1. Storage Stratification (50 kWh Total)

• Primary Bank (10 kWh LiFePO4): The daily workhorse bank  Kept continuously in a climate-controlled environment to allow safe charging/discharging, programmed to never discharge under a safe percentage 
• Secondary Bank (40 kWh Nissan Leaf Battery): A repurposed electric car battery equipped with a Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) attachment  Used strictly as a secondary backup, ensuring I exhaust the primary bank completely before touching this emergency reserve

 

1. Daily Energy Load Profile

The entire homestead runs on a tightly audited, low-impact electrical budget. When everything is fully turned on, the primary loads consist of:

• Highly efficient LED lighting throughout all structures.
• A small, energy-conscious 40-inch refrigerator.
• A maximum of 1 hour of daily electric cooking.
• Device charging stations (1 to 2 daily recharges for a laptop, tablet, phone, and headphones).
• A continuous water fountain and the networked array of ESP32 local microcontrollers 
• Intermittent shop power tool usage, relying on a 21V battery system that is regularly topped up.

🌾 Automated Sunroom Food Production & Waste Closed-Loop

Food production is contained entirely within the 20' x 24' covered sunroom deck and an intricately closed livestock loop 

IoT Smart Garden & Vertical Microgreens

• All staple food will be homegrown inside the sunroom using 15 dirt grow towers 
• The grow towers are fully automated  Each individual tower is equipped with an ESP32-Cam utilizing the ESP-NOW protocol for low-power, long-range local connectivity to talk back to a central main station 
• Each tower features its own localized soil moisture sensor, ambient temperature sensor, ambient moisture/humidity sensor, and a water pump relay assigned to automate irrigation across all vertical tiers 
• Every ESP32-Cam is sealed inside an IP67-rated waterproof case fitted with treated anti-fog lenses to survive the 100% humidity sunroom environment without going blind from condensation 
• Automated Microgreen Shelves: A dedicated vertical shelving system features automated grow lights and a timed watering sequence. This system yields a continuous weekly harvest of three 10x20 trays rotating through mung beans, fenugreek, amaranth, and sunflower seeds.
• Automated Sprouting Station: An automated sprouter produces three 1 L jars of mung bean sprouts per week to provide fresh, high-density nutrients for myself and the ducks (who process the microgreens and roots).

The No-Kill Duck & Vertical Loop

• Livestock: The animal ecosystem is a strict no-kill loop comprised of 7 Khaki Campbell ducks, specifically chosen for their legendary egg-laying capacity, incredible cold hardiness, and excellent fat-to-protein ratio 
• Pest & Fertilizer: The ducks freely help with pest control throughout the garden  Their manure and spent pond water serve as "liquid gold" nutrient fertilizer for the vertical grow towers 
• Winter Sanctuary: Because ducks structurally require water to submerge their entire bills to clear their nares (nostrils) and wash their eyes to prevent blindness, they transition into Shipping Container #2 during the winter  They live in a fully insulated 10' x 8' space featuring an elevated floor design to keep their feet off the cold floor 
• Winter Micro-Pond & Foraging: Inside their winter space, they have a heated indoor winter micro-pond deep enough for full head-submergence  They are provided a grass floor section to give them a rich "summer foraging spot" in the middle of winter, heavily supplemented by the fresh roots and microgreens from the automated shelves 
• Summer Rotation Pasture: In the summer, the ducks use a dual-gate grazing zone paired with a dual-section pond  While the ducks use one side, the other section is isolated to be filtered, cleaned, and refilled 
• The Bridge Arches: A small bridge physically separates the two summer pond sections  This bridge is covered with cattle fence panels bent into an archway to vertically grow well-adapted vining veggies and fruits, including zucchini, beans, and strawberries 
• Food Preservation & Waste: Excess eggs, summer vegetables, and fruits are processed using 7 self-built solar dehydrators  To fully close the loop, the compost pile is supervised by the ducks alongside an active biological army of vermicompost warrior worms and Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL), which turn waste into duck feed and soil

 

💧 Rainwater Harvesting & 4-Stage Filtration

Water security relies entirely on rain collection, massive storage, and a tiered purification manifold 

Storage & Winterization

• Capacity: Rainwater is caught from the unified shipping container and parking zone single-slope roof layout  It is contained in a set of 10 x 1,000L IBC water totes (10,000L total capacity) interconnected to a central bottom-drain manifold 
• Debris Control: The gutters are equipped with a mechanical first-flush rainwater diverter to completely discard the initial roof runoff, along with a series of various mesh debris filters 
• Freeze Prevention: The final 1,000L tank features an outlet pointing toward the house  This entire exposed outdoor run is housed in a covered, insulated, and actively heated track  The pipe is wrapped in a self-regulating heat trace cable and completely encased in closed-cell polyethylene insulation to protect the winter battery budget

 

The 4-Stage Filtration Manifold

Once the water line enters the tiny house, it connects to a specialized inlet that splits into an engineered manifold with 4 distinct outlets, allowing access to the water at any specific stage of purification :

1. Stage 1 (50-Micron Flush Filter): Traps heavy sediment and sand  Has its own outlet to use the water raw at this stage for utility and rough water 
2. Stage 2 (5-Micron Filter): Traps fine particulate matter and debris  Has its own outlet to use as is for general washing, cleaning, and showering 
3. Stage 3 (Sub-Micron Carbon Block Filter): Removes microscopic elements, chemical residues, chlorine, and bad tastes  Has its own outlet to use as is for cooking and clean kitchen water 
4. Stage 4 (8W UV-C LED System): The final stage  Runs the water through an ultraviolet disinfection system to eliminate 99.9% of biological pathogens, bacteria, and viruses for pure, safe drinking water

 

What do you think of it all? Wanna join?

👤 Context: Who I Am & Why I Am Building This

Before diving into the technical breakdown, I want to share my background so you understand the "why" and the "how" behind this project 

I hold a degree in 3D Animation and another degree in Software Development  I have been a hard worker since I was very young, working a massive variety of jobs: babysitting, strawberry picking, working as a farm boy during the summers, working day and night shifts at many fast-food places, kitchens, handling phone lines, and working as a waiter  Eventually, I transitioned into tech, VR/AR/XR Applied Research, coding applications, creating 3D web environments using Three.js, building mobile sales apps with Augmented Reality, performing industrial 3D scans with Creaform scanners, photogrammetry, and stereo photometry 

I am a deeply passionate self-taught hobbyist for a lot of things  I love art, drawing, sculpture, painting, 3D printing, woodworking, furniture making, and costume/prop/decor creation  I am extremely active, have ADHD, and always have a project on the go 

The "Why": I am taking a clean break from the traditional job market to spend a few years building a safe space  My dream is to achieve a self-sufficient retirement at 33 years old  A lot of people have told me this is way too "optimistic," but they don't know my history  I have lost two houses to bankruptcies caused entirely by natural disasters and unfaithful real estate agents and inspectors. I am a hard worker, I successfully secured that second house completely single, on a solo income with zero outside help whatsoever 

Last January, everything hit me at once: I lost my job when I became severely sick, had to estrange my family, and fell into a deep run of terrible luck. I ended up living in my car and in a friend's garage. That experience taught me exactly what my basic human needs are and exactly how "low" I can go to survive  I don't need much, just a safe space for my senior dog and myself away from the city noise that I absolutely cannot stand anymore 

When I lost my job, I was supposed to receive Long-Term Disability (LTD) insurance  I had to battle relentlessly for 13 months to finally get it  Now, I am terrified of touching that money, but it is safely there waiting to build this sanctuary  My houses have always been in forest or rural areas 

The Ultimate Goal: To achieve a life that is as completely self-reliant as possible, escape the city life and hustle culture, and prove to anyone who wants to try it one day that a low-impact, well-optimized, low-effort, highly automated Solarpunk homestead actually works  I want to build a community around it 

🏗️ The 24' x 68' Master Structural "Block"

The core philosophy of this 1-acre homestead is minimal disruption  The land will be kept as raw as possible, and I will only remove or dig the strictly required parts  To optimize the footprint, the main living and utility areas are consolidated into a single continuous, parallel "block" measuring 24 ft x 68 ft  From left to right, the land will receive:

• Tiny House (10' x 24' x 12'): The main living quarters  It features an aggressive thermal envelope with R40 insulation in both the floor and the ceiling, and R20 insulation in the walls  It is heated primarily by a high-efficiency wood stove paired with a balanced, engineered ventilation system specifically designed to keep the warmth trapped inside while ensuring a constant, fresh air exchange  Inside, it features a DIY loop shower system engineered with an automated bleach flush cycle to neutralize bacteria and prevent the heavy organic loading/odor that serves as the biggest downside to traditional greywater recycling loops.
• Covered Deck / Sunroom (20' x 24'): A central hub completely covered and enclosed to double as a sunroom for food production  To maximize the utility of the floorboards, some of the planks are engineered into a root cellar trapdoor  You simply lift the trapdoor right off the ground to access and fill a hidden, underground cellar 
• Shipping Container #1 (Workshop & Mechanical): A standard 20ft shipping container with a 4ft extra deck built at the front of the cargo doors, bringing its total length to 24ft to flush perfectly with the central deck  The cargo doors face toward the street for easy loading. Initially and moving forward, this container is mostly dedicated to a workshop for building the homestead. Only half of it is insulated to hold mechanical equipment 
• Parking Zone (22' x 24'): A dedicated open zone situated right between the two parallel shipping containers to park the vehicles  This zone is covered by a single-slope roof that bridges the gap between the two containers, functioning as a massive, unified rainwater catchment surface alongside the container roofs.
• Shipping Container #2 (Winter Duck Sanctuary): A second 20ft shipping container with a matching 4ft deck extension to maintain the uniform 24ft depth  This container features cargo doors at the back and houses the fully insulated 10' x 8' winter duck quarters .

⚡ The Triple-Redundant Power Matrix & Low-Draw Audit

To remain completely off-grid through brutal -35°C Ontario winters, the system utilizes three distinct power sources to manage a 50 kWh total battery bank :

1. Solar Generation (10 kW)

• I am deploying a 10 kW array of bifacial TopCon solar panels 
• The TopCon technology allows the system to harvest ambient light during heavily overcast winter days 
• The bifacial design allows the panels to harvest the ground albedo and light reflections off the snow on this flat ranch landscape

 

1. Wind Generation (6x GeoWind 1200)

• Because the property is located on a flat ranch, there is always a small breeze at a bare minimum  I intend to build 6 of the open-source GeoWind 1200 turbines using their free online build guides 
• These 6 turbines will be strategically placed directly alongside the two wind openings/channels created by the three parallel buildings  This configuration makes use of the Venturi / Bernoulli effect to naturally accelerate the airflow 
• To eliminate structural vibrations, the turbines will be attached using salvaged rubber tires as dampeners, fixed tightly to the structures to completely eliminate the risk of them flying away in high winds

 

1. Emergency Backup

• If I ever hit a worst-case scenario with zero sun and zero wind for longer than the battery reserve allows, a Propane generator will do the trick  It is powerful enough to completely fill back a week's worth of LiFePO4 batteries in just a few hours

 

1. Storage Stratification (50 kWh Total)

• Primary Bank (10 kWh LiFePO4): The daily workhorse bank  Kept continuously in a climate-controlled environment to allow safe charging/discharging, programmed to never discharge under a safe percentage 
• Secondary Bank (40 kWh Nissan Leaf Battery): A repurposed electric car battery equipped with a Vehicle-to-Home (V2H) attachment  Used strictly as a secondary backup, ensuring I exhaust the primary bank completely before touching this emergency reserve

 

1. Daily Energy Load Profile

The entire homestead runs on a tightly audited, low-impact electrical budget. When everything is fully turned on, the primary loads consist of:

• Highly efficient LED lighting throughout all structures.
• A small, energy-conscious 40-inch refrigerator.
• A maximum of 1 hour of daily electric cooking.
• Device charging stations (1 to 2 daily recharges for a laptop, tablet, phone, and headphones).
• A continuous water fountain and the networked array of ESP32 local microcontrollers 
• Intermittent shop power tool usage, relying on a 21V battery system that is regularly topped up.

🌾 Automated Sunroom Food Production & Waste Closed-Loop

Food production is contained entirely within the 20' x 24' covered sunroom deck and an intricately closed livestock loop 

IoT Smart Garden & Vertical Microgreens

• All staple food will be homegrown inside the sunroom using 15 dirt grow towers 
• The grow towers are fully automated  Each individual tower is equipped with an ESP32-Cam utilizing the ESP-NOW protocol for low-power, long-range local connectivity to talk back to a central main station 
• Each tower features its own localized soil moisture sensor, ambient temperature sensor, ambient moisture/humidity sensor, and a water pump relay assigned to automate irrigation across all vertical tiers 
• Every ESP32-Cam is sealed inside an IP67-rated waterproof case fitted with treated anti-fog lenses to survive the 100% humidity sunroom environment without going blind from condensation 
• Automated Microgreen Shelves: A dedicated vertical shelving system features automated grow lights and a timed watering sequence. This system yields a continuous weekly harvest of three 10x20 trays rotating through mung beans, fenugreek, amaranth, and sunflower seeds.
• Automated Sprouting Station: An automated sprouter produces three 1 L jars of mung bean sprouts per week to provide fresh, high-density nutrients for myself and the ducks (who process the microgreens and roots).

The No-Kill Duck & Vertical Loop

• Livestock: The animal ecosystem is a strict no-kill loop comprised of 7 Khaki Campbell ducks, specifically chosen for their legendary egg-laying capacity, incredible cold hardiness, and excellent fat-to-protein ratio 
• Pest & Fertilizer: The ducks freely help with pest control throughout the garden  Their manure and spent pond water serve as "liquid gold" nutrient fertilizer for the vertical grow towers 
• Winter Sanctuary: Because ducks structurally require water to submerge their entire bills to clear their nares (nostrils) and wash their eyes to prevent blindness, they transition into Shipping Container #2 during the winter  They live in a fully insulated 10' x 8' space featuring an elevated floor design to keep their feet off the cold floor 
• Winter Micro-Pond & Foraging: Inside their winter space, they have a heated indoor winter micro-pond deep enough for full head-submergence  They are provided a grass floor section to give them a rich "summer foraging spot" in the middle of winter, heavily supplemented by the fresh roots and microgreens from the automated shelves 
• Summer Rotation Pasture: In the summer, the ducks use a dual-gate grazing zone paired with a dual-section pond  While the ducks use one side, the other section is isolated to be filtered, cleaned, and refilled 
• The Bridge Arches: A small bridge physically separates the two summer pond sections  This bridge is covered with cattle fence panels bent into an archway to vertically grow well-adapted vining veggies and fruits, including zucchini, beans, and strawberries 
• Food Preservation & Waste: Excess eggs, summer vegetables, and fruits are processed using 7 self-built solar dehydrators  To fully close the loop, the compost pile is supervised by the ducks alongside an active biological army of vermicompost warrior worms and Black Soldier Fly Larvae (BSFL), which turn waste into duck feed and soil

 

💧 Rainwater Harvesting & 4-Stage Filtration

Water security relies entirely on rain collection, massive storage, and a tiered purification manifold 

Storage & Winterization

• Capacity: Rainwater is caught from the unified shipping container and parking zone single-slope roof layout  It is contained in a set of 10 x 1,000L IBC water totes (10,000L total capacity) interconnected to a central bottom-drain manifold 
• Debris Control: The gutters are equipped with a mechanical first-flush rainwater diverter to completely discard the initial roof runoff, along with a series of various mesh debris filters 
• Freeze Prevention: The final 1,000L tank features an outlet pointing toward the house  This entire exposed outdoor run is housed in a covered, insulated, and actively heated track  The pipe is wrapped in a self-regulating heat trace cable and completely encased in closed-cell polyethylene insulation to protect the winter battery budget

 

The 4-Stage Filtration Manifold

Once the water line enters the tiny house, it connects to a specialized inlet that splits into an engineered manifold with 4 distinct outlets, allowing access to the water at any specific stage of purification :

1. Stage 1 (50-Micron Flush Filter): Traps heavy sediment and sand  Has its own outlet to use the water raw at this stage for utility and rough water 
2. Stage 2 (5-Micron Filter): Traps fine particulate matter and debris  Has its own outlet to use as is for general washing, cleaning, and showering 
3. Stage 3 (Sub-Micron Carbon Block Filter): Removes microscopic elements, chemical residues, chlorine, and bad tastes  Has its own outlet to use as is for cooking and clean kitchen water 
4. Stage 4 (8W UV-C LED System): The final stage  Runs the water through an ultraviolet disinfection system to eliminate 99.9% of biological pathogens, bacteria, and viruses for pure, safe drinking water

 

Wanna talk? I'm looking for my people :)