i think i am ready to do it!

[mobile_bob]

As some of you guys know, i have been tied up having ran for mayor and won twice,
and even fewer of you know that it has been a real labor of love of my little community.

if any of you have watched the kavanah (sp) confirmation hearings, the senate votes, and all
the bruha surrounding that, well scale it back a fraction and you have what i have been dealing with
for about 5 months now.

it has gotten so ugly around here, and i have been called everything but a human and yes it has left
a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. not so much for the little town the raised me, and its people for the
most part, but surely those in the opposition who seem to think that they...

1. want what they want!
2. want it done their way!
3. want it done right now!

of course they don't know or rather can't know why some things are done the way they are done
especially when it comes to complex negotiations with something as necessary as the city's water supply.

anyway i digress

this tiny house thing  has been something i have been thinking about for, lets see? hmmm, has it been that long?
yes 20 years this year!

over the last 20 years i have gone through a divorce (very costly and ugly), got the kids raised (good kids), remarried
moved back half way across the country, bought a small place in town and all the rest.

now with all that has been going on, i am back to the original plan, or at least giving it serious attention. and
the wife is coming around to the idea.  i think she too has had about all she can take of the political b/s around here.

i still have the 10 acres that i bought 15 odd years ago, and i did finally get a modest well drilled (2-3g/min), and as part
of the original effort i have got a build site scraped off half way up the north face of the hillside, that has had about 12 years
to settle.  and best of all!

over the last 15 years the tree's have grown to the point that i can no longer see town! and neither can they see me!
how cool is that? 

the county is zoned so i have to follow some guidelines, mainly not to go over 2 stories and have enough setback from the road
and have an approved septic system, but other than that i think if i built it myself i don't have much else to be concerned with.
although yes i am going to go check out if there are any new reg's.

ok, so what is the plan?

i am thinking of around 750sq/ft, one bedroom, single bath
straw bale construction, i just can't get my head away from using bales after spending so many years
researching their use.

rear of the house facing up the slope of the hill, where the winter sun traverses, with enough glass to
gain a little solar heat (or as much as i can muster).

got three large cedar tree's to the west of the site which will provide summer sun afternoon shade

entry on either the east side or the west between the cedars and the house,  minimal glass to the north
even though that is where the view to the valley lays out,  although i may use triple pane on that side to allow
for views should i decide before i build to want to look down toward town, or what i can see of it.

power, heat, water, etc?

well i have water, so i figure to use a large storage tank, and use a boost pump to supply pressure for the house
this will give me the capacity given the low capacity of the well.

electricity?  that i had always planned on doing myself, because it was probably 10k to get power to the place
over the last 10 years a cell tower came up and sat on top of the hill, so power is now one pole away, however...

i still have all the goodies to do it myself, so why not finally walk the walk?  i can see no reason not to?

i think i have around 1.5kw of panels, another 1.7kwatt of grid tie, and i have around 25kw of pure sine wave
inverter capacity (modular, heavens i don't need that much)

and i have now, two cogenerators, that have been calling me to use them for years now, "bob come use me!"

both will produce all the power i would need, and charge batteries, and make domestic hot water, and hot water
heat for the interior in cooler/cold months.  that is where the economy is as we all know.

propane for cooking, back up hotwater, back up space heat (although i will be using wood as well)
some diesel for the cogenerator(s) and...

while i likely won't save a bunch of money over utility purchased power, i think i can compete fairly well given
that the demand is so low for my intended structure.

so where you going bob?

i have to finish this mayor thing, so i am thinking maybe by spring of next year as a start date, meanwhile
i have time to drag out my notes, and firm up the plans.

also i figure that maybe, just maybe if i post this, i might feel compelled to actually get it done!

bob g

[mike90045]

We did a strawbale mini house.   The very most important thing is DRY.  DRY ground contact (we used a footing of concrete blocks)  and were 2 years getting the lime plaster overcoat on over the mud/wattle, but the damage was done, moisture got in, and the bales are half rotten, top to bottom.   We sleeved the rebar in PV, and all the good stuff, but moisture still got in.
If I was doing it again, I'd go with ICF  (insulated concrete forms) with a good exterior overcoat to preserve the foam.

[glort]

if any of you have watched the kavanah (sp) confirmation hearings, the senate votes, and all
the bruha surrounding that, well scale it back a fraction and you have what i have been dealing with
for about 5 months now.

Without trying to put anyone down, as an outside observer I have taken an interest in that and I have to say your is a most complex and intreaging society.  I also watched a TV interview last night with some lefties womens rights lezzo hard done by whinger saying what a blow it was to women everywhere and how it was demoralising etc the guy got in.
Everything I have seen said multiple investigations amounted to nothing and they could Find no wrong doing.  I also watch pieces on Trey Gowdy. His telling comment was they investigated the guy 15 years ago for the 2nd top job and found nothing. If there was something to stop him getting the top job, surely they would have found it when they gave him the 2nd top job.

it has gotten so ugly around here, and i have been called everything but a human and yes it has left
a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. not so much for the little town the raised me, and its people for the
most part, but surely those in the opposition who seem to think that they...

1. want what they want!
2. want it done their way!
3. want it done right now!

And this perfectly pertains to what I was observing above.
Despite the fact there is NO evidence, not a scrap, people are still whinging and complaining. It has to come back to exactly what you say, It's not what THEY want, not the way THEY want it and because of that, they want something done about it.... like making it suite them.

This isn't of course limited to the US by any means. See it all the time here but in my observation, the effects are far more reaching to higher levels there.  Here the whingers are dismissed at a certain level,. there they seem to have influence all the way to the top.  I know it's a contentious topic but not being a US citizen matters not to me and I don't care but as a purely irrational observer, was the same with trump. All these allegations that were blatently false.  He was against black people supposedly. I looked into what he had done against them and found that in fact the biggest black association in the country was backing him all the way.  Same as he was supposed to be so against women but in fact he had the backing of the biggest womens organization.

Everything I can find says the country is doing the best it's done in decades but people are still making out he's ruining the place. OTOH I have watched the hearings where they Grilled Hillary and just with what Trey gowdy pointed out in her lies, she should have went to prison. The supporters however calim it's all made up.  If it's not what I want I'll bitch and cry despite the overwhealiming evidence that proves i'm an idiot.
There was an uproar here because an inner city suburb where all the trendy complaining do gooders congregate had a KINDERGARTEN that had a protest against trump during the election. That's here, in OZ, where the politics of another country are none of our goddam business and these  do gooder teachers had 3 and 5 Yo's walking around with placards denouncing trump.  I would have gone off my tits completely if my kid was there!
what the hell right do these teachers have to force their political views about another country on Pre schoolers??  Some of the parents supported it, a few were pissed off but over all it still sparked outrage at using kids for political agendas.  If I had my way the place would have been closed down and none of the staff would have been allowed near kids again.  I would not have cared who they were protesting.

And that's the other thing. Seems in the US there are 50 [protests a day.  We get a lot here too, I found a FB page the otehr week that was an event guided that had a section for protests.  Most was pretty laughable. Speil talking about this grave crime and outrage against humanity and 12 people are going and 3 Might go. YA!

Obviously this starts at the ground and goes on up so if anything, I can well see where you would have to put up with MORE of it than anyone else.
It is a truly sad reflection on all societys.

ok, so what is the plan?

i am thinking of around 750sq/ft, one bedroom, single bath
straw bale construction, i just can't get my head away from using bales after spending so many years
researching their use.

Not meaning to insult your idea but I don't get the whole Tiny house thing?
My impression is it is a cost saving measure.

That being said, it seems to me you are not an uneducted man without worthwhile means. From what I have observed, houses in the US are dirt cheap.  Here basic new homes in outlying suburbs on tiny 300m2 plots of land are $700k . I'm on an acre at the real edge of the city and paid more than double that 12 months ago. Most homes her now are Minimum $1.8 and 2.3M buys you something at the better end of the area.  Want something Luxury and you are well north of $3m. I don't see our wages are higher here and certainly everything else is way more expensive than what you pay in the US.  Our Fuel is Minimum $6 gal atm.

From what you are saying, your costs of running a small house or a large one would be quite cheap. The only advantage I can see is perhaps Building would be cheaper but I wonder to what degree. All your design and planning permissions etc will be fixed and the house you are talking about building will be economical too.  IS there really a lot of cost savings in a smaller house over a larger one?

My house here is 3200 sq Ft. I'd like it a lot larger to have what I'd really like. How does that compare with an average US house?  It's reasonably large for here but not overly so. Plenty round here leave it for dead.   I think homes in the US tend to Dwarf ours.

Just interested to learn what you see as the advantage of a Small house?

also i figure that maybe, just maybe if i post this, i might feel compelled to actually get it done!

Yeah, posted stuff up before myself in the hope someone might ask about it later and quilt me into doing things I am probably going to be slack on but need to do!   

MY dream, and that's all it will ever be, would be to do a container house. Maybe as a weekender or something. The site would have to have running water for supply and to fulfil this loooong hankering to do a Micro Hydro system.  Sites like this can be hard to get here no matter where you go. I sometimes think I don't need MH, I'm  DIY solar competent now and have the panels and knowledge to provide all the power I could ever use along with some veg fueled Gennys.  It's not the dream though and if I went bush proper, I'd have to clear a LOT of land, like an acre, in order for the solar to be effective enough without shading issues.

My container house wouldn't be a small one container Job, the dream is at least 12-15 Giving me multi levels an some funky design like a centre courtyard and even a sunken basement room.
Wether you do containers, straw, Cobb, Cinderblock or whatever, There really isn't much difference. That's just the structure, the real work of the interiour is all the same. Framework, plasterboard, plumbing and electrical and so it goes.

one thing I would have to have in a DIY house would be a Russian type stove  or something, what ever you call them, with a few ton  of thermal mass in the form of rocks or dirt.  Fireplace with a looong flue that sucks all the heat out of the combustion and just radiates gentle warmth through the place. Probably go for a hydronic system as well in the floors. I have learned heating air is one thing, and not a good one but it's really the furniture and fitting you want to heat and have them warm.

but the damage was done, moisture got in, and the bales are half rotten, top to bottom. 

I would have never thought about that but now that I have, that seems like it could be a huge problem with bale homes.  Are the bales structural in that sort of design or just like a covering/ insulation material?

[LowGear]

Hi mobil bob,

Me too.

I get smaller houses and I too am absolutely burned to the core of the political crap.  Let's run away and pretend the only important challenge in this life is your new home.

I don't get straw houses where there is any suggestion of moisture.  Amen mike90045.  Organics and water is the stuff life is made from and that's not the kind of living house most of us want.

Slopes to me always suggest daylight basements.

I still repair the apartment building I grew up in.  It's almost 65 years old.
     Plumbing walls that support fixtures should be at least 2X8 and have access panels of some sort. 
     Roof slopes should always be at least 3/12 unless you're in a place that would be smart for straw. 
     Based on all of the building propaganda I've seen wood heat should be reserved for emergencies which include ceremonies like holidays and power outages but regular inhalation of burned anything should be avoided.  This doesn't include the fast or Russian fireplaces.

Water storage tanks - not pressure tanks - seem like they should be up hill at least 50 feet so on those worse mornings you still have 15 PSI to wash up and cook with.

My house dreams usually have one stationary wall that is a plumbing wall with the cooking area on one side and the bath on the other.  The rest of the walls can be moved around in a few hours to facilitate changes in the family. 

Stairs with gentle risers will serve you through most of your life but someday you may have to accept one floor as your living space. 

Square footage is over rated.  The important part of a home is kindness and respect. 

Dreams are really important.  Let her rip.

Best wishes,

Casey