Ottawa's Northern Nomad Tiny Home 

Like many student tiny home projects, the Northern Nomad is the brainchild of the students themselves. A group of five engineering students designed a mobile, net-zero energy tiny home for their senior capstone project. Under the direction of Professor Scott Bucking, Northern Nomad’s project supervisor, they were able to create a genuinely buildable design.

Stemming from a desire to study building performance and incentivize learning, Professor Bucking and one of the original students decided to make the design a reality. Through assembling a construction crew with an interdisciplinary team of engineering students, and fundraising and partnerships with over 30 industry sponsors, they were able to create the tiny home deemed the Northern Nomad.

Why a tiny home? 

Before jumping into the design details of the Northern Nomad, it is imperative to share the goal of the project: to collect data on home performance. The team wanted to examine various building technologies, such as building-integrated photovoltaics, and gather data on how they perform. In short, they wanted a testbed for building research.

A tiny home was a viable option because it could be built within a relatively short amount of time, be mobile, and did not require a permit to build. In addition, tiny home design is a trending concept, so it was appealing to the students and various stakeholders of the project.

A tiny home for the North 

What sets this tiny home apart from many others is that it was built to withstand a frigid climate. The tiny home movement has seen a rise in popularity worldwide, most notably in the United States. In recent years, Canada has witnessed an increase of interest in tiny homes, and groups like the Tiny Town Association have been created.

For the team to build a tiny home in a place like Canada (let alone a net-zero energy tiny home), specific measures need to be put in place to ensure it can perform optimally. Weather is an especially important factor when trying to design a net-zero energy home since much energy is spent to fight against the local climate and condition the interior space.

For a mobile home, in particular, there is a greater surface area to insulate since it is elevated off of the ground. For tiny houses on wheels (THOWs), there is more surface area where air can infiltrate into the interior space, which can have a significant impact in terms of energy. This challenge makes tiny homes arguably more difficult to well-insulate than larger homes.

A distinguishing design feature of the Northern Nomad is the use of vacuum insulated panels (VIPs). While not typically used in traditional architecture, the team wanted to incorporate VIPs to research the correlation between their lifespan and common issues with this material, such as fluctuation in moisture levels. Commonly used for industrial refrigerator lining, VIPs are not a conventional insulation type. However, a single inch of vacuum insulated panel can provide an R-value of R-25 or more-- much higher than traditional insulations. With the combination of VIPs and spray foam insulation, the team was able to achieve an R-value of R-37 in just a 2x4 wall.

What’s next for the Northern Nomad? 

The Northern Nomad is currently situated on Carleton University’s campus and is officially in the research phase. Students are testing new technology and collecting data to determine which design features are best suited for Canada’s harsh climate.

There are multiple plans for the future of the Northern Nomad project. Data collection and research will continue on a variety of subjects ranging from energy recovery ventilation to atmospheric water generation.

The team is switching gears and fundraising to build a second tiny home: Tiny 2.0. They hope to design and build two (or more) tiny homes to examine the network of houses. The main goal will be to form a resilient, micro-grid network where homes can work together to achieve grid-independence. The idea is for the homes to generate power when the sun is up, store power in a storage system, and if one house runs out of power throughout the night, another house can power it.

To take this a step forward, the team is interested in employing this network in a local indigenous community that is is the first indigenous community to have a solar micro-grid installed.

We’re excited to continue this series on tiny homes designed and built by students. The design/build process allows students to put theory into practice and to learn construction skills as they complete a small-scale home. Thus far in the series, we’ve explored tiny home projects at Appalachian State University, Auburn University, Western Washington University, and Temple University. These projects show how people with little or no experience can build a tiny home.