A visit to the city's public works department

While the land is outside city limits, it's within the city's water service area. That means that I get municipal water instead of drilling a well.

As part of the feasibility study, I went by the Public Works office to find out how much it would cost to connect to the water. They gave me this:

In addition, there's a "latecomer fee". Someone else in the area recently paid to extend the water main in to our neighborhood, at considerable expense. Because we benefit from it, when we hook up, we will pay a portion of that expense. The price is based on the "frontage" of the property: the length of the propery along the street. In our case, the parcels are each ~140 feet wide, so that's an additional $5000.

So:

$1,335 water meter - tap in to main line

$  250 water reservation - county

$2,522 system development charge water

$5,040 latecomer fee

Total about $9000. That's just fees to hook up to water. It's not the work we'll have to do, like digging the trench and connecting the plumbing. Since there are two parcels, if we wanted to build on both, it'd be $9000 for each parcel.

I was told that wells are about $3000 for a 100 ft well, but some are 300 feet deep at $9000. At that rate, a well might make sense. Especially because the ongoing costs of a well would be less than the city water. But I was also told that if there's city water available, they don't want you to dig a well, so I guess that's not an option.

In the long run, I think I can get our water consumption very low, by collecting rainwater and recycling graywater. I wonder if we'll ever be able to turn off the water service entirely? Ask me again in 10 years.

A visit to the county planner

Here it's called the Community Development Services: the portion of county bureaucracy that decides who can build what, where, and how.

I went to visit the Planner of the Day, who has open office hours so you can just drop in with questions.

I told them the tax ID, and they looked it up on the computer. They looked for sensitive wetlands, bald eagle nests, and landslide-prone areas. Nothing came up, so they said it should be OK.

The county health department has its offices right next door (I didn't even have to go outside), and they gave me a copy of the septic permits.

I wish I didn't have to build a septic system at all, using composting toilets and graywater to an orchard instead, but the rules don't allow that, so...

I do want to clear to the south for sun to the house and garden, and a drain field has to stay clear of anything with deep roots. Grasses & wildflowers are OK.

If I'm reading the design correctly, there's a space designated for a drain field, and then a second space for a replacement drain field if the first one fails (because it fills with roots, for example).

Maybe I can build in the designed "reserve" on the bottom-right, thereby letting the south-east sun in at the same time.

Making sense of the land

We walked the land the other day, and tried to get a better sense of its shape.

Looking at pictures from the air, I see that while it is densely wooded. I don't want to loose much woods if I can help it. We probably need to clear for:

• A yurt as temporary shelter
• A deluxe outhouse (with shower, washer, and dryer) to make things comfortable for my family while we're building
• A driveway. 
• A garden
• A septic drain field
• A "solar easement" to the south, so light can come in
• The house + garage

There's a slope down on the south side of the property, and I wanted to get a better sense of where it is. I tried walking the land with a laptop + GPS, and writing down latitude & longitude of key points. I then plugged the numbers in to Google Earth and got this.

There are 4 pins in the image that mark the corners of the land. The 'S' pin divides the land in to two parcels. I want to keep the option open of selling one parcel in the future. The 'Top of Rise' pin shows where the land slopes down to the South-East. North of that is pretty flat, except for the very north side of the property.


Measuring distances under 100 ft with GPS is tricky, because there is a built-in error in the GPS signal. If you stand still, your GPS will say that you're walking around at about 1 mph. By moving quickly between positions, you can get good relative measurements, though.

To help get better measurments, I just bought a 200' tape measure for $20 at Amazon:

Later that same day I went to measure my current kitchen at Amazon, and discovered that the tip of my 16' tape measure had broken off. Just as I took the last measurements, the kids caused the tape to be sucked up in to the body, making it useless. I ordered this replacement ($11) which will arrive tomorrow:

I did discover that my current kitchen has 15' of counter, plus a 26" square corner area. The range also has 15" of built-in counter-like space on one side.

Under contract

Yesterday we came to an agreement with the seller on price and terms. The property is now "under contract".

We have 30 days to perform a "feasibility study". I don't really know how this goes, but it includes things like finding out the costs of hookup to utilities, and asking the county about our plans.

In this case, we already have a septic permit, there's city water in the street, and electricity is also in the street. So it should go pretty smoothly.

Build a house

[reposted from http://jbazuzi.blogspot.com/2009/12/weve-been-looking-for-house-to-buy-and.html]

We've been looking for a house to buy, and haven't quite made it. We got close - an offer on one that didn't stick, and another that was already pending when we found it - but for now we're still looking.

Eventually I decided to revisit what I had learned about alternative house construction. Materials with low embodied energy, reclaimed materials, build-it-yourself, insulation, thermal mass, solar gain, and integrated design.

That last one is important. Integrated design. By that I mean thinking about how each part of a house design relates to the rest. For example, laying out the floor plan so the plumbing can all be together ("wet wall").

In Permaculture (and in nature) every element serves multiple roles. Chickens don't just produce eggs; they also consume food scraps, protect the orchard from pests, turn soil in the garden, and produce fertilizer. In conventional house construction, we use studded walls, meeting the needs like this:

strength - studs, OSB sheathing

fire resistance - drywall

insulation - fiberglass batts

beauty - drywall, siding, paint

thermal mass - none

Contrast that to Cordwood, my current DIY favorite.

strength - cordwood

fire resistance - cordwood

insulation - conrdwood

beauty - cordwood

thermal mass - cordwood

Furthermore, Cordwood is cheap and accessible for the amateur. No fiberglass to make you itch, either.

In addition to building our own house, we'd like to grow much of our own food. Chickens, ducks, goats, honey bees, a small orchard, and a big garden. Maybe pigs. You don't need a whole lot of space to do that, but I don't want to be buying a lot of food for the animals: I want them to roam and forage for themselves a lot. That means having a little land. I don't need to produce enough food to sell, but I do hope to produce more than we need and trade or gift the surplus.

Then again, I don't want some sort of rural McMansion. A hundred acres I can call "mine". 3000 sq. ft. of house at $120 / sq. ft., with active solar heat management and laminated "green" floors. Driving 20 miles just to see friends or by shampoo.

We've found 1.7 acres for a reasonable price. That's more than enough to grow all the food we can eat, but not enough to feed all the animals we could want. That's OK.

It's outside the city limits, which gives us more leeway with codes & construction methods. However, it's right over the line, so we're close to stuff, including a bus line. It also has city water in the street.

It's wooded. I have reservations about clearing land. But the alternative is to buy land that someone else has already cleared, which isn't much better. However, land that has been abused (e.g. gravel pit) and is super-cheap would be an opportunity to bring rich life back, which I like. Anyway, I love the woods so being wooded isn't terrible. And having a supply of wood for building and fuel is good, too.

In the new year we plan to put an offer on the land. Then we'll build an outhouse to explore the building techniques we're thinking about. Then a temporary shelter. We have a year on our current lease to get all that done and then start building.

I also hope to inspire others with my example, and by teaching what I learn. You don't have to have an enormous, expensive, toxic, wasteful home. It can be modest and comfortable and beautiful and cheap and healthy.

More to come, I hope.