Non Electric Homestead McMinn County (how much, house, buy)

[Forest Breath]

Thanks for the advice. I appreciate every opinion and any advice given. Even if I do not use it, we at least look at it and consider it in the overall plan of things. We are going to be using the large water tanks from a place like Tractor Supply, I have a question though. The water from the tanks will be used for baths, dishes, laundry and animals. For those purposes do we still need to add the bleach? I think the Berkley filters are great, despite the price and I do plan to get one of those. This has been pasture/farm land for over 300 years and I will feel much better about the well if there is a filter. We do know we will need to reserve water for “dry times” and will prepare for that. I carried water ½ from a branch for almost 16 years and know that it is likely a possibility that during dry times we will be carrying water. Luckily the Spring, even in the drought we had last year, never ran dry. It has been a good source of water for hundreds of years…so far. It is not far from the home site so we can rely on that if needed.

Having no power does not concern me as much as it does Chris. We have cut back so much on our electric use the past years that the gradual decrease in the need has not mentally affected us. The computer is his main concern. If we build the house correctly, and thank goodness we have lots of Amish friends, we should be OK. We will need lots of insulation in the walls and ceiling. The Amish homes are as cool as can be in the summer. I asked Floyd how they did this and he said it was all in the location and the way you build. No windows in the North, lots of windows and front and back door in the east and west, large covered porches east and west and they gave us several other cooling tips. One being, they leave the windows and doors open at night and then shut it up at about 9am. This keeps their homes very cool, plus the fact that they do not cook anything inside during the summer. We will have a summer kitchen. I do realize it will be a big change for us. We have increased the thermostat slowly through the years and in the winter we set the heat on 60 and the summer the air is on 80. That may not sound like much but in a metal mobile home, setting it on 80 is more like close to 90. We spend a lot of time under the shade trees outside. LOL

After we get settled in the one room home and have most of the out buildings completed, Chris plans to build an office onto the one room home and hook it up for solar power, at least enough to run him a laptop if he desires. For the initial building, I have found a man that I did some bartering with. He is going to drive his truck over with a generator in the back and leave it all day, picking it up at night. This way we can run a saw or whatever for the building. Chris has already got some “power tools” that run off of batteries and we will be charging those as needed at my daughters house until we get things built.

[Tinman313]

Emergency Water Purification Calculator

Yes to the above or you will have algae and mold growing in the tank......... You may want to consider pool chemicals if not being consumed as potable water...... Not knowing your tank size.......

[harry chickpea]

"We are going to be using the large water tanks from a place like Tractor Supply, I have a question though. The water from the tanks will be used for baths, dishes, laundry and animals. For those purposes do we still need to add the bleach? "

I do. Think of it from a cost/reward basis. A gallon of bleach will cost maybe a couple bucks, and last for about 3000 gallons, or at least a couple of months of usage. Even if it saves one case of loose stools or a cold, it has saved a day or two of labor. You may not intentionally drink the water, but showering or bathing puts you in contact, and the mist from showering is water going into your nose and lungs. As for animals, we all know their cleanliness habits. I might not bother.

Here is a site describing the use. Note that you use less if you can allow the water to stand for a while, which is good anyway to settle out sediment.

http://www.state.sd.us/DENR/DES/Drin...sinfection.htm

[rlrm777]

OK, I gotta know......what is a Summer Kitchen?

[Beretta]

Originally Posted by rlrm777

OK, I gotta know......what is a Summer Kitchen?

These were especially big back in the 1800's. The summer kitchen would be a kitchen away from the house so when they cooked (on the wood stove or over the fire), it would not heat up the house (more) during the summer months. You can probably google it and find more/better info.

[Selfbuilder27]

I congratulate you on your decision to live off-grid but I also agree (somewhat) with the poster who suggested a small generator and battery bank. I would opt for solar power because once paid for you will never again have to spend a penny & if you take care of your batteries properly they will last a long long time. Solar power is the nearest thing possible today for an everlasting source of power.

I had 11 acres some years ago in Owen County Indiana and they had absolutely no building codes there outside of the towns. They simply figured that you could build whatever you were big enough to build; period! Even septic systems did not require an inspection. It is a terrible shame that government has become THE major impediment for people such as we, who simply seek to provide for ourselves without inflicting anything bad on our neighbors. It is a scandal that we are forced bow to absolutely outrageous government imposed regulations and that is why I'm here. I'm now searching for a location to buy property where there is the least regulation. So far, Tennessee is winning.

My first choice was North Carolina but, after a little research, that state was not a viable choice. The State of North Carolina has mandated so many things in regard to building a simple house that it would take a month to read them all and a lifetime to comply with them. Their regulations span hundreds of pages of very detailed regulations.

I looked at Colorado too. Do you know that is unlawful to collect rainwater in Colorado? It is.

I'll be reading your posts and I do hope that you will opt to get a bit of electricity from solar cells. It is not necessary to have much electricity to run high efficiency appliances and small electronic devices. We do not need to revert to neolithic times at all. LED lights are available that run on almost no electricity and computers (especially laptops) use very little wattage.

I lived for a year on a sailboat and was completely independent of outside power. Solar power did it all. I had LED lights, a refrigerator (and a freezer too). I had a radio (for weather forecasts) a VHF radio for communications, a computer with a wireless card for those times when anchored near a Wi Fi hot spot, an electric razor, an electronic GPS Chartplotter and a host of small electronics. The power source was a small solar panel which cost about $500.

From long and bitter experience I can tell you that it is a chore to live off the land. But... You can still live in this century at a very minimal cost. RV'rs do it all the time! Good luck to you!

[Forest Breath]

Me and Chris have mde a promise to each other. We are building the one room home for now. After getting moved and a bit settled, he will in a few months start adding a room onto the home. That room will have solar power and he can run whatever his heart desires in it, be it a laptop, razor, coffee pot or whatever. The one room home that we initially start out with will always remain non electric, non solar and non gas. If we add ten rooms onto the home (which is highly unlikely lol) they can ALL be solar if he wants them to be, but my one room home will always remain as we first build it.

One thing I can tell you is doing this thing without a truck is very difficult. I need to be hauling things and it is not an easy task in a '93 Buick! I am putting out the word locally that we are looking to barter and buy (cheaply) items to build the home and root cellar as those are what we need right away. I am getting some offers and if anything big comes through, I can borrow the truck from work for a day on the weekend to haul what I need.

We are doing pretty good with getting the culverts fixed. If things go as planned, they will be completed by Sunday and it will then be easy to drive up to the home site......in the Buick! I have been given lots of concrete blocks so after the culverts....we will start hauling the blocks up to the building site and the man can come and level things off for us. I am crossing my fingers and hoping that we will be builing the house by May and be moved in completely by the end of August. Money is certainly an issue, as we have lived paycheck to paycheck for years now. But we can do it and I know it will be hard, frustrations will come and go....but surely we can reach our goal!

[Forest Breath]

We are exhausted, but feel accomplished! After work, me and Amanda worked out at the gym and then headed home. We grabbed a picnic bag, Perrin, Cletus and tools and headed out to work some more. Our goal was to try to work on a culvert we are trying to fix. At first I was going to buy a new one. I then decided that $150 is a lot for a new one and surely we can come up with a different plan. So I asked around and someone told me on Monday they had one. I discovered today, they did not. So that left us trying to figure out what we were going to do.

We decided to at least try to get the 3 pieces we had closer together. In our minds we were thinking the three of us, plus Perrin, my 2 ½ year old grandson, cold move the uh…extremely heavy concrete pieces. When we gathered around the first one with the idea of lifting it to move it into place and on the count of three…it did not budge 1/100th of an inch…we just busted out laughing. We decided to have supper. Fight off a 1200 pound black angus bull…and try again.

We managed to move the first one out of the way. We then got down and dirty and moved the second one onto its side and then twisted it close enough to drop it into place. The first one then needed moved over closer to the other and believe it or not…we were successful! With Perrin’s help, we managed to put some of the rocks and dirt back around them and called it a day. It is due to rain all evening tomorrow, so on Saturday, we will finish filing in the sides and clear the large rocks from the first crossing. We will then be ready for a load of gravel next week…..so YAY for hard work. Once the gravel is down….things will progress in a timely manner.

I am so glad we had Amanda helping…and Perrin too of course! He kept us entertained and although he had no clue he was working hard…he helped throw the rocks back around the culvert to fill it in. So tonight, we can mark one thing off of our to do list.


This may have seemed like a simple task, but keep in mind we have no truck or tractor and only one man! LOL

[Forest Breath]

Today we went to visit that culvert, only to discover yesterday's storm blew the top out of a tree, right in the middle of the driveway. So we moved the tree.
After moving it we began working on the culvert (in above post). We got metal around the joints of the concrete pieces and then put heavy rocks on both sides. Perrin of course was thrilled.
Then we, again having no truck or tractor, dug dirt by hand and hauled it in this little handy dandy wagon to the culvert and dumped it.
This too was not an easy task but slowly we began to notice a change and we were pretty proud of ourselves.
My idea of moving the dirt from another field was not a very good one, as it was way too tiring and too far to go for a small load of dirt. So Chris found a better spot and things progressed a bit faster. Our neighbors showed up, Jimmy and Hazel, and I am proud to say they were the first ones to be able to cross over the culvert!!!!
Shortly after...I was able to drive my car over it as well. Considering it is a very LOW Buick...I think it is safe to say we did a fairly good job!
It looks like.....a driveway....done by professionals of course! LOL
I love doing things that make you feel good. We can now access the actual building site. If all goes as planned, we will be breaking ground within a week!!!!

[Pam& Bill]

Forest Breath,
I am enjoying following your progress. Great job on the driveway, by looking at the pics, it does look like pro's did the job! I wish you all the good fortune so you can break ground within the week!
Pam