Long term Homestead project

[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.

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