Success

If things had gone like I'd planned, we'd be moved in by now...but you know what they say about the best laid plans! However, we need the extra time, there are a few things that are unfinished. Not many, but a few important parts.
I burned the midnite oil for 9 days, and yesterday, I got the electricity going! It turns out that the inverter wasn't activating when I connected it to the panel. There is a tiny little plastic jumper on the back and when I flipped it over, the inverter suddenly turned on! I walked around the house, replacing all of the incandescent bulbs with CFL's.
Then, I couldn't get the furnace running for some reason. The glowbar would turn on, but there was no flame. The propane wasn't flowing, but all of the valves were turned on. I didn't figure it out until I looked at the furnace, and saw two little wires dangling. I thought "I wonder if these go here?", and "whoosh"! We have heat!
I also managed to tie down most of the anchors that will hold our house down in the wind. Then I placed our bladder tank where it was to go, and put the pipes through the floor to where the pump was, and hooked it into that. I just need a few more parts and then wire the pump to an outlet, fill the tank with water, and voila, water!

I just found a truck mounted tank for $200, which is half of what I figured it would be, and larger capacity as well!

Well, I'm back to work again tommorow...

Time Crisis!!

Two days left...well, there would be if we hadn't extended our time a bit more. We're not ready yet, not even close!
A few delays, more costs, a cancelled project...what more could go wrong? Yet, even now, we are safe in God's hands.

I have spent more time in my house, and accomplished less than I can remember in a long time. Well, I haven't accomplished nothing, but less than I wanted to. We still don't have reliable power, our wood stove isn't installed, we have no stairs to speak of, the water is non functional, a sewer pipe needs to be reinstalled, and I haven't cabled the sucker to the ground yet. Add to that the ground rods that need to be pounded into the ground (with a sledge...phew), and you got more work than I can physically do in two days! So, our landlord has graciously allowed us another week or so to get things moving.

Electric: I built the battery box (kind of, it still needs a little work), and placed the massive batteries inside it. I wired them together according to the diagram, and tried to hook them to the inverter. The cables are too short!!! I had to get another 4 feet of the massive DC cable that ties the inverter to the batteries. Placing the inverter and DC disconnect was interesting too...so many holes drilled...don't tell anyone...
After establishing where the components were too be placed, I need to protect the cables from damage, so they all have to be placed in conduit pipe, which is unwieldy to work with, and requires fitting, and glue, blah blah blah. I ran short of the fittings I wanted, but I just got more today.
I opened the main panel to try and connect the AC side of the inverter...holy cow, what a confusing jumble! I tried several different configurations before abandoning the effort. I wasn't using the right size cable anyhow. I have the right cable, and the proper knowledge now, so it's off to the races tonite!
We also had the wrong kind of inverter. The new one cost $1100 more to exchange...there goes the wind turbine. We don't have enough for it now! But, the generator will fill in, charging the batteries so we can have power until I can afford the turbine. I really want to put one in, because there's so much wind out there, it would be silly not to take advantage of it! Hopefully in the new year...

At least the propane is taken care of. The guys came out with the tank, filled it out, piped it under the house, and hooked in the furnace. Once the power is up, all I have to do is flick it on, and we'll have heat! I also have a new hot water tank, dryer and stove to be hooked up. I wasn't strong enough to lift the appliances 5 feet straight up on my own, so I've left them outside for now. Thank God it hasn't snowed out there for a while.

My mother came over and expressed her concerns...sort of. Actually what she did was berate me about every mistake she thinks we made, starting with acting impulsively and buying the land right away. If I tried to defend anything, she would shut me down. It was a brutal, discouraging conversation, but it was mainly centered around the 15k that they co-signed on to help finish the project. I was hoping that this wouldn't happen, but it did. I need to make sure that this project works, or we will be in a world of hurt! After a year, we will be in a good spot to manage the costs, put some animals and plants in, and hopefully generate some income!

It's time to go for my daughter's birthday party, and after that...work time. I need that electrical running by tonite, and I'll work my fingers to the bone to get it! Hopefully without cutting myself again...

Next time I post, I'll have some project pictures to show.

Zero hour

Today marks the point that I have two weeks left in this rathole of a house. We can hear the neighbors constantly downstairs, and their daughter is awake at all hours of the night. Kinda like me, except I'm actually working.
To be fair, my kid is pretty loud too. I'm sure they've commented on it to themselves a few times, especially when we're disciplining her. I know that in many countries, having a room for a family constitutes the lap of luxury, but I've got an entire mobile on 156 acres waiting for me, so this arrangement is less and less appealing to me as time goes on.
We got the money! To say that it came just in the nick of time wouldn't cut it. One more day, and we would have had to sell some body parts to pay some bills. I was looking into a car title loan at the local pawnshop, that's how bad it got. I borrowed $60 from my little girls piggy bank to buy some food, and we were still way overdrawn on our chequing account. It's not that I didn't budget properly, but the loan we just got was supposed to be done a while ago, and there were some things that I had to pay for out of my paycheck. Plus, this paycheck has all of our loan payments on it, which was poor planning on my part.
Tommorow I put in the power, which means a drive to Red Deer, and then a drive to our farm. And to boot, I just got off the graveyard shift, which means I haven't slept very much. I'll catch up on sleep tonite, and then put foot to ass for a couple of days to get some very important things done.
The propane guys will be there on Tuesday, and I need to be there with electricity! Tommorow will be trenching day, I plan on renting one of those big trenching gigs for about 200 feet of trenches. Doing that by hand with a pickaxe is NOT an option!!!!! I want to actually be alive to move into this place.
I need to buy some batteries, but I'm not sure how many. I'm thinking 12, but I might do 8 and then another 8 in 6-8 months. They are horribly expensive, but they are the best quality, and I don't really need 5 days of power storage right now, since we're running off of mainly generator power. We will not have the turbine ready for move in, but it's fine, we'll just charge the batteries with the genny every day for a few hours. We have a 4500watt generator, so two hours on that will give us all the power that we actually use in a day! Hopefully this thing isn't going to crap out on me after a month...it is supposed to be pretty reliable.

I've got a lot of work to do, but now we actually have the money to do this!

I'd like to add a personal note about my family's viewpoint on our move. I never really realized it, but they don't want us to move! They kept saying that we were being impulsive, and we were thinking things through, and they were worried that this was going to cost us soooo much more than we thought (even after all the quotes came in!)
It wasn't until I had talked with them at length that I realized the truth. They didn't think we should be moving at all! I'm sure they'd deny it, but deep down, it's true.
The worst aspect of this move is the distance from the city...I've got about an hour and 15-20 minute drive to get to work. I work 16 days per month, and it's shiftwork, so it isn't going to be easy, but truth be told, I don't mind the drive at all! I like to be able to think about things, and having an hour to myself is actually a very nice thing. My family doesn't believe me, but we'll see in time. There are certain things that I decided that I will put up with, and the drive time is one of those things. If that's the worst thing, consider the benefits over living in the city!
- No irritating neighbors keeping you awake till 1 am
- Park anywhere you want.
- Dig a hole anywhere, for any reason.
- My daughter can walk anywhere without me worrying that she's going to get hit by a car, or....
- I can grow my own food.
- I have very few bills, and if I really wanted to, I could live without ANY of the monthly things I pay for! In the city, if you lose power, you lose heat too. My heat comes from the end of my axe, and needs no power.
- I will become more fit doing farm chores
- My wife will have many things to keep busy (she wants rabbits)
- I can shoot a gun on my land without the police getting called.
- My nearest neighbor cannot see into my windows, does not play in a Heavy Metal band in his garage, and can't hear anything that we do!
- My taxes are $200/year.
- I don't have to drink fluoridated water, or bathe in it.
- I can plant a grove of trees, and watch it grow.
- I can drink RAW milk!!! (When we actually get a cow)
- I can build the house of our dreams down the road.
- I can make a lot of money selling farm produce. Well, a bit of money anyway.
- We will be self-sufficient in time. Have you been reading the economic news lately?
- I will be able to build a private lake (Seadoos anyone?)
- We have our own toboggan hill
- My daughter will not grow up thinking that we live in Somalia
- I can nourish my crackpot conspiracy theories without fear of gov't surveillance (haha, just kidding...sort of)
- When the lights go out in the city, there is no food in your local Safeway, and your heat doesn't work in February, you will think "I've got to find that guy with all the land! I bet he has food!" You will look for me, but you will not find me. Only just now can I find my own land without a GPS, and I've been there 100 times! Good luck getting there with no gas either.
- When there is no food, we will be able to provide food and seeds for those that God directs us to. Did you know your lawn will grow enough food for 3 people for a year? But, you don't have any seeds to grow food with! Ok, we can help you. Seriously though, maybe you should find some seeds...just in case.
- I can roam around my land on a quad, or a horse.
- We have our own swamp. Do you have a swamp?
- No smog
- Have you ever seen the stars at night with no other lights around? I plan to do this for the first time very soon.
- No sound of traffic, police sirens, fire trucks, and police takedowns at gunpoint 50 feet from my house.
- The sound of crickets is very soothing. Or maybe you prefer the sound of drunk idiots cursing, and squealing tires at 3 am.
- I can finally find out what a "roll in the hay" is actually like!
- I can crank the Country Music LOUD!
and finally...
- We can live the way God meant for people to live.
Isaiah 5:8
"Woe to you who add house to house
and join field to field
till no space is left
and you live alone in the land."
Do you really like living 6 feet away from your neighbor?

But lest I should get a fat head, and think that I'm such a smart guy, this comes from the same chapter..
21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!

Thank you Lord for this land. May it be a place set aside to You for Your Glory.

2 Weeks left...

2 weeks to go, and we're in...I can hardly believe it! So much I've done, and so much left to do. With the weather getting uglier by the week, I need to work a little faster, but I was constrained by the unfortunate fact that we had no money for a long while.
God has come through, in the form of my parents, who co-signed a loan for $15k. It's actually $21k, but we agreed to use only 15 of that, and fund the rest ourselves. A very fair bargain, considering that otherwise, we would not have the money to make the jump. I would have had to sell my gold, and probably my bike and truck, which would have been unfortunate.

Tommorow, I'm going to buy the generator. I've settled on a decent model, a Champion 4500watt, sort of bottom of the line model. Manual start, but it has 120 and 240v blocks.
The generator is going to be the sole source of power for a few weeks. Our original plan from the start was a renewable energy system with a wind turbine and a few solar panels. Then, I thought I could save a bunch of money by putting in grid power. I even paid for a trench to be dug for the line coming off the road! Then, I found out how much the buried cable would cost...more than $6000! That, plus $4100 for the one power pole and transformer, and you've got more than $10k. And that will buy me a wind genny! Not a good or big one, but maybe it'll last 4-5 years, and I'll build a better one. I'm waiting for the thin-film solar technology to reduce the price of solar panels, then I'll get a bunch of those too.
The wind turbine won't provide all of our power on it's own, we still have to run the genny to keep the batteries fully charged, but it won't be on constantly. Maybe an hour a day, sometimes more or less. The 8 batteries in the system will be the most expensive, running me about $2800. Later on in the year, I'll add 8 more batteries to expand my reserve capacity. I can't afford it yet, but within a year I should be able to.

The propane company is going to put in a huge tank, and also do the hard pipe under the house. At first I thought they would only do the tank, but they agreed to do the whole thing, so, awesome! I just need the gas dryer, gas stove, and the conversion bits for the furnace and water heater. Those guys are coming in four days, so I've got a lot of work to do! I've got trenches to dig, and lots of heavy stuff to move. I also want to build a wooden box around my trailer so it can fit more stuff. Then, we pack, and move. Then, a wind turbine, and skirting around the outside.

I still have to finish the water too, although that's nearly done. The woodstove comes after that then.
I have 9 days off in a row to get it done, so it shouldn't be too tough, but it'll be cold!

Septic fun...

I can't believe we're almost finished!
Just a few days ago, the Septic guy from Simply Septic was out on our land to place the tank and leachfield. In just one day, they dug a massive hole, and a few more massive trenches, and one looooong trench for the buried cable that we're going to need. I spent most of yesterday, and the day before that putting together the septic pipes to go from the house itself to the tank. Those are all my responsibility, and it's almost finished! Thank God, I hate being underneath that house...my neck hurts.

I still have to set up the water tanks, and I went and bought a jet pump and all the associated bits and pieces, pipes and hoses for the water delivery system. I still don't quite understand how it's supposed to work, but I'll figure it out!

I'm a little concerned about getting the electric installed in time. I think we might be without our main electricity for a short while until Fortis can install it, because I still don't have the money to pay them! I've got money coming, but it's going to take about a week, and we only have a month left anyway! That leaves three weeks after the money comes in. I still need to hook up the propane, but that should be relatively easy. I have the old pipes still, and I just need a pig tank on a trailer.

If we have to, I will move in without electric. We'll be using candles and batteries and flashlights, but I will make it work. I can rent a generator as well, and we'll keep our food cold on that, and cook on the woodstove. It'll be like camping! Except, not really.

Thank you Lord for all this working out.