Is a Tiny Home Right for You?
We can help you turn
your life UpSizeDown
Take a tiny step toward your Dream Home
Let us guide you along our proven process that can help prepare you to live a little better, by enjoying a more meaningful and satisfying life
Just who is a tiny home for?
This process is best travelled if you currently own a home and want out of out the rat race. Or if you just want to get more out of life.
Get more from less
Our luxurious tiny homes cost less. So, your mortgage will be less. Owning one of our beautifully appointed, versatile models can lead to greater financial security, an improved lifestyle with affordable luxury.
Upsize your lifestyle
By downsizing your home and moving into one of our inspiring spaces, you can live more simply. Many of our tiny home owners report benefits in all areas of their life--from their bank account to their relationships.
Downsize and live it up
Downsizing your space doesn't mean sacrificing on luxury, quality, or convenience. Our exceptional designs and our proven processes will help you realize your big dreams for your tiny space.
We make it easy
Recently, opting for a tiny home has become one of the fastest-growing housing trends in North America, New Zealand and Australia. People are turning the idea of happiness and housing on its head - UpSizeDown in fact.
We help you navigate and avoid barriers.
We can help keep you stay within current government guidelines, understand zoning and by-law requirements, and negotiate insurance and financing.
Live your dream.
Simplify
Downsizing means more than just sorting through your physical things and stripping your possessions back to only what you need. You'll want to alter your whole mindset to help make all your tiny home dreams come true.
Educate
We offer a series of workshops that cover everything from finding out how to make it legal on your land to figuring out financing options to understanding the systems in one of our tiny homes. You get the answers to all of these questions.
Design
No element of a tiny house is unimportant or unconsidered. Our team of talented designers will help you go over every detail to make a top-quality, luxury home, filled with the amenities you want, perfectly suited to you.
Build
We've been working in the construction industry for over 20 years and have put together 4 build packages that allow our clients to decide how hands-on they want to be in the construction of their tiny dream home.
Impact
We want to encourage people to think differently about living because we believe in a world where everyone has access to affordable housing and a better quality of living. We hope to make a difference, both in the immediate lives of our clients and also in the world as a whole. A tiny home isn't just something you're buying - it's something your doing!
A tiny home isn't just something you're buying..
it's something you're DOING!
Today's housing market.
With the pandemic, 50 000 people have left the city and moved to the outlying areas, making housing prices in the entire Golden Horseshoe astronomically high. Our state-of-the-art tiny houses are an affordable, accessible alternative.
Forget Keeping up with the Joneses!
For years everyone's believed "the more you have, the happier you'll be." But that's not true, so it's time to change that pattern and live a more fulfilling life. Affordable luxury is yours to enjoy.
Change the rules, get ahead.
If you change the rules of the game you'll be able to live the uncompromising life you want. So go ahead. Live life better!
Why Us?
We're the only home builder in North America that doesn't just build a structure and then send you on your way. We help you every step of the way: from the intricacies of design to quality construction to moving into and living your upscale life in your tiny dream home.
Our workshops are revolutionary because nothing else teaches you how to negotiate the obstacles you might face moving to your own stunning home.
Are You Ready?
Maybe you have a property lined up to place your tiny home on, or maybe you know which municipality you want to live in. Maybe you've looked at your budget and have decided if you need financing.
If you want to move to your tiny home within the year join our next webinar to learn what you need to do to reach your goal without wasting any time. (You have to take the quiz to get invited to the webinar.)
Tiny Homes, Big Changes.
We're making positive changes.
We want to use what we're good at to make change where we can. We believe in giving back, especially in this time of global confusion, need and change.
The UN's Sustainable development goals.
In 2015 the UN developed sustainable development goals, which were adopted by 193 countries. These goals aim at decreasing poverty and disease and drastically reducing climate change by 2030. It's a framework we follow to help make a positive difference in the world.
No Poverty.
We've connected with several organizations around providing housing for the needy. These include Creating Roots for Former Foster Youth, and a great collaboration with Habitat for Humanity HMD.
Life Below Water.
Dan loves the sea and wants to keep it healthy and clean, so we've partnered with 4Ocean. You can learn more at 4Ocean.com
No one else pays attention to these details.
Not only will we help you figure out how to make it happen, we'll build you a luxury tiny home that's perfectly designed to suit you.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do True North Tiny Homes cost?
A home ready for a Canadian winter with proper amenities can be around $125,000. The price will depend on size and options chosen. For example, making it off-grid capable adds about $15,000 to the price of the home. Building the tiny house out out of steel studding (to make it lighter and able to be pulled by smaller vehicle) adds about $10,000.
How do you keep the tiny house warm/cold?
We have a wall-mounted ductless mini-split that does our heating, and our cooling with the help of an air conditioning condenser unit mounted to the front of the home.
What materials do you use to make the tiny house lighter?
The fastest way to cut down on weight is to build out of steel studding instead of wood. However, this vastly limits the structural capabilities, and also conduct cold. There are many other ways to be weight conscious throughout the build. Putting studs on 24” centres to minimize the amount of wood framing is one idea. We had the shiplap for the walls planed down 1/8” thinner, which doesn’t seem like a lot, but saved 700 lbs on the entire weight.
On our model, we also used a Shou Sugi Ban siding, which is the ancient Japanese art of preserving wood by burning it. Another upside to this is that burning removes all the moisture in the wood, thereby making it weigh half as much. Of course, if the weight of the siding were the biggest concern, a commercial steel siding is your best bet.
How would you downsize your things enough to fit into a tiny house?
This is about living with what you need, and not with a lot of extra things. We have partners that will help you organize and get rid of the things that you don’t need.
How can you make the tiny house off grid?
Our model home has solar panels, a bank of batteries, water tanks, and a composting toilet.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of foundation vs. trailer tiny homes and how do the costs differ?
Actually, the cost will be very similar. The advantage to a foundation, however, is that you can build it square instead of long and skinny. Of course, the advantage of a trailer is that if you don’t like the neighbours, you can move!
Can you have a woodstove or fireplace?
Yes. Anything that you can have in a large home, you can also have in a tiny home. It comes down what you want included.
While we don’t have all glass homes (think of the curtains!), the average width of the windows in our model home is 60”, We have more glass area in our tiny home than most 1960’s bungalows have in a footprint that’s five times the size.
Could we have a home built with glass walls to see everything around us?
Where is the bathroom? What are the bathroom options? Can I have a bathtub?
The bathroom can be wherever you want. For a trailer unit, having a bathtub would simply mean the unit would be two feet longer. However, since it takes a lot of water to fill a tub, you would not be able to make this home completely off grid.
What are the different ways to construct a tiny house to incorporate the buyers needs? How about if a buyer is a tall man?
The model home we are building, The Millenial, has been designed to feel as big as possible. The living room has 11’ ceilings, the kitchen 8’, and the bathroom 6’-4”. The loft is four-feet, five inches high which feels spacious. At True North Tiny Homes, every trailer will be unique, and built to the needs and wants of the individual buyer - from specific layout to the number of beds to the types of finishes.
How do you maintain the tiny house, especially the roof?
We have opted for a galvanized steel roof for The Millenial. Our roof top patio is covered with Duradek. Both surfaces will last 30-50 years. Other than that, maintaining or renovating is very similar to a regular house.
What are the cooking options? Fire? Gas? Electric?
If you are building a permanent tiny home on a foundation, then the options are whatever the main house of the property has, since zoning by-laws will require you to connect to city services through the main house. On a trailer, you can’t hook up to natural gas, but you can convert everything to propane. What isn’t propane, you make electric, which can be run from renewable sources such as wind and solar.
What about solar? How would you have solar connected through the house?
There are different ways to do it. We have opted to have the solar charge the 12V batteries, which then run through a converter to 115V, and can then run everything that you can plug into a regular house outlet.
What kind of truck do you need to tow the tiny house?
This will depend on the final weight of your specific trailer, but you can assume you will need at least a 3/4 ton truck. For best performance, we are choosing to pull this one with a one ton dual wheel diesel pickup truck. The extra width on the wheels will give us better stability on the road.
How heavy is a tiny house?
For a typical 24’ long trailered tiny home, you are looking at an average of 12,000 lbs. Again, this depends on many things including overall length, how much tile was used, what other sorts of finishes were used, etc.
Is it legal to live in a tiny home year round?
It is legal to live in a tiny house year round in many states, BC and Alberta, and even some Atlantic provinces. Currently, it is not legal in Ontario but individual municipalities are stepping up to change their bylaws to allow year-round use.
The city of Hamilton, for example, is investigating changing its legislation to permit trailered tiny homes in sections of the city to ease the city’s shortage of affordable housing.
Municipal governments in places such as Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Stony Plain Alberta , Keewatin, Ontario, Whitehorse, Yukon and Nanaimo, British Columbia have modified their bylaws to allow tiny homes and more communities are coming on line all the time.
Still have questions? Apply now and get the link to our next webinar!
Follow Along.
