hi there welcome to my channel where I take you on tours of unique homes and showcase stories
of people living alternatively in today's episode we're going to take a tour of one
Canadian couple's Overlander tiny home which they built themselves out of an old oil rig
they built this home on Wheels to prioritize their overall health and gain new experiences [Music]
we wanted to design a space that didn't feel so tiny we were looking for something that
was practical and utilitarian very functional but perhaps the most interesting fact is that
their main goal while traveling all over is to learn how to slow down if you like videos like
this one where we showcase alternative Lifestyles make sure that you subscribe
and hit that notification Bell so that you know every single time we publish a new video [Music]
hi I'm Rob and I'm Karen and welcome to Big Ruth
[Music]
the reason why we chose to do this lifestyle is we got tired of paying high property taxes we got
tired of paying high utility bills we stepped off the hamster wheel so to speak we're getting older
and we want to see some more of the sites and build more experiences than just being in one spot
all the time because we were working seasonally mostly in the Summers lots of times we would come
South and traveled around in our old motorhome we decided that we wanted a more capable vehicle
that we could go off good traveling so we decided we would build something like this I went on the
search for the truck in Calgary it was a oil field truck gutted the inside out we re-insulated and
refurbed everything we could pretty much built it on our driveway at our home in in Alberta I
would have to say we had a few heated moments of discussion building that because you know myself
being a mechanic and Karen being a machinist you know we have some good ideas but we got into it a
little bit and finally we figured it out and and it works great we paid thirty thousand dollars
for it from there we put another twenty five thousand into it in August uh 2022 we set sail
anchors away so we said we've been on the road for about six months now and loving every minute
[Music]
welcome to Big Ruth it's a 1998 4800 International it's all-wheel drive it's 12 foot high
and it's 26 foot long from tip to tail eight foot wide and it is 2200 pounds as it sits right
now when we purchased it only had 63 000 original miles on it the engine had a lot of hours because
it idled a lot so we did an in-frame on the engine we did it myself because I'm a mechanic
turned my wife into a diesel engine mechanic that at the same time Casino knows how to do it and uh
We're Off to the Races life is good this is the adventure on rrev our our EV stands for Rat Race
Escape vehicle which is what we're about we're escaping the rat race obviously being 4x4 it's
lifted ground clearance is no issue for us we just go we don't really think too much about it
one of the things people might think is that oh they'll knock their step off but
the Step is rubber so it's going to move it's tough It's Made for going off-road
this truck is equipped with two 50 gallon tanks there's one on this side and one on the other side
and we get about five to six miles per gallon on a good day if we're going downhill it's obviously
a little better if we're going uphill it's quite a bit worse but hey we're traveling and that's
what it's about so this is our portable pellet wood stove for cooking pizzas the
reason we have it is we owned a wood fired pizza business for four years back in Alberta we love
to make wood-fired pizza when we're on the road cooking up some pizza and enjoying the good life
[Music] so this is uh the pull out step that we built it just breaks down and folds up and we
put it in our storage box and it comes off really easily a lot of people will
purchase stairs and they'll have stairs that basically come out and straight down they're
very easy to fall off a lot of them don't have railings so we decided that we would
go with our own Design This is basically how it works you just uh pull your latches off
and fold it in like this and away she goes
and we just latch it up another thing that we did
was we have our handrail just comes off and on for traveling [Music]
welcome to inside big Ruth we wanted to design a space that didn't feel so tiny even though
it's tiny we were looking for something that was practical and utilitarian very functional
so in our kitchen here we wanted lots of counter space so Rob made that happen for me it was quite
a discussion on the sink because he was looking at several other ones that weren't what I wanted
so I got the Deep sink and I love it I'm really happy we got this one so because we don't have
a bathroom sink this is also comes our bathroom sink where we brush our teeth and wash our face
and so on and so this is our bathroom cabinet so it's it works really well here we have the
mirror except when I'm trying to cook and Rob wants to brush his teeth we kind of cross each
other but you know it is what it is it's a small space on demand hot water propane we have our
max air fan just above it so we have bins in our kitchen that are easy they just pull out the bin
and your dishes are there or your groceries are there you can see what you have you can
shuffle them around if you want to and you don't lose anything in the back of that big cupboard
you're always losing the things in the back of the big cupboard here we don't have that problem
if I was going to do one thing differently I would have a little bit more space for the totes I would
like to have at least two more totes you just find that there's always those little kitchen
gadgets that you just want to take with you that you're kind of lost without and I'd like to have a
little more space for those types of things this is just a residential fridge we're really happy
with it the solar Works to keep it going we are big eaters we eat lots so for lunch today we're
going to have wood fired pizza we love making pizza we did it for a living for five years in
a trailer and it was a lot of fun so we make our door from scratch and we're going to be putting
some vegetables and some sauces on it and some fresh tomato and we're really looking forward
to that I will make the pizza and then I pass it on to Rob and he cooks it up and it's delicious
[Music]
beyond the kitchen area is our shower so this is our recirculating shower so we can be in here for
a long time as long as you got propane for the hot water we just keep showering we design these hooks
on the ceiling so that we can hang our towels like that it just makes it so much easier than
trying to find a place to put a towel rack to dry a towel so because we can hang all kinds of things
up here so it's it's very practical so when we designed our storage in the bathroom Rob was
very creative he he's kind of comical a little bit he's got little bins that says shaving and
two fees lotions and Potions eye lobes and ear balls and and pardon this bumholio box
and after that I guess we'll go to the toilet chose to go with the macerator toilet a lot
of people do composting but we decided to do the macerator the macerator toilet is like a
carburetor it chews everything up and shoots it down a hose and into the black tank beside
the bathroom here we have our storage bins here in most of our clothes and towels and
then beside that we do have some hanging space here and a boot rack all our other clothes are
pretty much in here I don't have anything that I have to iron because that's not how we live
this area back here is where we eat and do desk work that type of thing
past that is our television entertainment system Rob decided he had to have a sound bar over top of
our little TV so we can hear it and it swivels back and forth this is actually a game table
so it actually pulls out so we can sit across from each other to play a game because Rob cheats
so I have to make sure that he's across for me so that you know I make sure he's not cheating
so you're going to wonder what these things are on the wall these are cushions that we made so
our bed comes down and sits on the table because the bed is away from the wall these will come out
and that's where we those are our backrests for when we're watching television or reading
a book because our bed sits up so high we keep our step stool up here with our pillows
it's the best way to store them bring down our little step stool for the night
and so when the bed is down you can climb up into it the queen size mattress is where we
started because that's the figure this best size for for our space and so we did that and then we
bought the steel and we built the frame because the frame had to be strong enough for the winch
to pull it up and down so it had to have a lot of strength it's an ATV winch that we
use and we had to design it so it was perfectly balanced so it brings up both sides at the same
time and back down at the same time so we have a button here and I just push on the button
now it's a totally different room ta-da very very comfortable [Music]
all right and these are just some uh under truck storage boxes here and this is uh just
the access door to more storage and we have our water tanks in underneath our
bed we have a 78 gallon fresh water tank a 35 gallon black tank and a 35 gallon gray tank
and then we have because of our recirculating and shower we have a 15 gallon recirculating
shower water tank and they're sufficient for us we can usually go about two weeks
if we manage our water consumption and then the next thing here is our beautiful
hummingbird feeder that we enjoy and we love this thing because uh brings lots of friends
our way we may have one coming in here right now and there it is he's coming in
so on the back of the truck here you'll notice this is a a tow bar we use this to tow our toad
which we have some other things in and that we carry our e-bikes in the back of and we
also have a small boat on our toad up on the back as well we have the box here you see is a
window air conditioner cools this thing off like a freezer inside and very efficient and runs off
our solar and our solar on the roof we actually have 1200 watts of solar panels we also have on
the top a small omnidirectional antenna that we get our internet from on a Wi-Fi hotspot [Music]
okay now we're on the driver's side of the truck and uh basic water fill that's it there our
propane tanks we built our own frame and rack here we have three actually bottles we have
two on the truck all the time and one spare our propane runs are on-demand water heater
and our propex furnace to heat the unit inside this is our Sewer Dump because
this unit we built to be in really cold weather the only thing that's Exposed on
the outside of this truck is that drain right there everything else is inside
and then the cab of the truck some of the things we did in the cab when we bought this truck it
had a bench seat in it and we changed it out and we put air ride seats in and we did a few
more Little Creature Comforts and stuff we put a few extra bags and things to hang stuff on the
dash we have our backup camera we also because we traveled in Canada a lot on forestry roads
and stuff we have a two-way radio that we can radio back and forth on forestry roads
and such it's really a comfortable ride in the front of this truck you ready yeah go for it
[Music]
since we've started living like this it's really changed our stress level it's way better for
our health we are more active now because we are living in a small space we spend more time outside
having just a very small footprint now compared to what we were before has really made our life
better we're actually seeing things and noticing things and have the time to experience things and
and that's really what we're about right now is we're interested in making experiences [Music]
thanks for watching this week's video I hope you guys enjoyed it please make sure to like
share and subscribe and I will see you soon with another tiny or unique home tour
[Music] thank you