Acquiring Land and Building a House

[sixdollars]

Hi all,

I'm interested in eventually buying a 1 or 2 acre plot of land and getting a small house built on it sometime in the future.  I'd probably use the land to grow food, though I'm not sure yet on what scale.  I'd eventually like to set up a homestead where I could be mostly self-sufficient.  I would probably eventually like to install solar panels on the house and have some way to store and catch water, etc.  I'd prefer to have my bare minimum expenses covered by PP earnings before I did this of course.. but I'm wondering if any of you have had any experiences doing this (or something similar) that you could share?

What resources did you use to learn more about the ins and outs of acquiring land? What sort of things should you watch out for?  What lessons have you learned that would help you if you had to do things over?

Likewise, for building a house... what sort resources did you use to learn more about the ins and outs?  I don't know if I trust myself to build a house from scratch, so I imagine I'd contract most of the work out... I'm just trying to get any idea on what important considerations to make going forward.

Acquiring this information seems like it could be overwhelming, so I'm just wanting to see if anyone out there has found some good online go to guides or the like.  I'm not looking to do this immediately, but rather would like to start reading early to get an idea of what might be involved in the future...

Also, if there are any of you out there who haven't done this yet but are looking to do so in the future, let me know! 

Thanks again to all who contribute. 

[Pointedstick]

Oh boy, so much to say on this subject. Here are some links you might like on the subject of house design and construction:
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blo ... everything
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blo ... -manifesto
http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blo ... good-house

General advice:
• Masonry over wood (immune to insects, fire, mold, rot, water, bullets, tornadoes, etc)
• Superior insulation over bigger heating/AC systems
• Crawlspace/basement instead of slab-on-grade (entombed pipes very expensive and difficult to work with after the fact)
• Brick exterior (lowest maintenance & highest strength)
• Small house; like with weddings, size is the basic determinant of final cost
• No gas combustion inside the house; all-electric everything
• Backup high-efficiency wood stove or rocket stove
• Do not skimp on the costs of the foundation or roof
• Metal roof; standing seam or exposed-fastener screwed into purlins above the underlayment
• Design with generous roof overhangs of 1.5 feet or more, especially if it is very sunny or rainy
• You don't need a dryer; following this advice will save you a ton of money
• Most contractors are clueless; assume the worst and educate yourself. Never trust anything they say if you are not able to personally verify whether it is correct or not.
• Don't get sucked into the world of "alternative" building e.g. earthbags, cob, strawbale, etc. A lot of this stuff doesn't work as well as the proponents claim unless you become a complete expert, and they all involve extremely large amount of labor.

If you're interested in self-sufficiency, here are some things I have bouncing around in my head:
• Go off grid. Likely cheaper than connecting to the grid in a remote area
• Use a solar thermal hot water heater; a drainback system if in a place where it freezes, otherwise a simple direct heater system. Read everything here: http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Wa ... eating.htm
• Use solar PV for electricity, coupled with as small a battery bank as you can manage. Batteries are expensive and don't last. Don't use lead acid batteries. Opt for more panels vs more batteries. Minimize your electrical loads. All LED lighting, everything on timers, etc. Direct excess power generated beyond battery capacity to resistance heaters in your water storage tank.
• Minimize electrical and mechanical gadgetry. Everything should be passive if possible. For example, store water in a cistern located above the fixtures so gravity can feed them, rather than in an underground tank where you'll rely on a pump. Anything you can't fix on your own will be broken for days until someone can come out to fix it for you, and that will be expensive.
• Collect rainwater. With enough rainfall, a big enough cistern, low-flow fixtures, and water-wise habits, you won't need a well. Which is good, because wells are expensive, can be unreliable, require pumps, and the water quality is often bad. And they can go dry.
• Install a graywater system and composting toilets. The graywater will water your fruit trees, and the compost from the composting toilet will fertilize your soil. This way, you won't need a septic system at all, and you will simplify your plumbing because with no septic or sewer to produce nasty gasses, your plumbing fixtures won't need any traps or vents; just simple pipe runs straight to the fruit trees. Mucho savings are possible.

Consider an aquaponics system. You can grow food and raise fish at the same time. Cool stuff.

[MachineGhost]

Seems like the modern conveniences you give up just extracts it back-end costs in the from of more manual labor?

[sixdollars]

PS,

Wow, thank you. I really appreciate the time and detail you put into that reply.  I'll definitely take a look over all that you've posted here and move forward (continue learning) from there.  I'm not sure that I'm conveying it well, but I'm actually very excited to have a place to start

I'm also searching through to find other posts in the past that might cover these topics.  It looks like I hit the jackpot in finding this forum (though I kind of wish I had stumbled across it sooner) - I'm definitely going to have start optimizing my searches since a lot of my questions and topics of interest seem to have already been covered in the past

[Pointedstick]

FYI my current obsession is housing, and I am fascinated with sustainability, buildability, energy efficiency, off-grid, zero waste, etc. So I love reading and writing about this subject. Feel free to keep asking questions and I will enjoy doing my best to provide as much information as I can.

[Pointedstick]

I found the perfect wall material for you if you're in Texas or anywhere in the desert:

http://crescoconcrete.com/liteblok/

You can easily do it yourself and it'll cost you like $6 a square foot. Ridiculously cheap for what it is. Don't forget the deep roof overhangs.

[MachineGhost]

I found the perfect wall material for you if you're in Texas or anywhere in the desert:

http://crescoconcrete.com/liteblok/

You can easily do it yourself and it'll cost you like $6 a square foot. Ridiculously cheap for what it is. Don't forget the deep roof overhangs.

That's pretty cool.  What's the difference between masonry and cement?

[Kriegsspiel]

What a coincidence, I just took a break from reading Compact Cabins by Rowan to check on how things were going on the internet. So far I've made it through his floor plans, but it is interesting so far. Maybe give it a look and see what you like?

[Pointedstick]

I found the perfect wall material for you if you're in Texas or anywhere in the desert:

http://crescoconcrete.com/liteblok/

You can easily do it yourself and it'll cost you like $6 a square foot. Ridiculously cheap for what it is. Don't forget the deep roof overhangs.

That's pretty cool.  What's the difference between masonry and cement?

Masonry is basically just a term for stone--in whatever form--used in construction. Cement is a common "glue" made out of burned limestone used in mortar and such, and is an integral component of concrete, which consists of cement, sand, other additives and aggregates, and water to activate the chemical reaction that binds everything together. Concrete is what your house's foundation and driveway are probably made of. You can make all sorts of interesting things out of concrete, and it tends to be extremely strong, durable, and thermally massive. It can stores a lot of heat, and it takes a long time for heat to travel from one side of it to the other. Its downsides are its high expense, high thermal conductivity (i.e. low insulation), capacity to absorb moisture, and vulnerability to freeze damage on horizontal surfaces especially. It also requires skilled labor to pour and work with on a jobsite.

The blocks in that link, are aerated concrete: blocks of concrete that have lots of tiny cavities full of trapped air, which improve the insulation value of the blocks and encourage better water drainage. Cool product. Not perfect, but cool.

[I Shrugged]

I do notice magazines on newsstands covering these types of topics.  Mother Earth News comes to mind, but there are others too.  Worth a few bucks to try some.

[WiseOne]

If I may make a rather unorthodox suggestion...consider consulting an architect when you go to build your house.

My brother is an architect with his own design firm, so I have the benefit of that perspective.  Yes, an architect will cost in the neighborhood of $30K.  However, they'll think of things that you won't until years later when you're struggling with problems that you didn't foresee.  My brother sometimes jokes that he functions as a marriage counselor, and gave this example:

He was called to consult on a planned home addition - expansion of a living room.  He listened to the couple talk about what they wanted, then asked them WHY they wanted a larger living room.  The wife said, because her husband is constantly leaving things in the living room, it drove her crazy, and she figured a larger living room would solve the problem.

"What kinds of things?"

"Hats, coats, umbrellas..."

"Do you have a hall closet?"

They didn't.  He saved them at least $70K.

[Pointedstick]

That's a great story! But I don't think you need an architect if you're going to be building an off-grid cabin. Their fee would be like half the total cost. If you're building a larger house, just buy an off-the-shelf floorplan you like, which was already made or influenced by an architect.

Instead of hiring an architect, if you want to design a good home, I recommend picking up a copy of A Pattern Language. I am constantly astonished by the wisdom packed into the little book. It is an absolute font of thoughtfulness about the process of designing space for humans.

[MachineGhost]

"Do you have a hall closet?"

They didn't.  He saved them at least $70K.

I hope this was an exception to the rule.  It would be hard to imagine people are that bloody stupid now.  I'm gonna go ahead and guess that if a couple could afford to hire an architect for something that stupid, then making more money is hardly a guarantee of better intelligence as is normally implied.

[WiseOne]

It would be hard to imagine people are that bloody stupid now.

P.T. Barnum had something to say about that 

Per my brother, this story is not unusual.  He sees this sort of thing all the time.

Some people are really good at imagining spaces, and good for you if you're one of them.  I know that I'm not, and I'm still worse at identifying the most efficient way to address a space problem.  When I bought my current apartment, my brother came to visit and instantly told me to replace the fridge with a counter depth model.  I did that and the change in the kitchen flow was astounding.  I might have thought of that eventually, but I was all confused about what to do first.  Issues like this are incredibly common, and you'd be amazed at how much under the surface hassle they create.

For a simple cabin, sure I agree with PS about just getting an off the shelf design.  But for a house you live in day in and day out, it's worth putting some investment into Getting it Right.  An architect can save you money by telling you what you don't need.  And also fitting the house to the land, to optimize solar heating & window overhang cooling.