The Build
An off-grid container home, owner-built
Two 40 ft high-cube containers on concrete pillars, on about five acres in Cochise County, Arizona, built under the county's owner-builder permit. This page is the current state of every system in the house. Anything marked [VERIFY: like this] is a number I have not confirmed yet and will not guess at.
Current stage: [VERIFY: where the build stands today]
The site
About five acres of RU-4 zoned land in Cochise County, Arizona, with no utility connection. Everything the house uses is generated, hauled or stored on the parcel. I do not publish the address.
- Parcel
- ~5 acres, RU-4 zoning, Cochise County, AZ
- Utilities
- None at the lot line. Off-grid power, hauled water, septic, propane.
- Elevation
- [VERIFY: site elevation in feet]
The permit
The house is going up under the Cochise County owner-builder opt-out permit, which lets an owner build their own residence without a general contractor. The pole barn and chicken coop and the ground-mount solar array each needed their own accessory-structure permit.
- Residence
- Cochise County owner-builder opt-out permit; no general contractor
- Accessory structures
- Separate permits for the pole barn/coop and the ground-mount solar array
- Inspections to date
- [VERIFY: which inspections have been passed]
The structure
Two 40 ft high-cube shipping containers set side by side for a 16 ft by 40 ft footprint, resting on concrete pillars roughly two feet off the ground. Steel sweats and conducts heat, so the insulation plan is a closed-cell foam layer bonded to the steel with Rockwool batts in front of it, and the roof is coated with a white silicone.
- Shell
- Two 40 ft high-cube containers, side by side (16 ft × 40 ft)
- Foundation
- Concrete pillars, ~2 ft above grade
- Insulation
- 1" closed-cell spray foam on the steel, then Rockwool batts
- Roof
- Henry Tropi-Cool silicone roof coating
- Interior area
- [VERIFY: finished square footage]
Power
A ground-mount solar array built in 2022 feeds two EG4 3000EHV-48 inverters running in parallel. The system is 120 V only, landing in an Eaton BR load center. Storage is server-rack LiFePO4, mostly Eco-Worthy units plus one of another brand. Monitoring runs through Solar Assistant, which talks to the older 3000EHV-48 revision over its RS232/RS485 ports. All of it lives in a utility shed under 200 square feet.
- Array
- Ground mount, built 2022. [VERIFY: panel count, panel wattage, total kW]
- Inverters
- Two EG4 3000EHV-48 in parallel, 120 V only
- Distribution
- Eaton BR panel
- Batteries
- Eco-Worthy server-rack LiFePO4 plus one other brand. [VERIFY: count and total kWh]
- Monitoring
- Solar Assistant via RS232/RS485 (older 3000EHV-48 ports)
- Equipment room
- Utility shed, under 200 sq ft
Cooling
Southern Arizona summers are the hard case for an off-grid house made of steel. Cooling is a single EG4 12k BTU hybrid mini split.
- Unit
- EG4 12k BTU hybrid mini split
- Measured draw
- [VERIFY: watts at steady state on a summer afternoon]
Water and waste
There is no well. Water is hauled in and stored in a tank, pressurized by a SEAFLO 55-series 12 V pump with a pressure tank, and run through whole-house filtration. Waste goes to a septic system. A gray-water diverter for the washing machine is planned.
- Source
- Hauled water into a storage tank. [VERIFY: tank capacity in gallons]
- Pressure
- SEAFLO 55-series 12 V pump + pressure tank
- Treatment
- Whole-house filtration
- Waste
- Septic system
- Planned
- Gray-water diverter on the washer
Hot water
Heating water with electricity is a poor trade on a battery system. Hot water here is propane: a Rinnai REP160eP outdoor tankless unit, fed from 100 lb cylinders to start, with a 330 gallon tank planned.
- Heater
- Rinnai REP160eP outdoor propane tankless
- Propane
- 100 lb cylinders initially; 330 gal tank later
Connectivity
Working remotely from here depends on a connection the land does not come with. The hardware and measured results belong in the connectivity articles; the summary goes here once confirmed.
- Current link
- [VERIFY: provider, hardware, measured down/up and latency]
- Backup
- [VERIFY: backup connection, if any]
Build articles
All building articles →No build articles published yet. The specs above are the current source of truth.