Everything we get asked, written down.
No gated PDFs and no sales call required. If something is missing, ask and we will add it.
Do I need planning permission for a Reflecta?
Far less than for a normal house. It arrives 100% built and factory-inspected, so there is no construction site to permit, only the foundation and hook-ups.
On piers it is assessed as a small dwelling, guest house or ADU, and we supply the stamped structural, electrical and plumbing drawings plus wind and snow calculations. On the trailer chassis it is registered as a movable tiny home, which in most places needs no building permit at all, only local rules on where it can be parked and for how long. A coordinator checks your address before you pay beyond the reservation.
What does the trailer option change?
It turns the home into a movable tiny home on a road-legal steel chassis, registered like a vehicle rather than a building.
That passes most local laws without a building permit and without a foundation, and it means you can move the home to another plot later. It is the fastest route to renting: place it, connect water and power, list it. The chassis adds $12,000 and is available on the Nest and Mirror homes.
Can I rent it out straight away?
Yes. It arrives furnished, plumbed and wired, so it is ready for guests the week it lands.
Short-term rental rules are set locally. Check whether your area needs a rental licence or occupancy tax registration; most owners have both in place before delivery day.
What if I do not own land yet?
Reserve anyway. The refundable deposit holds a production slot while you search, and the slot moves with you if the purchase slips.
Buyers who reserve before buying land tend to shop better, because they already know the access, slope and service requirements to check. Send us a listing and a coordinator will tell you within a day whether a home can physically get onto it.
How does the home actually get to my site?
It is loaded complete into a shipping container at the factory, sailed to your nearest port, trucked to the plot and craned onto its piers in one morning.
You need a road a 12 m truck can travel and firm ground within roughly 20 m of the pad for the crane. Where access is genuinely impossible, homes have been flown in by helicopter, at cost. Customs clearance is handled by a broker we can introduce or one you appoint.
What does delivery cost?
Shipping depends on the size of the home you choose: from $5,000 for the Nest to $10,000 for a Custom. Local trucking, crane and hook-up add $6,000 to $14,000.
Ocean shipping is $5,000 for the Nest, $7,500 for the Mirror Home and $10,000 for a Custom, and the configurator adds it automatically. Locally, budget $1,500 to $4,000 for trucking from port, $2,500 to $5,000 for a crane day and $1,200 to $3,000 for final plumbing and electrical. Trailer homes skip the crane and are towed onto the pad.
What foundation does it sit on?
Galvanised screw piles in most cases, or concrete pads where the ground demands it. No pour, no excavation, no curing time.
Piles go in during a single day with a small machine, and the site is left almost untouched. On rock or deep peat your engineer will specify an alternative, and we adjust the base frame drawings to match at no charge.
Can it be moved later?
Yes. Unbolt the base frame, lift with the same crane, and the piles come out of the ground.
Owners have relocated homes between plots and between countries. It is not free, but the home is designed to be lifted rather than demolished, which is not true of a site-built house.
Can it run fully off-grid?
Yes, with the solar and battery package: a 6 kW array and 20 kWh of storage, plus a rainwater or tank supply and a septic or composting system.
Off-grid works comfortably for two to four people in most climates. Heavy winter loads in northern latitudes usually want a generator or a grid tie as a backstop. We size the system against your location before you order.
How does it perform in cold and heat?
R-32 walls and R-44 roof as standard, with a winter pack adding arctic insulation, triple glazing and heated floors.
Homes are running through Norwegian winters and Middle Eastern summers on the same base specification. The mirrored exterior reflects solar gain rather than absorbing it, which helps more in hot climates than people expect.
Why is it so much cheaper than a site build?
One factory, one crew, one schedule, and no subcontractor margin stacked at every stage.
Site building pays for weather delays, repeated mobilisation, waste and a general contractor taking a percentage of all of it. Building the same house indoors on a line removes roughly two thirds of that. The comparison table on the How it works page breaks the saving down line by line.
Can I finance it?
Some buyers use a mortgage where the home is a permanent dwelling on owned land, others use personal or renovation lending.
Because the home is manufactured off-site, lenders treat it differently from a traditional build. We supply valuations, the specification and the permanence documentation lenders ask for. We do not lend ourselves and we do not take commission from anyone who does.
What is actually refundable?
The deposit, in full, for 30 days. After that it is credited against the balance rather than returned.
The balance falls due only when your home is finished and the container is sealed. If permits fail before production starts, we move your slot or refund at that point rather than holding you to a house you cannot site.
What is it like to live in 28 m²?
Better than the number suggests, because the glass wall borrows the landscape and nothing inside is wasted on circulation.
The honest constraint is storage, not floor area. Couples and single owners settle in quickly; families of four usually want the Custom, with two volumes joined by a connector. Spend a night in one of the hotel sites before deciding.
Do the mirrors hurt birds?
The glazing carries a UV-reflective pattern that birds see and humans do not.
It is standard on every home, not an option. Sites with heavy bird traffic can add a denser pattern at no charge; ask your coordinator when you configure.
How much maintenance does the exterior need?
Wash the glass two to four times a year. There is no paint, no render and no cladding to reseal.
The aluminium trim and steel frame are galvanised and finished for coastal exposure. The ten-year structural warranty assumes normal cleaning and nothing more.
One guide a fortnight, written by the people who build them.
Permits that failed and why, delivery days that went wrong, what a site actually costs. 4,100 owners and land buyers read it.
No sales sequence. Unsubscribe in one click.
Still unanswered?
Send the question to a build coordinator. Replies inside one business day, and the good ones end up on this page.