Were gonna build a house | Construction and DIY projects | Forums

we have a 2000sf daylight basement set up (1000 up/1000 down), not including garage. stick built w/metal siding & decent insulation, need to replace the asphat shingle roof w/metal due to fire danger here & overall value (build it once and forget about it). built slab on grade. we use wood heat 99% of the time (the housekeeper likes a little oil filled electric radiator in the bedroom at night to warm it up, which i turn off when i come to bed). The stove isn't really that big but works great, am using about 8 or so pieces of cut pine (which burns FAST) per day and staying comfortable in the coldest part of the year. has a flat top w/space for to lg pots if needed. if your goal is to be off grid then think about things like well water vs municipal, septic instead of sewer, propane tanks instead of muni gas lines, and building a space that will function as your "engine room" to house all the stuff that it takes to run this kind of set up. our ebgine room is the size of a very large walk in closet. it houses the washer/dryer, breaker box (install a much bigget one than you think you will need, it costs you nothing to have a bunch of empty slots), our secondary well pump that gets the water around the house, our water heater, our furnace (that we never use, lol), our water filter system, our radon mitigation vent stack & fan, a swamp sink, and enough room for the battery bank & control panel we hope to install someday for solar. If your long term plan is off the grid, I can't stress enough to plan today like you will be starting with that kind of set up. It will make the steps towards getting there so much easier. the only "connection" we have is our electricity right now. well onsite, septic, propane tank (huge but would like one twice as big and underground), no land line, no cable, satellite internets. we hope to short term at least get a small solar system that can handle the well pump (this is HUGE, n0 lectricity=no water right now), the fridge & big freezer & possibly the range. if we had that up we could last for a long long time if muni infrastructure went down. in the short short term we are looking at a generator that we can pigtail into our little grid to do this function, but i don't want to depend on a gas powered engine (or listen to it frankly... i would think the sound of one would attract unwanted visitors if we are one of the few withpower). I also agree with the idea of lots of out buildings as they don't seem to effect your taxes and you don't have to heat them if your not in them. have you eyed out any land yet nader?