Rimu
Regular price$299,999.00 Sale priceBeautifully crafted. Environmentally conscious.
Make the most of your slice of paradise with our Rimu cabin, the perfect base for your small home, bach, or maybe to share that tranquility with others for a passive income.
The Rimu is a spacious and fully self-contained, energy-efficient one-bedroom cabin with optional loft space, it has a stunning sustainably sourced or reclaimed timber gable area, birch ply interior linings, a tiled bathroom with rainfall shower, and a high-quality kitchen with stone benchtop that completes the look.
Created with care and fully finished inside our Cromwell facility, built with the Arbol Difference. Based on European low-energy use construction methods and materials, we go well beyond the legal minimums of NZ building code. This gives you an abode that features 40% more insulation, uPVC window joinery, and a fresh air heat recovery ventilation system, for a living environment that is comfier, healthier, cheaper to run, and requires less ongoing maintenance.
$299,000 including GST - fully finished and ready for delivery from our facility.
Additional costs are transport, foundations, on-site service connections, on-site consent. Allow from $50,000 including GST.
Learn about the process to your new home: Our Process
See our previously completed projects: Arbol In The Wild
Hear what our clients have to say: Testimonials
Rimu included finish & specification
Cladding
Interior
Kitchen
Reclaimed and sustainably sourced hardwood timbers from Australia create a stunning and easy to maintain gable area.
Spotted Gum is our preferred species for it's beautiful details and colour.
200,000 power poles are removed annually in Australia, one reclaimed pole is enough timber to clad the gable area.
To complement our timber features we utilise ColorCote iron walls and roofing. This brand offers incredible durability in all climates of New Zealand, whether that's the harsh summers or freezing cold of Central Otago, or the salty beach side of the Coromandel.
You have a choice of two different pattern options
and five different colours:
Trim Rib or Corrugate profile in: Flax Pod, Karaka, Grey Friars, Slate, Lichen finish.
Have your choice of stunning birch ply ceilings and walls, or a combination of GIB plaster and environmentally friendly paint.
Pine or white trims.
The negative detail shown is an optional upgrade.
Rigid core flooring eliminates the need for toxic glues, it is waterproof, easy to clean and is child and pet friendly.
Bedroom & loft feature high quality New Zealand wool carpets.
Function, durability and aesthetics all work together to create harmony.
Great selection of joinery colours available, with soft close hardware.
Engineered high quality stone benchtop.
L & breakfast bar additional cost.
Bathroom
Laundry
Loft (Optional)
Elegantly tiled shower, bathroom floor, and skirting.
Shower slide with rain fall head for that luxurious feeling shower experience.
Wall hung vanity with two large draws with your choice of light timer, white or black finish.
Standard flushing toilet (not shown) or you can go the extra mile towards sustainability and upgrade to an incinerating toilet
Sleek and elegant tapware in your choice of black, gun metal, chrome or brass finish.
Two vertical heated towel rails to give you that warm, dry towel every time you get out of the shower.
Space & service allocation for washer and dryer to complete the household necessities.
Perfect space for the children, overnight guests or purely just a spot for extra storage - the choice is yours!
Includes balustrade above kitchen area for safety - made from vertical pine slats. This is partially removable so you can get larger items into the loft including a double mattress for your guests.
$10,000 upgrade price.
Lights, power plugs, ladder and finished floor included.
Bedroom
Wardrobe
Windows
Open ceiling for a large spacious feel
Ample room for a king size bed
Fit out as shown with doors included painted to your choice of colours
uPVC joinery with your choice of black or white finish and pine reveals Additional options available at
an extra cost
Lightbridge 1.1 Low-E double glazing.
See building plans further down the page for windows included in your build.
* Triple glazing available on request.
Appliances
Lighting & Electrical
Hot Water
Full size oven with airfry function
2-burner induction cooktop (or gas).
Legrand switch gear in black or white with ample power sockets including a selection with multifunction charging ports.
Energy efficient New Zealand made LED downlights throughout living room, bedroom, loft and entry gable.
Soft floor lighting with sensors for the hallway and bathroom.
Soft LED strip under vanity, shower niche, and under kitchen cabinet.
Proulx exterior lights with sensor.
All builds include a gas on-demand califont hotwater system.
Stiebel Eltron externally mounted Hotwater heatpump cylinders are available as an optional extra.
Heating & Cooling
Thanks to our low-energy use construction methods and materials the Rimu requires very little energy to heat or cool.
We include a small 2.5kW Heatpump to set the ambient temperature - our structure and MVHR do the leg work to retain the heat or cool depending on the season.
By the numbers
Size: Coming soon.
Floor area: Coming soon.
Height: Coming soon.
Bedrooms: 1
Optional Loft: Coming soon.
Bathroom: 1
Optional upgrades (costs vary)
Head off grid with solar, greywater, and an incinerating toilet.
Full timber cladding, not a problem!
We can offer LMA or Abodo cladding for all walls.
Bigger Kitchen? The Rimu kitchen is also available in L or breakfast configuration.
Timber floors? Certainly we can offer LMA or Forte engineered timber flooring.
Triple glazing, sure thing we have options for triple glazing and timber window joinery.
The Arbol Difference
NZSIP
uPVC Joinery
Continuous Fresh Air
For our Rimu model we use Structurally Insulated Panels (SIPS) for our primary construction, so you get the highest insulation and airtightness for a comfier, healthier, cheaper to run & maintain home.
R7 Floor
R4.4 Walls
R7 Ceiling
Less than 1 ACH (air change per hour)
Heat recovery up to 90%
Compare this to a Building Code legal minimum new home. (Latest H1 2023 Standard)
R2.5 Floor
R2 Walls
R6.6 Ceiling
6 ACH (air change per hour)
Heat recovery 0%
These panels are built to stand the test of time are BRANZ appraised and manufactured locally in Cromwell by NZSIP.
You can learn more about the Árbol difference here.
Unlike Aluminum, uPVC joinery is extremely thermally efficient. So you won't have crying windows and cold drafts.
They are UV resistant, won’t rot, corrode, or rust.
Feature European tilt & turn opening for security and ventilation.
Have great seals & locking cams for fantastic airtightness – resulting in less heat loss.
Require very little maintenance and are easy to clean.
LOW-E Lightbridge Argon filled double glazed glass completes the package by reflecting harmful UV light and reducing over heating in the summer months.
Contain up to 70% recycled materials.
Our Meltem M-WRG-II crossflow Mechanical Ventilation Heat Recovery system (MVHR) completes your high-performance home by continuously removing moisture and stale air, while returning fresh filtered air.
Best of all, the system recovers up to 90% of heat from the exhaust cycle (this includes heat created by showering & cooking) and returns it to the living environment.
The system is always on, very quiet and consumes almost no power as it only uses a small fan to circulate the air.
See our previous cabin builds below and learn more about these projects at
Prefabricated
Trusted Brand
Environmental Responsibility
Your abode is fully finished in our facility before delivery to you. That includes all plaster, paint and tiling.
Why? In one word - Efficiency.
Would Toyota build your car in your front yard?
Traditional on-site building is plagued with cost over runs, delays, additional waste, noise, and wasted time.
We work from a controlled environment:
75% of our builds are inside - so our team and your dwelling are not exposed to the elements - wind, rain, snow, and the sun = no more weather delays.
Security - all our materials and tools are safely stored inside our fenced, locked and constantly under video surveillance premises. This means our team can start and end the day quickly, no more carrying tools back and forth, everything is charged and ready to go. Materials are stored in our racking for quick access, and plenty of fixed lighting makes for a pleasant work environment during the short days of winter.
Reduced travel - one site for dwelling construction, no back and forth.
We are here to monitor all trade work, insuring high quality finish for you.
We don't take shortcuts, there is no "she'll be right" attitude at Árbol, we always strive for the best.
All our dwellings are inspected and fully consented by Central Otago District Council, so you can be certain your most important asset is legal and insurable.
We do our utmost to insure a smooth and fair transaction for all parties.
Our contracts are balanced and payment terms-based on procurement of materials, technical reports and work completed.
We have delivered 20 homes since 2022 - from Tutukaka at the top of the North Island to Seddonville on the South Islands West Coast.
We started our 24th build in August 2024.
We are not just renders, concepts and ideas on paper, but solid tangible products that have been delivered to our very happy clients.
Don't just take our word for it, see our client testimonials and learn more about each project at -Árbol In The Wild.
At Árbol we have an effective eco-system that benefits the environment and the climate.
Standard building materials typically have short life spans and require excessive maintenance - most of the time the original product is also harvested or created from unsustainable sources, not reusable or recyclable.
We have focused our efforts into sourcing a large percentage of our products from either sustainably harvested, manufactured, recycled, or reclaimed materials, additionally many of these are treated without harsh chemicals and require less maintenance - some examples include low VOC paints paints, NZ wool insulation, cladding made from old power poles, and uPVC windows & doors that are made from recycled plastics.
Using these materials reduces environmental impact while providing a greater resistance to New Zealand’s harsh climate.
Power is another important consideration moving to a sustainable future. Our homes are built to be low-energy use: With 40-63% less power consumption than the average new build, now a smaller thus, more affordable solar system can be used to supplement the home’s power and return excess to the grid.
The New Zealand building industry is an over 50% contributor to landfill. We can and do better - we store off cuts for future builds and separate recycling with - cardboard, hard plastics, soft plastics, polystyrene, metals, plaster, and glass. This has reduced our landfill waste by two thirds compared to on-site construction.