Incredible tiny house off grid homestead in Japan

Drewski · 2023-03-29T04:43:48+00:00

Drewski · 2023-01-29T20:19:40+00:00

In-the-clouds · 2022-10-28T18:33:20+00:00

It's sad to me that they said they cannot live like this much longer because of their aging bodies and arthritis. But none of us can continue in this world much longer, so it is best to prepare our hearts for the next life.

Drewski · 2022-09-26T05:04:48+00:00

piped mirror

IkeConn · 2022-04-04T02:41:44+00:00

Yea. About those poor staffers they employ and treat like shit. After TSHTF they will kill the rich guy and take his shit. There won't be anybody to stop them.

IkeConn · 2022-04-04T02:11:24+00:00

I wish we could poison pill our state to keep people from moving here.

jet199 · 2022-03-12T19:06:19+00:00

Most of these things very much still exist run by hobbyists in the UK.

Britain for the win again.

I hope you like your country painted pink on the map.

In-the-clouds · 2022-03-12T03:18:36+00:00

I had a dream there was an explosion over the US and I suspect it was an EMP.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=QOHlOjOMY8o

dissidentrhetoric · 2021-05-04T10:40:20+00:00

why you post the same shit to so many groups?

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-18T20:33:40+00:00

Sounds about wrong.

AmericanMuskrat · 2021-03-18T18:22:21+00:00

We have historically corrupt politicians. I mean we get all this aid money and it disappears without ever fixing what it was for. I don't think bribery is even illegal here anymore.

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-18T18:02:34+00:00

Dumbasses are not unique to Texas. It's all the entrenched systems of the ruling class.

AmericanMuskrat · 2021-03-18T17:42:30+00:00

32 dead and $195 billion in damages.

I'm just unlucky our politicians in Texas are dumbasses. We keep doing this to ourselves.

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-18T17:29:26+00:00

You're lucky you're smart. Has there been a tally of the casualties and/or damage?

AmericanMuskrat · 2021-03-18T16:26:44+00:00

It was like the primitive camp site we were at when it was first hitting didn't end when we got home. No power, no water. Businesses closed cause they didn't have any either. Lots of burst pipes, damage from stuff like that.

And it was uncomfortable with no electricity. Our homes are not built for this kind of weather. The heat is electric. People couldn't cook and couldn't buy food. We were stocked with camping foods, we always buy way too much, so that was handy.

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-18T15:23:24+00:00

How bad did it harm you? There was lots of snow here for a bit, but it didn't bother me with a fucked up back, trapped anyway.

AmericanMuskrat · 2021-03-18T14:17:25+00:00

We were all off the grid for that one.

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-18T01:33:55+00:00

Back in 2006-2007 I wanted to do a show like this with my ex - building an Earthship, and even told her father about it. Now I just wistfully watch these and several other couples like this building their homesteads and families.

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-09T04:01:59+00:00

Government wants full spectrum dominance. They'll use hurricane safety or whatever as an excuse to prevent freedom.

Zapped · 2021-03-09T03:03:47+00:00

I'd still be wary of that guy paying a visit. Maybe he is a troll, but maybe he's f'ing crazy and will want to get revenge. He already knows where that guy lives.

Do you know the reason Florida has made off-grid illegal?

JasonCarswell · 2021-03-09T02:46:13+00:00

That guy from Tennessee is an idiot, a troll, and/or works for the corporatocracy.

Florida has made off-grid living illegal.

Zapped · 2021-03-09T02:41:40+00:00

I hope that guy from Tennessee doesn't pay him a visit when he gets out of jail.

JasonCarswell · 2021-02-01T04:19:09+00:00

If you've got the means for extra gear.

Best option for it would be a way to attach it to spinning things - from a wind or water or bicycle or car tire or whatever. Maybe drag it around behind you.

send_nasty_stuff · 2021-02-01T04:05:54+00:00

I have one of those battery things. You have to make sure it's charged and it only gives you one or two jumps and then it's too weak to jump again. The compact generator is a good idea. If you keep it in good working order and run it to test before you go on a trip. Mechanical type device still seems like a good idea to me though.

JasonCarswell · 2021-02-01T03:03:39+00:00

I can appreciate the peddling thing for many reasons, but IMO, you might as well go with another simpler, more practical option. I don't know about price, but I'd guess some could be about the same. For a decade a decade ago at Burning Man I saw many variations and had serious gadget-envy. A generator and/or battery with MANY emergency functions. Some were exceptionally clever and full featured (emergency lights, tire pump, radio, tools, etc). Some were basic and cheap.

send_nasty_stuff · 2021-01-31T18:01:15+00:00

I'd like to see the foot crank paired with some type of durable storage device so you can increase the amps and jump a dead battery on a car. That would be awesome for off roading where you can't afford to get stuck super deep inawoods with nobody to jump you. I know trucks need lots of amps though so you might have to peddle for a while before you have enough for a jump.

JasonCarswell · 2020-10-24T20:46:16+00:00

I would love to see them build a huge system of these turbines (as seen in the thumbnail image) along the southeast shore of Essex county where it would enter Lake Erie, after crossing at the shortest distance from Lake St. Clair (the Great Lake in the middle) across Tilbury and Essex County, Ontario, Canada in a man-made channel/canal/pipe with a drop of only 2 metres or 6 feet. This Essex County elevation map illustrates how the county is almost completely flat. There are already man-made ditches all over Essex county, so it's not an impossible task, but the only questions are financing and political will power. The financing should take care of itself soon enough via generated electricity, assuming they make the channel big enough to carry enough water for enough turbines. While it's obviously not the height of Niagara Falls, it is the same waterway. A bonus feature is that there is a robust electricity grid with the Detriot nuclear generating station and countless wind turbines were erected across Essex County - and driving along the 401 at night is spooky with their red aircraft warning lights pulsing like the heartbeat of the farming region.

Jesus-Christ · 2020-03-18T09:57:37+00:00

I've seriously considered fucking off from society and doing something similiar to this, I think the loneliness would kill me though.

useless_aether · 2020-03-15T01:25:13+00:00

it's all my fault

:-)

Tom_Bombadil · 2020-03-14T22:00:27+00:00

The comment content did veer off topic.

Tom_Bombadil · 2020-03-14T21:59:33+00:00

The post is great.

No reason for shame.

useless_aether · 2020-03-14T15:03:33+00:00

as the op, i am not proud of this thread X-)

Tom_Bombadil · 2020-03-14T13:14:43+00:00

Nature's original strainer.

useless_aether · 2020-03-14T10:58:43+00:00

absolutely!!!

JasonCarswell · 2020-03-14T10:50:17+00:00

The topic started with toilet paper then toilets then abruptly to ass hair and I stayed the course.

Hygiene is important.

useless_aether · 2020-03-14T10:45:51+00:00

on topic, no doubt! :-)

JasonCarswell · 2020-03-14T10:42:15+00:00

LOL.

And they get upset at me for my silly stories...

So here's one anyway, on topic.

So I know this girl in Toronto who would visit me in NYC. She happened to be Jewish and fair as Snow White, but was exceptionally self-conscious about her dark black hair on her lily white skin. She was a germophobe, neat freak, and waxed everywhere and everything, including her forearms and eyebrows (drawn back in pencil). I thought that was weird as she was just fine. So we were romping around and she was the first I recall who'd fully waxed it all. (It wasn't so common in the late 90s or early 2000s to be child-like.) Then I flipped her over... and with one look at that ass-crack, I understood why she was always so self conscious. I'm certain she had no idea about her valley forest there.

Butt that didn't slow me one bit.

useless_aether · 2020-03-14T10:11:17+00:00

It's perpetually on my mind.

maybe it is time for a brain-dump! tee-hee! :-)

one thing though:

DO NOT MESS WITH YOUR ASS-HAIR, EVERYBODY!

it's the only thing keeping any, even just slightly liquid shit in place.

eww!

JasonCarswell · 2020-03-14T09:41:48+00:00

Speaking of strange foreign pooping practices...

I keep boring you, everyone, and even myself, by always talking about the epic story I'm writing. It's perpetually on my mind.

Part of what's taking so long is I am building up the worlds and scenarios in my mind, then try to find practical ways to knock them down, then build up around those obstacles, etc. and either discard or keep these overabundance of ideas. And with all the surviving good ideas as puzzle pieces I have to present them within the overarching narrative in a pleasing way.

To my point- the last 6th of the movie takes place in Zero-G. This means I have concepts about new unique space habitats, but also how they all function, practically, ergonomically, efficiently, and cleanly. Centrifugal-gravity is NOT the same as regular gravity in many many ways, yet it's what could be realized, and in my story is, though not at full One-G. With reliable fake-gravity, baths/pools are possible, with serious caveats. Water also makes for excellent radiation shielding - and of course can be used for hydroponics. Also critically important is air flow, for humans and plants. Now combine a centrifugal ring with some clever designing and you also have a large fan and a hoop-pool, and on this ring it would only make sense to have a pooper.

Like all of my space-designing, none of that is critical to the narrative, other than it needs a rational and credible setting. Much of it may not even be mentioned, yet it will all be visible - and if designed well, much of the purpose, could be obvious.

Bonus: My hero protagonist is tagging along with a crew of six petite bald women "space-jockey" astronauts. No hair = less mess. Small people = less food and resources needed. Every ounce counts. They have their mission that fits within the narrative, but there is also time for other stuff like exposition, space life, random stuff, etc.

I hope that wasn't too boring and I welcome all ideas, on pooping in micro-gravity, or general life in space.

useless_aether · 2020-03-14T08:36:10+00:00

in muslim countries there is always a bottle of water in the toilets (which are often holes in the ground and not seats).

they claim they are more sanitary than a seat

JasonCarswell · 2020-03-14T08:28:05+00:00

Um, how about wet wipes?

I am addicted to them now.

I discovered using them for every utility at Burning Man, including post-TP follow up clean up and "Portuguese showers" (I don't where that slang came from). The desert can really chap your ass, lips, feet, and everywhere else, so it's very nice and soothing. And you can use them on everything on your body, in your house, kitchen, and even your messy cat.

JasonCarswell · 2020-03-14T08:24:17+00:00

She might need these alternatives : /s/Architecture/comments/3c6a/woman_builds_1000_tiny_earthen_home_to_live_with/

useless_aether · 2020-03-14T05:47:38+00:00

i am cornholio!

Froglich · 2020-03-14T05:14:43+00:00

Breaking News: Costco Is Completely Sold Out Of Bidets

send_nasty_stuff · 2019-12-30T15:41:55+00:00

I'm waiting for batteries to get better.

I would just start working the used battery websites until a big deal comes up. There are lots of government, military and private companies that are forced to retire batteries well before their lifespan. You can therefore get a LOT of really high quality batteries for cheap. You just need the expertise to wire them together, test them, etc. There are a couple of youtube channels that monitor these sales as well.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-30T01:12:30+00:00

Took a walk in the woods on Christmas day. The property is crisscrossed by trails, some of them are muddy and inaccessible this time of year. Made it down to the creek and took a picture of one of the corner survey posts. Hope you like the pics.

magnora7 · 2019-12-29T09:52:42+00:00

Interesting, very neat idea. In the south we need thermal mass to keep us cool through the heat of the midday. Then at night you'd "stock up" on cold by storing it in the thermal mass. It's not nearly as perfected a system as trying to keep warm.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-29T09:40:52+00:00

Yep. The basic idea is low fuel consumption, almost 100% combustion and low emissions, you can cook on it, and you can sit on a warm bench seat. They were invented by permaculture groups down in the southwest, where it's ideal to have a lot of mass to keep your house warm at night. You don't have to get up and stoke the stove.

The only downside is that they're pretty big. But they're cheap.

magnora7 · 2019-12-28T23:32:46+00:00

Wow that's cool, I'm surprised I haven't heard of this before. I guess the long horizontal section is what allows for more complete combustion. I like building it in to furniture, that's a very cool idea.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-28T23:28:10+00:00

Right, it's a very large rocket stove with a lot of mass. They run the stove pipe horizontally underneath what is essentially a couch seat made of cob and adobe. You can sit on it, or, more likely, it will become a dog bed. Also has a place to cook, although it is slow regulate changes to heat.

Pic: https://www.lowimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/rocket_stoves.jpg

If I build one, it will probably not be nearly as "southwest" as this. Maybe brick.

magnora7 · 2019-12-28T23:05:58+00:00

And of course you have the delicate thing that you have to explain why there is a bedroom and kitchen in your 350 square foot "chicken coop".

Every bedroom is a guest bedroom :) Then the permanent bed is in the trailer (that you may or may not actually use). That's the way I'd do it.

I agree with your rules, I think those are good rules to follow.

We're in a valley, so that won't be an issue.

Ahh that's one downside to living in Texas, we don't have those.

Our state has a department of ecology and they publish a list of allowable wood stoves due to smog.

Ahh that's one upside to living in Texas, no one gives a damn about stuff like that. :)

Interesting about the rocket mass heater stove. I have a little rocket stove, I'm guessing it's just a larger version of that? I'll have to read about them

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-28T08:08:59+00:00

I had a couple of thoughts along the way. The buildings that we put up (if they were larger than 200 square feet) are on pier pads instead of a permanent foundation. So you could argue that those are temp structures and not under the jurisdiction of building codes. Might be totally wrong about this. And of course you have the delicate thing that you have to explain why there is a bedroom and kitchen in your 350 square foot "chicken coop".

For real, the best way is to keep it quiet.

Build in a county with small government presence and somewhat lax building codes, sparsely populated, poor and rural.

Build under cover of trees.

Spread the buildings out.

Keep all the buildings under 200 square feet so they won't attract attention.

Don't annoy neighbors. They could turn you in if you piss them off. Bake some cookies and act friendly.

Be LOW KEY. We're not setting up a zombie apocalypse bomb shelter.

New: If you are using a wood stove, make sure you don't have a lot of smoke that can be seen for a long distance. We're in a valley, so that won't be an issue. Our state has a department of ecology and they publish a list of allowable wood stoves due to smog. Anything that is not on the list cannot be bought or sold or installed or used in the state. I looked over the list and bought a model used on craigslist that is allowable, so nobody can give me any grief about that. Thinking about the next structure, I may put in a rocket mass heater stove, which basically has no exhaust at all besides warm C02 and water vapor. Extremely low emission. You would never be able to get a permit for one but they are basically invisible due to not emitting any visible smoke.

magnora7 · 2019-12-28T02:00:25+00:00

I wonder about the questions in your first paragraph too. I think the answers vary by state, county, and city, as well.

The big bugaboo now is satellite and aerial photography. With software, they don't even have to manually look. They can run the software and do a comparative before-vs-after analysis and see if anything changes from year to year. They can estimate square footage pretty accurately from good photographs. I have heard that come counties (with more money than ours) are starting to use drones, following automated paths with GPS. Good photography, cheap, and on-demand.

I wonder if you just built the sheds a bit far apart and under big trees....

I've heard anecdotal tales (may or may not be true) that people were forced to tear down their work. Others that I know of, were issued "stop work" orders or forced to go get permits and inspections. Probably a fine in there somewhere too. It's a calculated risk.

I can see this if you built something that just isn't up to code, but if it's basically up to code but just not registered, then I imagine you'd only have to pay the fines? I wonder if those fines would be less than the tax increases from reporting the buildings? Hmm

I chose a pretty big county that is sparsely populated and has a very small government presence, in the hope that I won't have to tangle with them.

Seems smart. I'd only do this way out in the country, if it were me.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-27T18:12:56+00:00

There are a couple of zoning issues that I've come across. If you camp out in a trailer or RV, a lot of places allow you to do that on your own land for 9 month per year. Then you have to "move away" for 3 months and then you can move back. Not clear on a few details. Can you leave the RV there and just move yourself? Can you own two adjoining properties and move back and forth between them? How much enforcement does this see, or is it just treated as a nuisance law so that they can get rid of someone they don't want, but normally don't enforce it? Can you sometimes sleep in a permanent building without an occupancy permit (cabin or shed)?

My own interaction with the county went like this.

We bought the property. It's located in a backwoods county that is pretty sparsely populated and only has a big city (20,000) at the county seat. (That's not really a big city, but it's the biggest one there.) The county is fairly large and spread out, and we're a long way from the county seat.

I started out wanting to build a "tool shed" that would be the max size allowable without a permit. I found the county building permit office and emailed them that question. To my surprise, they emailed me right back with a PDF handout showing all the pertinent data. In this county, you can have a building up to the following:

Up to 200 square feet

Wall height up to 10 feet

Foundations up to 4 feet deep (!) Couldn't believe that one.

Roof overhangs must be less than 2 feet

There were several other specifications but those were the pertinent ones. The flyer basically said that if you built anything smaller than that, they didn't want to hear about it because they didn't have the manpower to do permits and inspections on small structures.

It was interesting to me because I'd always heard that 100 square feet was the max, not 200. I was prepared to build a 8x12 tool shed but we ended up with a 12x16. The cabin ended up being that size, too.

Pushing your limits: The big bugaboo now is satellite and aerial photography. With software, they don't even have to manually look. They can run the software and do a comparative before-vs-after analysis and see if anything changes from year to year. They can estimate square footage pretty accurately from good photographs. I have heard that some counties (with more money than ours) are starting to use drones, following automated paths with GPS. Good photography, cheap, and on-demand. So I am hesitant to try pushing their boundaries. One side note: our property is heavily wooded and it has pretty good cloud cover in the winter when the trees shed their leaves. We purposefully built under the treeline to obscure what we are doing. Of course someone from the county can just drive right up and look things over in person, but they don't have the manpower for that. As far as code compliance, we're going to (a) occupy a building with no occupancy permit, (b) install a solar panel system without electrical permits, (c) harvest water from a creek, and (d) dispose of wastewater without a septic tank and drain field. Also (e) using a composting toilet, but this may actually be allowed. Unclear if you are required to actually have a flush toilet. The old neighbor guy a mile down the logging road also lives in a cabin and he has a real-life Porta Potty outhouse. He says it satisfies the county. He actually has a company come out and empty it from time to time.

In a very sparse or poor county these issues probably wouldn't matter at all. There are some unincorporated counties that actually don't have building codes or permits. You just get some 2x4s and build stuff.

Depending on where you are, and how harsh the government is, the penalties for building stuff without a permit can get pretty bad. I've heard anecdotal tales (may or may not be true) that people were forced to tear down their work. Others that I know of, were issued "stop work" orders or forced to go get permits and inspections. Probably a fine in there somewhere too. It's a calculated risk. I chose a pretty big county that is sparsely populated and has a very small government presence, in the hope that I won't have to tangle with them.

magnora7 · 2019-12-27T12:01:07+00:00

Interesting, thanks for the info. It would be interesting to claim to sleep in a trailer on the premises, but then you could have a guest building that you "sometimes" sleep in. Sounds like a good way.

Although I've heard a lot of buildings in the deep country don't ever see an inspection anyway, so you could build beyond the 200 sqft limit and it wouldn't necessarily matter. I'm not sure the fees if you built a building that was bigger than that and didn't register it, and got caught.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-27T11:19:34+00:00

I saw a very early article on tinyhouses in Fine Homebuilding Magazine, of all places, maybe two decades ago. It was before they started calling them tinyhouses. Guy lived up on an island near Seattle and he did just that. I think he built three. One for bedroom, one for bathroom / kitchen / laundry, and one for a living room area. It wasn't an attempt to be off grid per se, but it was an attempt to get out from under some square footage restrictions of one kind or another.

Getting an occupancy permit to live in a small building is the hard part. That's why tinyhouses are usually just glorified trailers. If it's not permanent, it's not permanent... and you don't need an occupancy permit to live in it. A lot of people do it unofficially and fly under the radar, but the trick is to disperse the buildings around and don't have too many of them. We have two buildings and a tool shed, and another temporary tarp garage.

magnora7 · 2019-12-27T07:20:17+00:00

That's pretty interesting, thanks for sharing. I wonder if it'd be possible to make a complex of like ten 196 sqft buildings and live in them. I like the idea of concreting the post holes for the solar panels

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-26T06:05:37+00:00

As far as I know, seriously, there isn't a limit as long as you obey the property setback regulations. This is far enough out in the woods that nobody is ever gonna care. Of course, you aren't supposed to be using them for habitation, but whatever. There is an old guy who lives in a cabin directly on the gravel logging road and he has a bunch of ramshackle outbuildings and shacks and lean-tos everywhere. There is a guy who build a real, bona-fide, actual house with permits and everything. The inspectors would have had to drive right by the other cabin repeatedly to go to the inspections on this real home. So I guess it's not a big deal if we make some effort to keep it just slightly on the down-low.

When I started this project the solar panels were around $175 with shipping. This was way before Amazon would ship them to your door for free. The shipping from a solar company just about doubled the cost of the panels. Now it's trivial to get your foot in the door. Between cheap solar, free batteries, and the advent of cheap LEDs, we're in a golden time of getting off grid. Seriously, it would have cost 5X to 10X this much 10 years ago.

Now that it's been up there a while, I think the Kindorf mount for the solar panels is a little overkill. It would have been pretty expensive to build from scratch. When I built it, I didn't have a good road to the property and I didn't want to deal with schlepping bags of concrete in. So I built it out of heavy steel without any kind of foundation. I didn't want it to flip over in high wind. My next one will be similar to this, but I'll probably just dig four post-holes and fill them with concrete, and put the corner posts in those. That will eliminate 3/4 of the frame members, because it doesn't have to have a frame to hold itself together. Just has to have cross members to keep the panels in the right position and keep them from blowing away.

magnora7 · 2019-12-26T02:47:12+00:00

Nice job staying under the permit limit. Is there a limit to how many 192 sqft buildings you can build? Lol

I like the solar panels, and it's especially feasible now that 100W panels are only about $90 each

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-25T18:34:57+00:00

Thank you.

A little info on the cabin: 192 square feet if you don't count the loft. My county allows buildings up to 200 square feet without a permit. The loft is another 96 square feet, which makes the actual square footage 288. Some of that has very low ceilings because of the roof pitch of the upper story, so call it 250.

The solar panel mounts are made of Kindorf, which is what the electricians and trades use basically as Tinker Toys or Legos. It's handy stuff, but expensive. Most of that was salvaged when it was removed from a building that was being demolished. Need to lengthen this one by another 3 feet and add the last 100W panel. Then the next one will take two 320W panels laying the long direction, so it'll basically be the same size.

magnora7 · 2019-12-25T12:53:33+00:00

Looks pretty solid! Nice work. The solar panels are a nice touch

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-23T01:20:28+00:00

The solar panels being crooked is a funny story. I was building the mount out in the woods in hurry, with supplies I brought with me. It's made out of Kindorf hardware. I ran out of some pieces I needed to finish it, and I was 50 miles away from home. So I zip tied the rest of the panels in place. Still haven't gotten around to fixing it, so the panels are crooked. lol

The lesson here is: make sure you have your parts lined up before you go. Civilization is a LONG ways away.

I have to change this mount to add another panel, so I will fix it then. Adding another 100W panel and making the mount longer. Making a second mount right next to it to hold two 320W panels. Total solar install will be 1240W.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-23T01:16:13+00:00

The cache has been out there a year and a half. I opened it up to see its condition. Some light rust on the Dinty Moore stew can, which I replaced. Everything else looking good.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-22T02:48:14+00:00

That's an interesting design. I have a small creek and I was planning on building a bridge across it and making an undershot water wheel suspended from the bridge. But I hadn't really gotten too far on the design yet. This kind of looks like an Archimedes screw in reverse.

magnora7 · 2019-12-21T20:26:07+00:00

Looks pretty cool, I like the design. I'd guess each one makes like 20-50 watts at peak output?

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-21T05:35:28+00:00

Will do. This is a community. Please post your own experiences, even if you don't have land. Camping is technically living off grid. lol. We all have experiences to share.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-21T05:34:40+00:00

Good idea. Once it starts bearing fruit I plan on replanting a bunch of them, too. Need lots and lots of fruit trees. Apples, plums, cherries, walnuts, and filberts all do well here.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-21T05:26:54+00:00

Pics coming. I will be back up there on Christmas day.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-21T05:26:04+00:00

I have the advantage of getting free batteries at work. They are deep cycle lead acid (large car batteries, but rated for UPS duty). That would definitely have been a very large chunk of money... thousands of dollars. Please feel free to post a pic of your setup!

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-21T05:24:39+00:00

That's a strong possibility and it was on my list of things to try out. Most of the property is thickly wooded and I'd have to find a spot that gets some sun, but it would certainly work.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-21T05:22:58+00:00

I bought this land to basically be able to camp in (the state campgrounds are really crowded and noisy) and we ended up building cabins and eventually I will live there full time. But it's my intention to leave most of it wild except for some trails and a footbridge across the creek. The only thing I will do is maybe clear 1/2 acre for gardens. The taxes are not burdensome. It wouldn't really qualify anyway; this land has been clear cut once (old growth Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar) in the 1930s, then it was replanted probably in the 1950s, and it was clear cut once again maybe 20 years ago. The timber that is standing now was not replanted Douglas Fir. They didn't replant it and it basically grew up with scrub brush. The overwhelmingly fast growth of Vine Maple caused it to take over and I basically have a thick forest of young Vine Maple with very few other trees mixed in. They are maybe 50-60 feet tall. Anyway, it probably wouldn't qualify for tax credits because it's not original and I'm not a forestry business. But it doesn't matter anyway. I'll never sell it or cut them down. I wanted to own a slice of forest with no people in it.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-21T05:16:45+00:00

Nice! Please feel free to post here. I am eager to hear everyone else's experiences.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-21T05:16:10+00:00

I started out with a solar panel and a battery in an ammo box. It was so that I could go camping and keep my phone and laptop charged up. It's a dangerously slippery slope... it led me to shopping for land on craigslist. If you decide to jump in, this is a community. I started this so that everyone could share ideas.

Drewski · 2019-12-21T00:48:55+00:00

Awesome, would love to do something like this myself.

HeyImSancho · 2019-12-20T22:12:38+00:00

Good on you for making your own way. I've got some land, and am working on alternative energy compliments to it. I'm looking at hydro(have a creek), solar, wind, and also some sort of biogas generator, as I'm in a forest.

magnora7 · 2019-12-20T19:33:49+00:00

Yeah that's not bad. You know in texas it's not legally required to have your land re-assessed by the gov't after sale so you can often pay the old tax rate, as many do, so it's possible to find land in texas that has taxes of $60/year without any exemptions. Then also there is land that has forestry exemptions, if you grow a forestry business the taxes on that land are only $5/acre per year, but that does come with restrictions about how much of your land has to remain forested

bigmaynebruh · 2019-12-20T14:15:29+00:00

Can you put up a pic of the creek/canyon I'm curious what kind of bridge is needed

bigmaynebruh · 2019-12-20T14:08:49+00:00

Why not put one of your batteries and 100w panels down by the creek and run a 12v pump off that? Doesnt need to be powered from your house then. You can then just run a signal wire down to a relay to turn the pump on/off from the house.

MobiusRacetrack · 2019-12-20T10:57:17+00:00

I installed 2 large Kyocera panels, charge controller and a few marine batteries about 15 years ago. Still working well. When I traveled a lot out west I noticed many places use hybrid solar/wind/small generators. I'm waiting for batteries to get better.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-20T09:49:02+00:00

It's $600 a year at the newly assessed value of $62K. I think that's more than fair.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-20T09:47:25+00:00

Yes, it was. The people who owned it were apparently trying to set up a hippie commune and they ran out of money. So they were really behind on their property taxes and they were about to lose it. I got a great deal on it.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-20T09:42:54+00:00

The indoor composting toilet using the peat moss is the above 50 degree model. To use it, you'd put in a tiny bathroom inside your cabin and just make sure it stays warm enough. It doesn't smell bad.

The bucket'o'poop with the humanure and sawdust is different. It generates its own heat as the sawdust decomposes, and the whole thing takes off and kills pathogens as the poop is digested. Basically you can do this in any climate at any temperature. If it freezes solid in the winter, it will take off as the weather warms up.

That leads into a totally different topic, but a friend of mine is trying to harness the heat of decaying compost to heat his greenhouse in the winter. You can run a coil of garden hose through the pile and slowly pump water through it. The water picks up heat. Then you empty the water into a tank inside your greenhouse. You continually circulate this in a loop. It uses a small amount of energy to run the pump, but it will keep a greenhouse in normal temps all winter for the price of a few bales of hay.

useless_aether · 2019-12-20T09:33:31+00:00

send some seeds to the seedsavers! some cherry trees grow huge, easily over a hundred years old. i have a big stump in my front yard that was cut down just before i moved in.

magnora7 · 2019-12-20T08:58:48+00:00

So that's about $5k per acre. That's pretty good.

Most important question: What are your yearly taxes for the 8 acres? I've seen taxes range from $1800/yr to $60/yr for land that size.

mikipika · 2019-12-20T06:05:42+00:00

Until now, it never occurred to me that I needed to know these things about poop. What to do when it gets below 50? Do you have to keep the bins above 50 degrees the whole year?

mikipika · 2019-12-20T05:42:41+00:00

You mentioned Craigslist. Was this a For Sale By Owner (FSBO)?

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-20T03:43:50+00:00

Link to free version of the Humanure Handbook: http://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/Humanure_Manual_2019.pdf (PDF warning)

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-19T21:56:07+00:00

Met a very old lady.

She pointed at the cherry tree and said that she had planted it about 10 years ago.

It was started from a cherry pit from a cherry tree in her yard. That tree had been planted by someone who came down the Oregon trail in a wagon!

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-19T21:54:10+00:00

That's worth researching. I hadn't heard that.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-19T21:50:34+00:00

Yep! If you eat right out of the pan, you don't even need to wash a plate.

Seriously, though... if you take a look at how a normal house uses water, we aren't doing hardly any of that here.

We don't run laundry.

We don't have a dishwasher.

The toilet is a waterless composting system. It doesn't flush.

We take showers, wash hands, and do dishes. The people and the dogs drink water. That's it.

And we will water the garden eventually. But that will mostly be gray water.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-19T21:45:59+00:00

Another link for a batch solar water heater here: http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/jspui/bitstream/1957/15142/1/SolarHeaterManual.pdf (PDF warning)

This one was designed for Oregon. High latitude, not a lot of solar exposure.

If you put this in a normal house, you can put it inline with your existing hot water heater and use it as a pre-heater. You would need to add bypass valves so the system can be shut off and drained in the winter.

FormosaOolong · 2019-12-19T21:21:45+00:00

Your place sounds amazing! Keep on keepin' us posted.

useless_aether · 2019-12-19T21:13:02+00:00

for two years i had to haul potable water from a public well down the street. it is amazing how little water is actually needed to do the dishes.

useless_aether · 2019-12-19T21:06:21+00:00

they say gypsum will break up clay soil. but i wouldn't know, i am on sandy loam.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-19T21:06:11+00:00

Next projects:

Possible to set up a tower and put in a very small wind turbine.

Possible to set up a bridge across the creek and put in a micro hydro system.

All three of the systems, the solar, hydro, and wind power, are all intermittent and seasonal. You get more solar in the summer. You get more water in the winter. So they should balance out.

Currently have a 2kW Honda suitcase generator for backup. Would like to put in a converter so that it can be run on both propane and gasoline.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-19T21:00:48+00:00

I should note: VERY SMALL COAL MINES. Probably just enough to run a steam engine for old logging machines.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-19T20:58:27+00:00

By the way, I'm going to plug a DIY solar site where I got the ideas about solar water heating:

https://builditsolar.com/Projects/Projects.htm

If you haven't gone there yet, GO THERE NOW AND SPEND SOME TIME LOOKING AROUND.

useless_aether · 2019-12-19T20:50:08+00:00

you will never be bored for the rest of your life. and coal mines... wow

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-19T20:44:39+00:00

Please feel free to post some of your own.

yetanotherone_sigh · 2019-12-19T20:44:23+00:00

Welcome aboard! Please post and comment.

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