A 22-foot tiny house featured by New Atlas brings several off-grid systems together: roof-mounted solar, eight batteries, a 70-gallon fresh-water tank, a wood burner and a composting toilet. It is a useful example of compact independence, but the report leaves out key specifications—including the solar array’s rating and the batteries’ capacity—so it is not a ready-made design for other sites.
What the 22-foot house includes
New Atlas reports that Davis’s MitchCraft Tiny Homes house is 22 feet long. Its roof-mounted solar panels feed a bank of eight batteries, which the report says help keep power available on cloudy days. It does not identify the panel wattage, battery chemistry or storage capacity, so the number of batteries alone cannot establish how much energy the system can supply or how long it can operate without sun.
The reported interior equipment includes:
- A wood burner for heat.
- A small two-burner stove and a refrigerator.
- A washer/dryer.
- A composting toilet.
The report does not say which appliances are electrically powered, what fuels the stove, or how the home handles wastewater. Those details matter: an appliance list is not the same as a verified electrical load plan.
How the water and waste systems are described
The house reportedly carries a 70-gallon (264-liter) fresh-water tank, with a pump beneath the living-room seating. New Atlas does not specify the tank’s refill source, water treatment, pump model, freeze protection or the route for greywater. The composting toilet is identified, but its handling and servicing arrangements are not described.
Those omissions do not mean the systems are absent; they mean the report does not establish how they are implemented. Anyone adapting the concept would need to resolve water supply, safe storage and treatment, greywater disposal, toilet servicing and cold-weather operation for the actual site and applicable rules.
Why the number of batteries is not a sizing guide
Battery count does not reveal usable storage: battery capacity, chemistry, system voltage, inverter losses and the permitted depth of discharge all affect what a bank can deliver. Likewise, a panel count cannot answer whether a system will cover a home’s demand through cloudy weather or winter. Design starts with the loads and conditions, not with copying the featured house’s eight batteries.
A separate Australian installation offers a more fully specified example, but it is not the MitchCraft house. Off-Grid Energy Australia describes The Brook, installed in Victoria in August 2020, as using a 2.97 kW Trina Solar array, 7.7 kWh of BYD battery storage, a Victron 48/5000 inverter/charger and an MPPT controller. The installer reports daily demand of 4.61 kWh in summer and 4.13 kWh in winter for that home.
| Example | Reported power details | What the figures establish |
|---|---|---|
| Davis’s MitchCraft tiny house | Roof solar and eight batteries; panel rating, battery capacity and chemistry not stated by New Atlas. | The report describes a system, but not enough detail to calculate its output or autonomy. |
| The Brook, Victoria | 2.97 kW solar array; 7.7 kWh battery bank; 4.61 kWh/day summer demand and 4.13 kWh/day winter demand, as reported by Off-Grid Energy Australia for its installation. | A documented case for one home and location, not a universal sizing formula. |
The Brook installer identifies budget and available space as design constraints and says efficiency improvements reduced the required array and battery footprint. Its Australian system and reported demand should not be transferred directly to a different climate, home, building code or household routine.
What to establish before designing a similar build
Use a site-specific design rather than a panel or battery count borrowed from a feature story. The critical inputs include:
- Energy demand: List each electrical load, its power draw, operating time and whether it runs daily or occasionally. Account for peak loads as well as daily energy use.
- Solar conditions: Assess seasonal sunlight, roof orientation, shading and local weather, especially during the period when generation is lowest.
- Storage and backup: Choose usable battery capacity and desired days of autonomy, then decide what backup arrangement is practical if generation falls short.
- Space and installation: Check roof area, equipment weight, ventilation and clearances, wiring routes and the space needed for batteries and other equipment.
- Water and sanitation: Specify the refill source, treatment, storage, pump, freeze protection, greywater route and toilet servicing before treating the home as self-sufficient.
For example, a washer/dryer may be a substantial load, but the New Atlas report does not say whether this unit is electric or how often it is used. A designer cannot responsibly count it as either a daily electrical load or no electrical load without the actual appliance and operating plan.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How far “off-grid” goes
Off-grid can describe one utility rather than total independence. A house may generate its own electricity yet rely on delivered fuel, hauled or delivered water, external waste services, internet access or backup infrastructure. The MitchCraft report supports claims about its listed systems, not a conclusion that every service is independent of outside supply.
Separate examples illustrate how different the boundary can be: a Häuslein customer story describes another home with solar, water, a composting toilet, greywater and Starlink. Those systems belong to that separate project, not to Davis’s MitchCraft build.
What broader tiny-house studies can—and cannot—show
UC Berkeley’s Renewable & Appropriate Energy Laboratory summarized a 2022 study of THIMBY, an 18.5 m² off-grid tiny house. The study reports 88% lower site energy use and 96% fewer carbon emissions than a 2,100-square-foot California Energy Commission 2016 Title 24 minimally compliant home. These are study-specific comparisons against that named reference house; they do not predict the savings or emissions of the 22-foot MitchCraft home.
The THIMBY result is useful context for evaluating compact, integrated energy and water design. It is not evidence that a particular solar array, battery bank or water system will perform the same way in another build.
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