At Home In The Woods

[BoFuller]

Wow, I have just skimmed over this thread for the past couple days. I will be going back over much of it. Congratulations!
My wife and I closed on a 40 acre parcel in NW Arizona about a month ago. We purchased a trailer for temporary quarters and plan on building a log cabin. Maybe I should track that project?

 

[Dishpointer]

Wow, I have just skimmed over this thread for the past couple days. I will be going back over much of it. Congratulations!
My wife and I closed on a 40 acre parcel in NW Arizona about a month ago. We purchased a trailer for temporary quarters and plan on building a log cabin. Maybe I should track that project?

Congratulations! Beautiful piece of land. You know we would all like to see your progress.

 

[Obed]

Wow, I have just skimmed over this thread for the past couple days. I will be going back over much of it. Congratulations!
My wife and I closed on a 40 acre parcel in NW Arizona about a month ago. We purchased a trailer for temporary quarters and plan on building a log cabin. Maybe I should track that project?

Bo,
Looks like your property has some awesome views. Congrats on the purchase. Posting your project would be greatly welcomed.

I got some great advice from people on TBN that helped us prevent making some ugly mistakes. Going through the house building process is filled with traps if you don't know what to watch out for. Workers will take all kinds of shortcuts if nobody paying enough attention to make them do things right. For example, our plumber did not use the purple primer when he glued our drain pipes. It would have never occurred to me that a plumber would take shortcut. Posting your project on TBN will provide you with lots of suggestions if you are open to receiving them.
Obed

 

[Obed]

Chris,
That lockout device makes a lot of sense. The auto-lockout panels are rediculously expensive.

I believe I may eventually get a PTO generator. I like the idea of not having another engine to maintain. I will hook up a generator jack to one of the service panels outside beside the power transformer. This approach has the advantage that I don't need a long expensive cable running from the generator to the indoor electrical panels. In addition, the outdoor service panel is far enough from the house that I won't have to worry about exhaust fumes. Plus, since the generator will be upstream of our main electrical panel inside the basement, I can turn on anything I want to in the house as long as I have enough power. Our water heater is gas and we can heat the house reasonably well with the fireplace. Eventually we plan to replace our freebie electric stove with a gas stove. In the grand scheme, once implemented, I believe we could live quite comfortably during an extended power outage.

Interestingly, if we were not on well water, I probably wouldn't get a generator. With cold water, a gas stove, and the fireplace, we could handle a day without power without much trouble. The only big concern about an extended outage would be the freezer. But since we have a well, we'll get a generator regardless.

Obed

Here's the picture of our outdoor electrical service panel pedestal where we will eventually install a jack for the future generator.

 

[Obed]

Yesterday we cleaned up the area around the well and transformer in preparation for grading work and topsoil that will begin as soon as it is dry enough. We moved the blocks to a spot in the woods near the garden area. We rolled up onto a spool the electrical wire we had used for powering the camper. The 30A jack is inside the plastic bag sitting on top of the spool.

Last week the electric company disconnected the temp pole from the transformer. We removed the temp pole and leaned it against a tree. I'll remove some of the extra jacks and breakers and put the temp pole for sale on craigslist. We had more jacks than would be needed for most house construction jobs because we also were powering our camper, well, chest freezer, and heat tape for our waterline, etc.

The insulated well house that my wife built served us admirably. With a 100W drop light in the well house, the well house stayed above freezing even when outside temps were in the single digits.

I picked up some rocks and stacked them at the upstream end of the culvert.

As part of the excavation work we will be doing, we will build a driveway to the basement. The new driveway will connect to our existing driveway between the existing culvert and the garden area. You can see the new culvert sitting on the ground to the left our our road. The culvert will be installed on the other side of the road. The trees between the tractor and the garden area will be taken down. We plan to rent a chipper for one day and chip up as many trees as can be done in one day. What remains will be burned. The chipper can chip up trees up to 12" in diameter.

 

[Obed]

This week I took a picture looking out an attic window in the back of the house. The view from the attic is significantly better than that from the 1st floor because you can see better over the tops of the trees. The leaves have started growing and will soon obscure the view of the Cumberland Mountains. It really is pretty here to me as long as I ignore the red clay mess we still have surrounding the house.

 

[dstig1]

Progress! So are you going to build a more permanent house around the well to protect it from future winters? Or???

You should pull those saplings out from around the transformer. When they get big, they will have the potential to cause touble there. Best to keep that area clear.

 

[firefighter9208]

Chris,
That lockout device makes a lot of sense. The auto-lockout panels are rediculously expensive.

I believe I may eventually get a PTO generator. I like the idea of not having another engine to maintain. I will hook up a generator jack to one of the service panels outside beside the power transformer. This approach has the advantage that I don't need a long expensive cable running from the generator to the indoor electrical panels. In addition, the outdoor service panel is far enough from the house that I won't have to worry about exhaust fumes. Plus, since the generator will be upstream of our main electrical panel inside the basement, I can turn on anything I want to in the house as long as I have enough power. Our water heater is gas and we can heat the house reasonably well with the fireplace. Eventually we plan to replace our freebie electric stove with a gas stove. In the grand scheme, once implemented, I believe we could live quite comfortably during an extended power outage.

Interestingly, if we were not on well water, I probably wouldn't get a generator. With cold water, a gas stove, and the fireplace, we could handle a day without power without much trouble. The only big concern about an extended outage would be the freezer. But since we have a well, we'll get a generator regardless.

Obed

Sounds good!

When we built, we put in a gas cooktop, gas hot water, and gas logs. I only need the generator to keep our food from spoiling. In 1993 we had a huge winter storm that hit Alabama. Snow drifts were 6' in some places. We were w/o power for 10 days. Hope that never happens again.

Chris

 

[Obed]

Progress! So are you going to build a more permanent house around the well to protect it from future winters? Or???

You should pull those saplings out from around the transformer. When they get big, they will have the potential to cause touble there. Best to keep that area clear.

Dave,

The well guy told my wife that we don't need to cover the the well casing. The water pipe from the well pump runs through the casing 2 ft below grade using a pitless adapter. While building the house, we had a temporary water pressure tank above ground in the well house that needed freeze protection. The permanent pressure tank is now in the basement so we don't need freeze protection at the well casing any longer.

That's a good point about any saplings close to the transformer. We will may plant some shrubs to hide it but will need to consider how deep the roots will grow.

Obed

 

[Obed]

This evening we moved a sandpile from the front yard to a spot near the garden area. We put the sand on some scrap OSB boards and covered it with plastic. This is the same sand that was used to mix the mortar for our brick. We also have an extra pallet of brick that matches the brick on the house that can be used for projects or for patch jobs if needed.