Brandon and Sarah built a beautiful off-grid floating tiny house. Previously, they renovated and lived in a much smaller floating cabin. This time around, they got to build their dream home from scratch. The cherry on top: a multi-million dollar view of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park!
As you might imagine, building a floating home has unique challenges. Brandon and Sarah actually built theirs on the water. That makes the weight distribution quite the puzzle. They also built their floating tiny house to a new building standard for those moored on lakes. Theirs is moored in the middle of Lake Fontana in North Carolina. In contrast, floating homes with marina slips are unregulated.
“Floating houses on moorings out in the lake are permitted to be here through whatever entity runs that lake. So there are all kinds of rules on the sizes of them and how the wastewater is dumped. This Lake had something called the Sunset Act, in which the government said all had to be taken off the lake.
In 2016, Obama wrote The Wind Act. It really had nothing to do with us in floating houses, but somehow, we got thrown in at the bottom. It allows us to be on the lakes indefinitely if we meet a new code of regulations to ensure that these are more environmentally friendly and not detrimental to the lake and the watershed.
This is the first floating house that has been built to the Blue Placard Specifications. I worked all the Kinks out with TVA, and TVA is the Tennessee Valley Authority. That’s the power company that owns this lake amongst other lakes where these floating cabins are allowed.
-Brandon & Sarah, Keeping Afloat with the Joneses
Inside Their Beautiful Off-Grid Floating Tiny House
Brandon and Sarah’s floating tiny house is 360 square feet, plus 400 square feet of dock outdoor living space. It’s powered by a lithium solar power system with 1,600 watts of solar panels mounted on the roof and a 4,500-watt EcoFlow Delta Pro power station. But they do have a backup gas generator that gets used occasionally in the winter. The battery system is stowed in a large storage box next to their kitchen. So, it doubles as additional counter space.
The footprint of their floating tiny home is almost perfectly square, 20 feet wide and 18 feet long. It feels much larger thanks to the tall ceiling, 14 feet in the front and 12 feet in the back of the house. While it seems counterintuitive to have the low part of the ceiling over the loft, this was intentional. Brandon and Sarah wanted the highest part to be over the kitchen and living space where spend most of their time. Whereas the loft is only occasionally used because they have a downstairs bedroom.
The placement of windows close to the ceiling in the front and back of the house takes advantage of the natural strong breeze from the cove where their floating tiny home is moored. During the summer, cold air passively blows through, back to front, pushing the heat out of the house. It actually keeps it quite chilly at night. Similarly, a large casement window in their bedroom maximizes the potential to funnel the breeze into the room.
Brandon and Sarah’s floating tiny house bathroom doesn’t skimp on creature comforts. It features a large vanity, a horse-trough bathtub, and a laundry room. Surprisingly, the combo washer/dryer has a very low power draw during the wash cycle—400 to 450 watts. The drying cycle requires 1,500 watts, which can really drain the battery system when less than full sun. Additionally, they have a marine-style flush toilet that collects all waste inside an outdoor holding tank.
