LOGISTICS: How to transition from city, to building log home?

[allen84]

Do a lot of shopping before you choose. Prices can vary greatly an hour down the road, 10 minutes down the road or right next door.

[edkemper]

SnowFlower,

First off, welcome to the neighborhood. I get the feeling from the little you've written so far, you two can do it, with planning.

Let's visit that tiny home on wheels one more time. If you were planning on buying one, it's too costly IMO. However, if you have friends, anything is possible. Perhaps you could get a flat bed trailer of appropriate size. Then, day by day, you could scavenge your way to most of the materials you'd need to build it yourself. All while saving money for the land and finding the right deal. Experience the planning and building of the Tiny House on wheels and be more ready for the actual log house build. The tiny house doesn't have to be high end. But it could be built exactly the way that would suit the two of you, in the short term. Then, when you find the property, you'd have something better than a tent and far cheaper than other sturdier options to live in during your build. After the log house is finished, you'd have something unique to offer to temporary guests.

One caveat, make absolutely sure there are very plentiful employment opportunities after your build is finished and need to create an income. However, if the land is paid for and the house is built out of your pocket and not by credit, your income needs will greatly decrease.

Look forward to sharing your progress.

[rckclmbr428]

The one kicker about employment opportunities is that it will be directly connected to the price of land and the finished value of your home.

[edkemper]

Smile, we have high dollar houses and some for $35K. But very few high paying jobs. However, getting a place on the cheaper side, and significantly lowering your monthly budget needs by getting out of the high priced city can still work out well. Once you get your place built and debt free, even short money goes alot further.

I'm retired and don't need to leave the property to make an income. However I am constantly surprised at how many options there are once you get into the neighborhood and getting friendly with the locals.

If I still had a strong back instead of just a weak mind, I still think I could support my family in alternative ways in this economy. Rural Country v Cities or nearby.

[SDP]

Snowflower, I've read the whole thread, and have a few options for you.

No one's mentioned a container yet. A 20'x8'x8' cargo container can be dropped on the land for around $2400, and shelter you while you work on it. A 40-foot container is not quite twice that. it can be finished out for under $1000 in materials including a kitchen sink, toilet, shower, and water heater. Also, in many jurisdictions, if it has no foundation set in the ground or posts sunk into the ground, it's not a house, so a whole batch of laws don't apply.

With a container on site, if you set up solar electricity and solar-primary/sun-assisted hot water, you have lights, cooking, refrigeration, and showers in the first few days. A decent solar power system will set you back about four grand, like the Sun Direct Power 4K, and it's guaranteed for life. Solar hot water with electric assist is vastly cheaper; I set up mine on the RV for under $250 for a ten gallon tank, and it almost never used any electricity, even in winter. With those bits handled, four walls, and a roof, just about all the considerations involved in living rough go away, and it's just living ugly until you get studs and sheetrock up inside the container to make it a nice house.

Another container can become a garage with a workshop; every $2400 adds 160 sq' to the premises, and the two 75-watt bulbs necessary to light them don't entail huge additions to your solar power system. Railroad companies give away used railroad ties for free, so you can set up a good foundation for your containers before they're delivered.

The refrigerator could have its back exposed to the outdoors, at least on the freezer portion, so that the winter is helping you keep food cold and reducing electricity needs. A wood stove will roast it; use a small one, or build small fires. For sewage, I keep reading about the expense of septic systems, because no one here knows about Marine Sanitation Devices that have been in common use on the water for decades. A small one will process the sewage from four adults and put out clear, disinfected water, which is perfectly legal to dump anywhere, and they cost around $4K. No, they are not required to be in a boat to function.

A solar power system sized for your needs goes on the roof; we offer them in any size you like, modified or pure sine, military/marine hardened, if that's your thing.

if there's a well on property, you need a water tank, and those are a buck a gallon: 500 gallon tank is $500, and so on. Your pump doesn't need to run full time, just enough to top off the tank every day from the well, and pressurizing the tank is the expensive way to do it. One 100-watt solar panel will give you about 150 gallons a day, depending on how deep your well is. That's five times what I used in my RV, and I took Navy showers every day: no stinky-boy here. Use a 12v water pump of the sort they install in RVs for household plumbing pressure; they're under $100, and don't run until you open a tap. A ten-gallon water heater will give you two Navy showers a day plus plenty to wash dishes and so on, and costs about $150. If power's short, put the water heater on a timer, so it only runs once or twice a day.

If you have a creek to draw water out of, build a sand filter to run the water through before you use it. If the water's downstream of farmland, run the water through two or three sand filters before you use it; they're cheap and easy to build, and have a layer of beneficial bacteria in the sand that pulls out all the bio-gunk in the water before passing it on. They're also pretty good for chemical pollution, but only in small quantities, so if it's nasty water, get a commercial filter. Even rainwater caught off the roof should go through a sand filter; don't mess with water problems.

Once the container's homey and equipped and comfy, you could have another dropped at right angles to it, build a roof over and a floor under the common area, and start expanding. You could also start building a log home on property, which would be much prettier, but time seemed to be at a premium in your discussion so far.

A simpler option is to build a log roof coming off each side of the container, and a floor under those roofs, then walls around the floors, and you've just tripled the space available, in a log-home look, and almost completely hidden the container. There are very nice container homes, but I've always thought a container should never be more than the core of a home, not the whole thing.

Just some thoughts to help you with your planning. What you want to do can be started easier and cheaper than you may have thought, and you can get yourself into a comfortable enough situation that you can work for years on getting it exactly how you want it, without suffering while you do it.

Cheers.

[allen84]

Some good info there. Before you even think about buying a shipping container, google "container rain". Proper insulation and ventilation is a must. Don't think you want anything to do with the flooring that they are made with either, not in a living space.

[misplayed-hand]

I would google precast concrete drain pipe or storm shelters. If you have a manufacturer nearby it may offer a superior shelter at a competitive price.

[project]

I just saw someone selling a mobile home in my area for $1000 and you come get it. It was a 1997 14x80 that came with the property and new owners wanted it gone. I know this isn't in your area but it's just an example of what can be found once you really start looking.