Thanks to all of you for your comments. I do believe I have a good grasp
of the requirements and methods of building but it never hurts to get some
more ideas. You did give me some good ideas and some new things I had not
run across before. Vertical log building looks like a good idea and may
one worth playing with. I still have concerns about rot in the below grade
sections of the poles. Dry stack concrete block with Surface bonding
concrete is something I had not know about and would be good for
foundations as long as I can get past the embedded energy in
concrete. There were other ideas and confirmation of my own ideas.
Here are my plans. Remember like all plans these are written in the sands,
waiting for wind and tide to wash them away and present a clean sheet. I
already have a home, a 256 sq. ft. home on wheels that I have pulled from
the Pacific to the Atlantic and back. It has been pulled the length of
California and back. It has gone to Texas up into Missouri then back
through Wyoming. It has been a home in back yards, on dead end streets, on
organic farms and homesteads. It is a good home.
My plan is to find some property I can afford. I cannot afford much so to
maximize land I am looking for inexpensive. I need a place of moderate
temperatures, decent soil, good rain fall, local streams and lakes, and
trees. I have a few areas I am interested in and a favorite. That is next
summers job, try to find something.
After getting the property I plan to look for a decent industrial tractor
with a loader, late 70s to early 80s should be affordable. With a box
blade, brush hog, and a post hole digger I will be ready. First step will
be to pull trailer on the property and set it up. Then I will build a 20
by 30 pole shed for storage, one or two bays lockable for tools. That will
also be the start of a water catchment system. Over the next few years I
will build a 30 by 30 pole shop and a small pole shed for a smithy and
welding shop.
Then I should have the garden going and know where I want to build a less
than 750 sq. ft. house, more than likely pole construction. I have a
complete woodworking shop, air nailers, welding shop, smithy, etc. With a
tractor with a front end loader I can add a boom and electric winch and be
able to set poles and other things myself. There are always people around
looking for seasonal work so that will also be used.
Lots to be worked out while the tides and wind erase all traces.
When you open the door to chance, you give up on being in
charge of your life. And in doing so you give up responsibility.
Not necessarily so.
There are a great many things in my life that I am NOT in charge of
but dealing with them IS my responsibility.
I know that luck-chance-etc are real. <Shrug>. That's life.
Rob
becida AT comcast.net
[Homestead] My plans for solo building,
Don Bowen, 12/10/2006