Living Off-Grid in a Tiny House: Your Guide to Diesel Heating, Cooking, and Hot Water
Living off-grid in a tiny house or cabin is a dream fulfilled by thousands of Australians. Adopting a small footprint and a simpler lifestyle in an off-grid home provides immense rewards, from financial savings to environmental benefits.
When considering off-grid living, essential elements such as heating, cooking, lighting, and hot water play a vital role in your daily life, as they all consume energy. Harnessing the sun’s power through a solar battery system for lights and small appliances is an effective solution. However, for more energy-intensive needs, such as hot water and air heating, consider incorporating Diesel Off-Grid Appliances into your setup.
The Role of Diesel in Off-Grid Living
For energy-intensive appliances that cannot run directly on solar power, diesel is an excellent alternative. Here’s a look at effective heating, cooking, and hot water options for your tiny home.
Compared to gas, diesel is lighter, safer, easier to carry, and more cost-effective. Moreover, diesel appliances don’t require a license for installation, allowing for straightforward DIY projects. Using just one fuel type (besides solar) simplifies storage and refueling, making diesel more convenient than gas bottles.
Benefits of Diesel Appliances
All diesel appliances come equipped with externally vented exhausts (unlike gas), ensuring no smoke, odor, or moisture enters your tiny house or cabin. This feature is vital for maintaining a dry, fresh, and mold-free environment.
Hot Water Solutions
Dieselheat provides two options for diesel hot water:
DH Hydronic Series – Standalone diesel hydronic hot water systems.
Electric Solar Hot Water Systems – These utilise surplus solar power and can be boosted with diesel when needed.
Both systems can run optional hydronic air heating, ensuring you remain comfortable year-round.
DH Hydronic Series
The Dieselheat DH Hydronic system is a compact, diesel-only heating solution designed for efficiency and convenience. With a rapid heat-up time of under 15 minutes, this system functions as an instant hot water system once pre-heated.
Key Features of the Dieselheat DH Hydronic System:
- Diesel-Only Operation: Enjoy a straightforward, no-nonsense setup without complex installations.
- DIY Installation: Easily install the system yourself, saving on installation costs.
- Premium Quality: Features a German-made Eberspächer furnace, suitable for daily use.
- Space-Saving Design: Its compact size ensures it fits seamlessly into your off-grid living space.
Electric Solar Hot Water Systems
Our range of Electric Solar Hot Water Systems specifically designed to maximise the efficiency of your existing solar setup. These systems utilise surplus solar energy while providing a diesel boost when solar heating isn’t possible, making them perfect for off grid homes tiny homes.
Key Advantages of Electric Solar Hot Water Systems:
- Efficient Solar Utilization: Harness solar energy to heat water from your current solar system, enhancing overall efficiency.
- Diesel Boosting Capability: Enjoy seamless hot water access on cloudy days or during periods of low solar power production.
- Heat Retention: Our systems store hot water for hours, ensuring you have readily available hot water when needed.
- Space-Saving Design: Eliminate the need for bulky, heavy water heating panels on your roof, making it ideal for compact living spaces.
Hydronic Air Heating
As an alternative to direct diesel air heaters, Dieselheat also has a range of fan heating heads to link up to our diesel hot water systems. These fan heating heads use coolant from the hot water system to heat the air in your cabin. Advantages of this kind of heating system include the huge saving on space, and the low cost as one device serves two purposes.
You can also use these systems for hydronic heated floors, panel radiators or heated towel rails.
How can I avoid wasting water?
Pair your off grid diesel hot water with our US made Bricor low flow shower heads providing excellent spray patterns at low flow rates (as low as 2L/min) giving a decent feeling water wise shower. We highly recommended this for tiny houses where water is often limited.
Direct Air Heating
If you are not after hot water or a combined system, when it comes to heating off-grid tiny homes, diesel is an ideal choice. With a runtime of 40-100 hours for a 2.2kW heater from just a 10L fuel tank, diesel heaters offer an efficient and cost-effective heating solution. These heaters provide a fast heat-up time and can safely operate overnight, ensuring your home stays cozy even in the coldest weather.
Even if you opt for a wood fire, having a diesel heater in your tiny home is a smart move. It allows for quick heating when you return late at night without the hassle of starting a fire. Additionally, you can set the heater to a low setting to maintain warmth overnight. The smart temperature control feature ensures that the heater only activates when your fire has gone out and the temperature drops, offering peace of mind and energy efficiency.
At Dieselheat, we offer a variety of options to keep your tiny home warm and comfy. Our modified RV/caravan heater kits, like the Belief and Eberspacher 2.2kW and 4kW, are designed specifically for off grid intallation. You can easily install them in a cupboard or position them outside your home. Below are some examples of our typical kits, each tailored for optimal performance in your off-grid lifestyle.
The advantage of these heaters is that they are very compact, are relatively inexpensive, start up quickly, and pump out a lot of heat in a short time.
An alternative option is the Wallas range of cabin heaters, which are convection based diesel air heaters. These heaters are super quiet, consume almost no electricity, are easy to install and are made to the highest possible standards in Finland. Designed to heat Finnish winter cabins in temperatures down to minus 30, they operate continuously for months at a time with no issues.
Cooking with Diesel
Off-grid cooking can often pose challenges, especially for those who prefer not to use gas. Cooking with diesel presents numerous benefits, including clean, dry, and moisture-free heat. Additionally, diesel cookers come equipped with flat glass tops that are not only stylish but also incredibly easy to clean. Among the best options available, we proudly offer the Wallas 76D, the only off-grid diesel oven on the market.
Advantages of Diesel Cookers:
- No Gas Required: Eliminate the need for gas supply or gas compliance certification, simplifying your cooking setup.
- Safety First: Diesel cookers operate without a naked flame, minimizing fire hazards and preventing moisture buildup inside your home.
- Energy Efficiency: Using diesel reduces the load on battery and solar systems, making it ideal for off-grid living.
- Single Fuel Source: Easily manage one type of fuel for cooking, heating, and hot water needs.
- Economical Fuel Use: Diesel cookers have very low fuel consumption rates, averaging under 200mL per hour.
- Stylish and Easy to Clean: The sleek glass tops not only enhance your kitchen’s aesthetic but are also simple to wipe down after use.
- Integrated Air Heating: Some diesel cookers offer optional integrated air heating, saving valuable space in a very small tiny.
- Warranty: Enjoy peace of mind with a 3-year warranty on all diesel cookers.
Diesel cookers have a slower initial response time than gas or induction. One option that works really well is to have a small bench-top portable induction plate to use for quick kettle boils and small fast meals.
These can be powered by a modest solar system. Match this with a diesel cooktop for longer, slower cooking like curries, roasts, stews, etc. When longer cooking times would place a strain on solar batteries, the more consistent heat of diesel really works well.
Still unsure? We’re passionate about providing the best diesel solutions and would love to chat about which system would work best for you! You can contact us or see here for more product information.
