Long term Homestead project

[Wa11banger]

Hey TBN,

been looking at everyone's posts here and even created/responded to a few myself. Have had a great time learning from the site.. So now time to stick it out there and learn some more.

My brother and I bought 20 acres in Tn. We bought it near two years ago and have done a ton of work to it so many of the first posts as I go have already happened but I wanted to show where we came from through where we are going. Also being new to this whole documenting your work thing.. Pictures are plenty but action is scarce.

I plan on starting home construction next spring and if I can keep my savings goals this home is going to be build all out of pocket. Final construction for the home hasn't been decided yet although I am leaning towards a traditional stick built home.. I really am interesting in trying new things and have been really studying using 40ft high boy containers for the structure and according to the wife if we go that route there will be no outside nor inside ability to identify said construction mechanism.. but it interests me as it can have a wind and water tight ~1800sqft structure up in no time and I have all the tools to work with metal where I have no clue what I am doing with wood (which you will see as we go through this. My theory on the stick built is relatively easy to do.. no special equipment necessary and mistakes are a wood order away. My theory on the container home.. is I will cut these apart and create a design quickly that meets what I need and have a tornado proof home. If you weld 8 containers together and then weld them to the ground ( more on this later) they aren't going anywhere.. at worst all the windows get blown out and the exterior facade and roof get removed but the home stays in place and intact.

Additionally I will be primarily solar with city service back up.. I am nearly 3/4 of a mile from the street so utilities will come at a premium however I will have them. I currently have 3700 watts of solar up of a total 4400 watts capable first array.. I plan on having 4 of these arrays in all by the time the home is complete. I started with this in mind so I have a very large 220v inverter. and since I didnt plan on being grid tied just using the grid as my generator no inspections required. I also have a generator installed that covers me for the time being.

The place is almost 20 ares square, had about 7 acres cleared in the middle some 20 years ago but was all 9ft to 13 ft tall when we purchased it.. It was also used as the previous owners dumping ground. We hauled over 300 tires out of the place and there are more to go. I took 22k pounds of roofing shingles to the dump, and we burned old house construction for months to get seriously huge piles of demo stuff whittled down.. Turning those piles was a massive undertaking as I didnt want to burn plastics or paints, or all the other crap just wood and rubble that we could bury the remains of later. This was quite scary as it was the first time I had ever lit a big fire.. Pile was 30ft in diameter and about 15 foot tall.. as soon as it got going it was 35ft of flames and so hot we had to move 50-60ft back.. I kept the tractor idling in case I to push something back in lol.

Anyway I know the first post is a long read and somewhat unfocused I will fix that as I start posting what has happened to now.

 

[Wa11banger]

Sorry all no pics of us trekking in and finding our way but here is a pic from atop my tractor day 1. I can just barely see over the overgrowth. and there are a zillion small trees all trying to compete for some sun

First mow down with an old beat up bushhog. I am glad we did, I found more crap.. tires etc in this field than anyone should we made our base camp here. We ended up using that poor bushog for the whole place and it stood the test of time. It will get a well deserved rebuild this coming winter

Work day two and more hawgin.. Now my brother isn't the tallest of people but this is what I was hawgin through just to clear one upper field and the center. This was against the upper field and it wasn't as tall as the other places.. But plenty of crap and stumps to find in there. second pic is that same field after but a slightly different place taken

Just in time work day three (the next weekend) arrives and we have enough cleared to move around and the temporary container/barn shows up. I haphazardly cleared an area down to the dirt to place it on and built a ramp to it with some river rock to make it easy in and out.. We kept all of our tools and the tractor locked up in it in the beginning as there is no one living here or even close to us for that matter to watch the place. We only make it out on weekends for work.

I'll end with our first casualty of the week.. I had a busted up fence section drag up and rip my quick connects apart for the FEL which drained every ounce of Hydro I had in the thing, and promptly after getting that fixed I found another section of that same fence that claimed a tire. That fence was exacting revenge for sure

 

[Wa11banger]

ok need some help posting pics from onedrive.. I copied the URL's for those that onedrive game me into the IMG code format but they show up broken

 

[EddieWalker]

I'm looking forward to seeing your progress and admire your thinking outside the box. As a builder, and somebody with a little experience with containers, I will caution you that if you build your house out of containers, you will be severely limited in your design and your final costs will be much higher then a traditional stick built house of equal size and layout.

 

[teg]

...My brother and I bought 20 acres in Tn...

This would be a problem for me in the long haul. Are you planning to divide the land or continue to co-own?

{edit}, what size are the photos you are trying to upload, they may be too big.

 

[Wa11banger]

teg sorry for the late response, I have been off my feet the last couple of weeks due to a back injury and just now getting back to getting around to caring to sit in a chair. So far laying down on the bed or couch were the only options until the last few days. I got the epidural and finally have my *** realigned under my shoulders instead of walking around in pain looking like a question mark.

I'm not concerned at all. We have pretty much the same goals and its all drawn up as a no sale "ever" deal.. Well until long after I am gone and it matters not to me by that time We are working on getting it legally documented that the property cant be sold outside the family for 200 years or whatever they will let us get away with.

Size of the pics could be it.. I sent them to one drive at whatever size they were taken at. I will start the process of downloading them all back to my computer and resizing to fit this weekend. Although honestly I thought the forum did that so I will find what the default size and restart documenting and discussing this little adventure.

 

[teg]

There are 2 "sizes". physical pixel size and actual file size (megs). I think if it's under a meg you are good... Lots of time you can just re-save a jpg without changing the # of pixels and it will be a smaller file size.

Good luck with the back, been there.... don't want to go "back".

 

[Wa11banger]

Ok think I figured out this picture thing. Here goes the previous post again only with pics.

Sorry all no pics of us trekking in and finding our way but here is a pic from atop my tractor day 1. I can just barely see over the overgrowth. and there are a zillion small trees all trying to compete for some sun



First mow down with an old beat up bushhog. I am glad we did, I found more crap.. tires etc in this field than anyone should we made our base camp here. We ended up using that poor bushog for the whole place and it stood the test of time. It will get a well deserved rebuild this coming winter


Work day two and more hawgin.. Now my brother isn't the tallest of people but this is what I was hawgin through just to clear one upper field and the center. This was against the upper field and it wasn't as tall as the other places.. But plenty of crap and stumps to find in there. second pic is that same field after but a slightly different place taken


Just in time work day three (the next weekend) arrives and we have enough cleared to move around and the temporary container/barn shows up. I haphazardly cleared an area down to the dirt to place it on and built a ramp to it with some river rock to make it easy in and out.. We kept all of our tools and the tractor locked up in it in the beginning as there is no one living here or even close to us for that matter to watch the place. We only make it out on weekends for work.


I'll end with our first casualty of the week.. I had a busted up fence section drag up and rip my quick connects apart for the FEL which drained every ounce of Hydro I had in the thing, and promptly after getting that fixed I found another section of that same fence that claimed a tire. That fence was exacting revenge for sure

 

[Wa11banger]

My first big fire built with a tractor.. Hint for you other folks like that have never used a tractor before this purchase... See all that dirt?? it dont belong in there.. Makes it take a terribly long time to finish burning but we had a big time some of these fires got 35ft tall or maybe better they were big.. Much bigger than I really felt comfortable with.. But we burned everything wood, and scrap bushes and trees that we mowed down. This fire was lit Friday night and was still smoking Sunday morning.. If you look at that Sunday morning pic you can see the fire went down before burning all because of that dirt.. It's ok I rolled it over and burnt it again it was all gone the second time

 

[Wa11banger]

Here is a pic of 300+ tires being loaded late into the evening.. I had arranged with the local dump for them to be brought down first thing in the morning.. They usually charge by weight!!! :shocked: But since I was cleaning up land in the county they decided to let me off at a dollar a tire. May sound pricey still but some of them on the other trailer were still on rims.


If you haven't ever driven one of these it will be both the highlight and most painful memory you can have lol.. So much destruction. so easy to cause that desctruction, then clean it over and make it beautiful.. Only have a picture of me cutting the top of the drive in but I have a pic of it getting finishing touches afterwards


A quick pic of the wife showing off after the rains came and halted my driveway finishing.


Closing this post with some good fun.. We worked very hard to get here its about 4 months in at this point and we havent taken a moment off except for when the rains came.. it was good to have some fun and get inventive with cooking ideas. Thats my son prepping coals for dinner

 

[Wa11banger]

Broke the mini Backhoe

and again

wore the king pin out and man was that a pain to fix

and again

and for the last time these two weeks lol


So... we got big yellar delivered, Didnt break this one at all


I was doing all this backhoe work rolling my fire ash under and under.. It was a lot easier once a 3ft bucket showed up for the task


You might have noticed the big pole barn in the background.. My brother beat me to the punch and he had a recycled chicken barn delivered and set up to protect his assets and stop the sun from beating down on his trailer.. I do this shortly for my Motorhome but my son and I built it and quite dangerously I think.. Quite possibly better ways to get away with it than what we chose.. More to come on that later

 

[Wa11banger]

Here it is 8 months in (Aug 14' Mar 15') The list isnt very big but we pretty much only get to work on the property Saturday and part of Sunday before driving back home

We have cleared out the center of the property
Put in a nice driveway
Cleared out one boundary line and left it small enough for its intended use as a hunting trail. Man it looks good and the deer seem to think we put it as their own personal highway
Removed any trash that was not burnable, burned all trash that was and then rolled the burn piles into the soil
The area has almost recovering from the crappy old bushog we have been mowing it down regularly with, and the grass is starting to beat back the weeds in the cleared areas
My brother has a huge pole barn up, 40x60.. He has a great idea.. Store equipment or become a garage later but for now keep the elements from beating on the trailer. I am getting ready to do the same thing.
We have septic! huge bonus
I have lost near 25lbs just from all the working I do on the weekends.. I have much more available for losing but hopefully I can keep this trend up. However its a labor of love so there's not much work involved. I plan to expire here
I have had a boatload of fun on machinery. I might just quite early and find a way to work with big toys the rest of my working life!

Next uploads will start the pole barn build for the motorhome.. Although much smaller than my brothers (funny since my MH is bigger than his trailer lol) it was built by my son and I with no instructions it didnt come with any and no common sense.. I didnt come with any Hah! I had never done anything like this and although it was steep learning curve I would do it again only bigger

 

[SirReal63]

Beautiful piece of property!

 

[Wa11banger]

SirReal63,
Thanks I got a 3d printer for my b-day from my wife and kids on the 18th and as you can tell from the lack of posts I have been fiddlin with it quite a bit and didn't come back and finish updating the post. If you liked it during tear, up here is a quick sneak peak of how it looked this last weekend. Still a ways to go but much better than the start. That big ole fire spot has almost grown over. I am surrounded by trees in all directions.

 

[Wa11banger]

I thought I would open this post with a big shout out TBN.. I can no longer find the post but it had to do with someone asking about storing chains on their tractors.. I copied the one I liked the best.. it is still in service today almost 2 years later.


Well, I ended up getting a good deal on a previously attempted 30x40 pole barn. They guy got it up on the 8X8's but never put the tin on. He cut it back down and I bought the tin and the trusses for 900.

I went and bought a few bolts and the 8x8's and started digging, putting up the posts, squaring things off and leveling the roof. (Something that would have been much easier if I had leveled the ground first ). We used old yellar extensively in the build


These werent your average trusses and were too heavy for a couple of people to walk up ladders and place on top so we made a fixture for ol yellar and lifted them with that


Our property is near Amish country so I ordered up all the 2x6 perlins from one of the rough cut mills around the area.. it was quite a bit cheaper than dimensional lumber from the box store and a whole lot better quality. We started adding perlins as soon as we could to ensure each truss held the other up. My not so amused wife was the bucket operator for us in ol yellar.


One more to go.. My son was wore out after two weekends of us trying to get to this point. ( A picture of me would show a whole new level of wore out lol)


Last one up and secured... Time to clean up and go home for the weekend. I should have mentioned my son was stone afraid of heights before this build.. He voluntarily used this opportunity to overcome that fear. He still inst a dare devil but no longer afraid to get to the top of a ladder.


Screw check, removing lift lines, and we made shade under it. All in all a good day.. I wont mention how many unnecessary holes we made in the roof missing the perlins but it was less than a half a tube of silicone to fix. I used clear silicone so I could remember them well when it was bright outside


It was blistering hot this day.. Even the dog gave up.. Have you ever had a sunburn IN your nose? If you don't want one do not install galvalume roofing on a bright clear day! As you can tell roofing went well As you can tell by the shadow we finished about noon. That was the only quick part of this build and amazingly I was only 1/8" off on a 30' run. I was please for a first time roof job.


This was June of 2015.. It was stinking hot. I don't know about any lessons learned you may all have experienced but I learned a very valuable lesson on this day.. One of the most painful things you can experience is a sunburn IN your nose. Don't install bright mirror metal roofing in high sun days nuff said!

 

[Wa11banger]

Going to have to do some research... I have no idea why pictures that I view on my computer right side up are sideways when I post..

 

[budepps3760]

I hope you start my home next year on my 85 acres and I wish to be off grid as well. What resources did you use pertaining to solar.

 

[Wa11banger]

I used the internet forums, I called suppliers, and used lots and lots of paper comparing devices.
If you are thinking about getting into it let me first warn you that almost all suppliers are a little quirky. Go in knowing this and that they will be difficult to talk to unless you know the language and technology better than I did when I started asking questions. But with that point they will stick with you thick and thin just know you can feel them wondering how you got this far hehe

Backwoods Solar dot com - what a great team. I bought my first panels from them.. They are a great team, extremely helpful, and usually have good prices on panels when on sale. There tech team will break it down as far as you need it to ensure you get the detail you were looking for.

Midnite Solar dot com - They are who I purchased my charge controllers from. Direct buy.. Friendly staff great product and even after getting all you need to know. you will still be missing something in the back of your brain. Then one day it just pops and you are Midnite Solar charge controller Jedi. It will just make sense after a few weeks lol.. The tech support is great but these are very quirky. The answers are short and sweet, as a southerner we are not used to this. It feels like you are having a real life verbal text message

After realizing I bought panels smaller (watts) than I wanted I sold them and found a local installer to buy from. They generally don't want to do this but they are warming up to the DIYer. I bought a pallet along with his next order to save on shipping. I will do more business with him as my solar needs rise through completion of the house.

Just a reminder I am not doing solar as a back up.. It will be a primary service to my home, therefore everything is much larger. My panels are near 8ft by 4ft, the inverter weighs a ton and is near 3 ft tall and a 1ft deep pictures are coming soon we are close to that section of the build. I am providing 220v to my service panel not just 110. I am no expert but I did sleep at a ... nah I can answer some questions if you have any.

I