Post 9- Thanksgiving, Mom and Dad, Trailer Denial, and a cold weather kayak test! (pix)

Here's a rough layout of the slab/base of the house, the 6 bricks form a rectangle that's (fairly) square and facing due south.  Dad and Mom came up, which is always fun.  We pulled over the pop up and set it up...power and all the amenities, woohoo!  After some discussion, we decided not to get the 5th wheel.Mom cleaned up the inside a little

Dad, outside after we got it levelled and powered up.  Mom has to work on Thanksgiving day, so they left and made it home safely Wed night.  It was really nice to see them and hang out, and it was Dad's birthday on Monday.  The boys slept out on the land with my parents the last night they were here, that was neat.  They all said it was pretty comfy.

Thanksgiving Day: Heather needed some gloves for her 10k this morning, and I decided to try out kayaking.  It's cold, cold this morning, but while I was in the closet looking for gloves, I found an old rainsuit which gave me an idea...   Here's the mist on the river in the morning

So, I've been wondering about how to kayak in the cold.  The main thing is keeping my bottom dry, because I don't use a skirt on the 'yak usually.  I looked into (and then quickly out of) getting some "dry pants": they're way too expensive for me, but I get the idea...so...here's my improvised dry pants...total cost $12 to make.  Hey, it looks silly, but my socks and butt were dry when I got done!

Keep laughing, it's $190 less than a pair of actual drypants though...

Here are some nice river pix, off the clinch river early morning:

Nice day.  Meeting up with the crew in a bit to hike and possibly eat.  More to come!

Post 8- Septic done! Plus...an unlooked for trailer!

Septic is done!  My guy did a great job, and charged a fair price for it.  If you're in the area and need a septic line installed or some grading, contact me and I'll give you his number.




Here are some pix of the "finished" product (we'll obviously be needing to plant some grass on the bare spot).

A neighbor came over and said they'd love to sell me their 23' 5th wheel camper.  The price is reasonable (although, I wasn't actually looking for a camper...), and it's a little bit older, needs a little work, but has a lot of potential.  Full bathroom (tiny bathtub/shower, tiny toilet, tiny sink), propane stove, with an actual oven in it, little loft sleeping area, etc etc.  Dad suggested that this would be a pretty convenient portable "construction" camper that we could stay in during my days off to eliminate the drive in the morning.

I don't think Heather would be happy for any length of significant time in the camper (see post 1 about "tiny house"), but this is something that'll come in handy I think.  I can make it livable for just a few bucks, and make it wonderful for a couple hundred.  We'll see, regardless, as I think I'm going to get it if they'll negotiate at all.



More to come later!

Post 7- Septic Install, and Unexpected Guest(s) (PIX!)

I stopped by after work this morning to check up on the septic installation and check with my guy.  They're probably done by now, but he's coming back to run a new water line this morning too.  Here are some pix~!

The Tank, 1000g.

 This (right) is a close up of the area you see in the top right of the above picture... some unexpected guests.  We inherited "a cat" from one of the former owners (which turned out to be 4 that we saw, and a bit of rubbish as you can see)...
  But wait, there's more...

The guys who were installing the line said "oh yea, we think there are...oh, I dunno, it's hard to tell...maybe...15 or so of them?"  Apparently they've got a whole clan up there.  I don't mind if a couple hang around and make sure the mice get a good workout, but 15?!   More on this later, I'm sure...

Here are a few random pix

 The area to the left of the above picture has been flattened and widened a bit.  There's a picture of it down below a bit.  That's an apple tree in the foreground.

From the beginning of the split in the driveway (the left branch will be going away, and there'll be a turnaround on the right side).  We're running the water line along the left driveway, and will cover it up for more yard.  Thinking of putting a fruit tree grove down there to the left of my car (just out of camera)

Another view of tank

Here's a shot of the "turnaround" side that's been flattened out some.

Post 6- Random thoughts (no pix)

So Dad thinks we should expand the width of the house a little.  I've learned in my old age that usually when I think something and my father thinks differently he ends up being right most of the time, so I'm forced to examine closely:  on the one hand I was thinking that the narrow design would create a more effective wind tunnel for natural (passive) air cooling and I've really been trying intentionally to stay as small as possible comfortably (I'm very pro-Tiny House), but on the other hand a bit more room would probably be welcomed by the rest of the family.

The good news is, the current design is very easily modifiable, it was done sectionally and based on centerlines which were pretty much the "bare minimum" that I felt like we needed for all the appliances, features I wanted, comforts, and living space for 4 (comfortably, I mean).  So, making it bigger doesn't mess anything at all up if we go that route: I'll just move the center lines and adjust accordingly if we decide to go that way.

Here's what the differences look like:
15' wide= 525/+255 (780 total) sq ft (bottom floor/+lofts, current plan) so going with an 18' width,
18' wide=630/+306 (936 total) sq ft, and going with a 20' width (front to back...depth, really), and
20' wide700/+340 (1040 total). 

That's a somewhat deceiving number on sq footage in the "+ lofts" because the middle will be high, and it will slope down to the floor on 2 sides, so it all won't be "livable" space, but what isn't will certainly be "storable" space.  They both should be plenty big enough to make into a loft bedroom or office.

I haven't broken down the cost differences yet, so one option may clearly make more sense than another one after we can look at that comparatively.

BUILDING NOTES: regardless of final size, layout of house will remain roughly the same.  Below are a few random notes on building.

• Exterior will be framed with 2x6 instead of 2x4's, and have an occasional beam thrown in there as well for structural strength and insulation.
• Pouring slab as a base/floor (to use as thermal mass for passive heating/cooling)
• Pass through between master bedroom and great room, should open both up, or be closable for privacy
• Both beds in the downstairs bedrooms will flip up into wall, to open those rooms up for other uses when not sleeping.
• All closets/shelving will be custom done and very "Ikea"-ish, trying to conserve space
• Will need to pour the slab a little deeper under the wall between masterbedroom and great room to account for weight of thermal mass in the rocket mass heater.
• R30 or better level of insulation is goal, should be easily attainable.  Passive/low energy heating and cooling should dramatically reduce the majority of bills.
• Hooking into city water/power initially, but plan to have "off grid" options installed within 3 years

If everything goes even close to according to plan, we should own everything outright, be living in the house, and have no bills (aside from the ones we choose, like internet) within 3 years. 

Post 5- Prepping, Design, Septic, Water

Whew!  Ok, it's been a busy last couple of days.  I absolutely loved my original house design, but it wasn't really working with the lay of the land.  I've always said I wanted to sit on the land and get a good feel of the "flow" before building, and I had an opportunity to do that over the last few days, in addition to some extensive pricing at Lowe's/Home Depot and a ton of redesigning.

My septic guy started today installing us a new septic tank and drain field, the old one was "not up to standards", putting it nicely.  It helped a lot on monday that we were able to meet up and determine the best placement of the tank and drain field.  He also is going to redo my water line from the driveway up the the house site: it was formerly running right alongside the septic drain line (which is kind of gross...).  He's a super good guy, and has been a real blessing in every regard.  He contacted my water company for me and had them come out and mark the water hookup (it was overgrown), and also knows a concrete guy.

So, the biggest thing I need to shift was the placement of the house.  With the lay of the land, the rectangle house going in perpendicular (skinny side against the slope) just wasn't working: because of the slope we'd have had to either really dug in for the back half or went way overboard on footers on the front.  Because of this I decided to flip the house 180 degrees, to run horizontal with the slope generally speaking.  When I did this, it totally screwed up the flow of the house, so I had to completely redesign it.

I also, luckily, came across some amazing stuff on "rocket ovens" as being the most efficient wood burning heating alternative out there.  Spent all morning salivating over the potentialities and lower cost to install (and use!), then incorporated it into the design.  If you don't know what "rocket ovens" are, google it.  Fascinating and simple, and when incorporated with some clever ducting and thermal mass, it's a no-brainer as top contender for in-home heating.

Anyway, without further ado, here's the new design I've come up with, with details noted.  The loft areas are not detailed on this, but essentially, there's a 15' wide by 8'6" deep loft on either side of the great room, each of which will have a single window in the center against the outer wall and have a top ceiling center peak of (roughly) 6-8' tall.

I'm really liking this.  It's got a good flow, passive cooling and heating, with a supplemental central heating unit (with the rocket stove).  I've laid it on the ground and paced it off and it's a tiny house, but feels nice and big.  Should have very low utilities while I'm hooked up to the grid, but I'm designing ahead to be "off the grid" as well, and should be able to convert over fully for about $5000 for solar systems, marine batteries, and a cistern/pump.

Note the square footage: 525 sq ft total floor space, with an additional 255 loft space.  I think the average house nowadays has gotten upwards of about 2000 sq ft, so my energy bills will be significantly less, it'll be easier to keep clean, and I'm very pleased with the "functionality" of this layout.  All closets and shelving will be home-made "Ikea" style shelving.  Beds will flip up into walls (and flip down to rest on built in benches/storage), so both of those bedrooms are completely multi-functional/multi-purpose almost instantly upon demand.

More later, I really need to stop thinking about this for a little bit.  This is definitely the time to plan, before we start building, but I'm pretty happy with this design overall.  Oh, also, I'm planning on putting a 15' x 15' deck on both sides, so you can walk out the master bed room onto a deck (with firepit), or walk out the front door and around to the side and sit on the other one, each will probably have at least a 3-6' partial roof as well.

Post 4- Day 2, Hiking and picture day!

Post 4- Day 2, Hiking and picture day!

Joshua and Katie came with me, and we walked the land with the aid of the survey map and located all the sides and corners of it.  The first marker on the left is so far up when we found it we thought it was the end, then we found the next one, then the next one.  It's a lot of land, it's bigger than I thought it was.  It certainly feels bigger hiking it, we're going to make some great hiking trails.  Joshua is now officially "on board".  There are at least 7 separate locations that would make outstanding homesites, I need to get Heather out in her hiking shoes to sit at each one for a few minutes to see which one she likes the best.

So, here's pix!

Just North of the Ridge

My favorite area, on the north side of the ridge.  Lots of easy walking and old growth hardwoods.

This area is going to remain largely untouched, it's just too pretty.

Here's a few different shots from up near the top in that same general area.  It was a little rainy and overcast today.

More in that same area, pretty colors.

Further along, N side

S side of ridge, bit more scrub currently

Nice homesite, S side

Nice spot 2, S side

Josh and the dog, coming back the S side

Frolicking

Nice spot 3, a little lower down the S side

Probably where we'll build

That's it!  Back to work tomorrow, but I was able to get a very good mental feel for the layout today.  It's more land than it looks like on paper, and I'm a little bit excited now.  There's so much preparation work to be done that it's easy to get caught up in the minute details.  Today was very good, it helped me refocus bigger picture again, and reminded me of my desired end result.  It's going to be worth it.

Post 3 - Day 1- 11/5/12.  "If you think THAT stinks..."

Today was the first day I was off work as a landowner.  By today of course, I mean yesterday, as I'm writing this on the 6th.  Woke up this morning, called the Health Dept to get things started, and they said they needed to have the old septic tank exposed on the top for inspection.  Headed out with the dog, a shovel, and some hiking boots.

One of the former owners was there just picking up a few last minute things before leaving, and showed me where the septic tank was.  I started to dig it out, but my shovel broke.  I got the name of the guy who installed it initially from the former owner, and gave him a call.  He's going to come out tomorrow and expose it for me, and we'll go from there.  He seemed a lot more eager than I was to put in a whole new system, but hopefully it won't come to that.

While I was waiting for him to show up, the electric company came out.  There's a temporary power pole that is up, fully operational, that they were going to remove.  After a quick conversation, they called some superiors, and then told me to just call and have it transferred to my name, and left everything in place.  When I called to have it transferred, the girl who answered said "oh no no, it's not that simple honey, we need to do this and this and this...".  Another bureaucratic drone, bless her heart, she couldn't be put upon to call anyone above her.  So, she's going to call out another guy, who will inspect it (like the first guys already have), then making sure the meter is turned on (it's already on, I have power), and then seeing what needs to be installed (which will be largely dependant on what they rip out) and then letting me give them money.  This is a little frustrating because: I've already got power.  I just wanted to be a nice guy and pay them for it, but now I feel a bit penalized for doing the right thing.

UPDATE: the guy from the electric company came out today (11/6/12) and said (exactly like the first guys) "Yea, this looks good, just have them transfer it to your name".  I explained that he was the second lad to tell me that, and my results on the first time ended up in his visit.  He's a nice guy, he's going to call them up and make sure it happens this time.  I take back the bad things I was thinking, and even erased an ugly thing I'd written.  I need to be more patient, perhaps, and remember that while I am God's Unique Creation, I am 1 of about 4 billion or so of God's Other Unique Creations and be a little more patient.  It's a character flaw, I'm working on it. *shrugs*  I come by it honestly, ask my father.



In the meantime, in between and around all that, I'm walking the land with the dog to get a good feel.  It's really nice.  Here's a short video of the view from where the "big house" will be (you'll have to imagine a few less trees blocking the view):

The view is spectacular, which is a big deal to us.  This is at the very top of the ridge, slightly on the south side, facing south over the big valley.  On the north side of that slope, it's a beautiful old growth hardwoods area that's like a park almost: since it's old growth, there's very little underbrush so it's just beautiful.  Especially now in the fall, the reds and oranges are gorgeous.


On the way home, we were both (the dog and I) pretty tired.  I had the windows open so the dog could stick her head out, when suddenly there was just this horrible, horrible smell.  I thought maybe someone was using some cutting edge new fertilizer or something, so I rolled up the window and it was unbearable.  Looked down to see if maybe the dog had found some particularly nauseating new poop to roll in, and she was hiding in the backseat already.  Good Lord....

Putting it very nicely, the dog was sick.  I'm not even sure what side it came out of, and it very well may have been both all at once, but ...wow.  I mean, really, wow.  I can't even look at my car without vague feelings of guilt and shame anymore.  Just...wow.  Do you remember the Seinfeld episode, the one about the car with the smell?  Well, if this was that smell, that episode would have ended with them immolating themselves in the vehicle along with the smell to protect the rest of humanity.  Seriously, Katie...that's...wow.  Just wow.  I'm currently trying to decide between bleach, firebomb, or a fast sale to someone who had their nose ripped off in a horrible accident.

Post 2- DECISION TIME!

I think we're currently considering the Small House on permanent foundations, because we're realistically expecting the big house to take about 3-5 years to complete (we're buying the materials as we go, so that we don't have a payment).  This was the best compromise that we can think of to give us the best of all worlds: space, cost, livability, view, safety, etc.  It will cost us roughly the equivalent of 3 years rent to build it, but with all things considered it's the best option for us.

If you're ever doing something like this, you may come to a different conclusion.  If I was a single guy, or even if the kids were grown up and gone I'd probably have gone with the tiny house on wheels.  I have a great design that you could probably build complete for @ $8-10k that would be pretty sweet (or, translated into reality: roughly a years worth of rent, ish).

One of the things that weighed heavily into the final decision (if indeed there ever is such a thing...) on the guest cottage/small house is: we estimate we can build the thing for about $20-30k, or, about 3 years or so worth of rent costs.  We've got to live somewhere while we build the big house, and I'd rather build a custom designed house that I own than giving my landlord rent.

So here's my challenge: maximum amount of usable space in as tiny of an area as possible.  I've gone through about 30 different initial designs, ranging from bunker house to tree house and every possible thing in between.  It's going to need to FEEL a lot bigger than it actually is, so everything in design will be focused in reinforcing that, while maximizing space and still taking into account all of my other considerations as well.


So, here it is, roughly:

Here's the concept:  the whole front will be a south facing wall, which looks over a nice valley so that whole front wall almost will be glass.  For costs and functionality, I'll probably end up going with about 3 6' patio doors on the front, one in the back, in addition to a few windows on front and back.  The ceilings will be vaulted to give a wider open feel and to accommodate the loft area as well.  Overall, I'm pretty pleased with this design: it gives me about 572 sq ft of living space technically, but it's designed to have about 800 sq ft of usable space in reality, plus it will feel as if the whole valley is in the living room with the wall o' glass.  Having the wider hallway and 6' glass patio at the back also gives a clear line of vision through the house, which should make it feel a lot bigger too.

Security has always been a big concern for me as well, but for security reasons I won't discuss security measures here, except to say that I'm pretty satisfied.

I'm using some passive solar concepts initially, and eventually plan to use active solar and also berm the east and west walls: keeping the flow through design but adding a bit of thermal mass.  The gutters will divert to a cistern and we'll use that to offset our water usage.  Initially we'll be hooked into city water and electric, but will eventually be moving to well/solar.  For heating I plan on a wood burning stove, for cooling I'm designing it to be a wind tunnel on demand and hoping that my passive system designs are adequate to cool us reasonably.  If that proves inadequate, my brother in law is an extremely skilled HVAC guy, but I'm really hoping to just eliminate that energy cost altogether.  Hot water heater will be tankless.

So, here's what's required in my county for the initial building permit:

1. Health Dept Certification for sewage- they've got to give the blessing and a certificate before you can begin anything.  I'm working on that right now.  I initially wanted to use a composting system (and still may), but in my county they don't grant permits for composting at residences (but will for commercial, oddly enough)
2. 2 drawings of the house design- do NOT need to be engineer certified unless there is something they question in your layout/design structurally or code-wise.
3. 2 site maps- where's the house going to sit on the property, doesn't need to be exact either
4. Register your Address (on the way up to the permit office).

From that point, they'll give you a packet with the "inspections" that are required by the city.  So, I called the Health Dept.  There is a septic system on my land currently, but it was installed back in the 60's before they had any records of such things, back in the days of free love and no permits required.  He said since there's already one in place, if it's a manufactured unit, then I just need to uncover it so they can inspect it and then they give me a certificate.  In a worst case scenario, I'll have to install a whole new system and drain field, which will cost me 3-5k.  Let's hope this one's adequate...

Post 1-
BUILDING THE DREAM
(Backstory)


***Disclaimer.  I've got mixed feelings on blogs.  I joke regularly about "blogging angrily" as a  (kind of sad but hilarious) harmless way to vent that will have absolutely no impact whatsoever.  While not being nearly so narcissistic to think that everyone will be hanging on every word that's typed here, I still have enough of the self-inflated-ego to hope that some of this stuff may be amusing and possibly helpful if you're going to try something similar at some point.  Laugh, mock, learn from my mistakes, take from it what you will: the intent in putting it here for me is primarily to have something to look back on and laugh about.
***

We've finally found some land, after many years of looking. It's pretty close to work and church, not too far out of town.  We're in East TN, near Knoxville-ish.  We've been living in a pretty small apartment for a while now while we looked for land: squirrelling our money and trying to live frugally.  So, just as we were about to buy some land out in Blaine (10 acres, 1 hour away from knoxville), we found a property closer in that had 17 acres.

We expressed interest, and got the ball rolling on purchasing.  On some very good advice, I had the land surveyed.  Here's a side note on surveying: shop around.  We had some quotes coming in at over $5000 for a survey.  I  found a guy locally who did a great job and only charged me 100 per acre.  That's the good news. The bad news is: 17 acres more or less = 12 acres in this instance.   GET A SURVEY DONE before buying property, it's well worth it.  We renegotiated, and closed, but saved a lot of money because we'd done the survey.

Here's a picture of the land, looking in from the driveway.  There is a cleared off area to the left where there used to be a mobile home, and the small trailer that was parked there (now gone) is sitting on a spot where there used to be a double wide.  I'll put a few pics from the land looking out later.

The land itself is beautiful, low sloped to flat on the front, a mountain ridge in the middle, and low sloped on the back.  Remote enough that I won't have anyone right beside me, but close enough to the city for convenience.  Lots of hardwoods and trees, and great views.  The top point has an elevation of about 1200' and most of the rest of it is right around the 1000' mark.

We've done a lot of soul searching on the best way to proceed in building.  Our long term plan is to have an almost zero carbon footprint home, that is resistant to as many natural or unnatural disasters as possible.  So, how to best do that?  We're currently living in a small apartment (frugal!), but I'd like to get onto the land as soon as possible to begin applying that rent money towards building money.

So, here were the options we considered:
Tent/Pop Up Camper/Roughing It- I'd be ok with this, my wife likes her creature comforts.  If we're being totally honest, the older I get the more I like my creature comforts too.  I'd be ok with this for short term, but there's no way I could sell this idea to the family.  I'm not even bought into it entirely myself if we're considering a time period of 3 months or more (and especially as we're just coming into winter...).  Moving on...

Tiny Home on Wheels, Small Trailer- Definitely the cheapest and most viable option monetarily, would allow the quickest movement with some level of comfort, and would be my preference if I were the only factor to account for.  I've got a brilliant custom design for a tiny house on wheels that I'd be totally happy in for a few years that I've worked up.  This is the quickest/cheapest way to get moved on, simply because if it's on wheels, you don't really need a permit.  The drawback to this method is: I've got a family of 4.  I'm fine with roughing it for a while, but I think my wife would kill me.  Bottom line: this option works for me, but it would strain our relationship, so it doesn't really work for "us".  I'm still personally very bought into the whole "tiny house movement" thing, but it's not always about just me.

Tiny House/Guest Cottage- Something small enough to build well but at reasonable cost, but large enough to live in a bit more spaciously while we slowly build the "big house".   This is about the "middle ground" as far as cost and time/effort.  It needs to be small enough to be cost effective (ie, 600 square ft or less) in both building costs and energy expenses, but built sturdily enough to withstand as many potential disasters as possible, yet still feel big enough that we're not on top of each other all the time.  This is a good compromise between "smaller footprint" and "space", we still plan on trying to build as "green" as possible.  I've been leaning towards green for a while now: not so much because I want to be militantly conservative ecologically, but more because I'm very much for being frugal and this will save me money long term.

Big House- Go ahead and just start on the big house.  On the pro side, building costs will be significantly less since all focus/money would be directed at the main residence.  On the negative side: I've got some very particular ideas of how I want to build this, and it's going to be a long drawn out process in a couple key areas.  I'm pretty sure that the building materials savings would be negated by our ongoing costs to stay in the apartment while building.  If we could live in the pop up without killing each other, this would probably be the best option long term.  I'm pretty sure we couldn't though.