Build your own flat-pack tiny house like we saw on The Block 2022

The American-style tiny house concept – a small house built on wheels – could never become popular in Australia because rules are different between the two countries. So, Backyard Pods are the equivalent of the American tiny house. As we’ve seen on TV over the final weeks of The Block 2022, the best way to get a tiny house in Australia is by using an Australian-made flatpack tiny house building kit.

Many people, when first exploring the idea of getting a tiny house, will do some research into buying secondhand shipping containers and converting these to suit their needs. The price of secondhand shipping containers can look attractive for starters, but shipping containers aren’t suitable for certification as a building that you could live in (eg: a tiny house) without extensive modifications and compromises. Put simply, shipping containers are fantastic for providing strong, waterproof, stackable, transportable storage spaces as originally intended, but they’re not easily converted for habitation. In fact, some councils specify that shipping containers cannot be used in place of a shed, let alone as a house!

Prefabs are fantastic because the entire tiny house is delivered complete, ready for anchoring to foundations and connection to plumbing, electricity, etc. However, there are issues with prefab tiny houses in some areas due to transport limitations (eg: the height of overhead bridges, trees, power lines, etc, en route) and often with coordinating certification. Modulars are another option but again, not every site can have them, and some are timber-framed whereas steel-framed is generally more desirable these days.

Flatpack kits are ideal for people wanting a tiny house. Flatpack tiny houses are suitable for virtually any site, and almost every location in VIC, NSW, ACT, and QLD (except for northern Queensland, where only our cyclone-rated prefabs are used).