Hello from Chile | New Member Introduction | Forums

I am a Mechanical Engineer currently living in Chile while I work at a desalination facility.

I just wanted to stop in and say hello. Usually I peruse forums as needed, just gathering information on whatever project I happen to be working on at the time. My newest project is the culmination of a lot of things that I have studied in the past in the form of a house.

I plan to incorporate a green roof, passive solar, and rainwater harvesting into a central Texas home. I am coming at the project with a complete DIY attitude with the exception of where I need trade skills for code compliance (utility hook ups). For most things I have already acquired the tools and everything else will either be purchased or rented along the way.

The goal is to build everything for under $20/sf. This will enable me to save up enough cash so that I can do everything outright and not try to explain everything to a bank for a construction loan.

The timetable will be one year, from groundbreaking to putting it up for rent or moving in myself.

The best part of this is that this house will be a dry run. I plan to spend a few years actually homesteading (completely self reliant) in South America and this house will not only provide passive income during my time in SA but it will allow me to break ground in SA having already done everything once before.

I will meander around the forums and start to post in a new topic in the DIY construction thread when I have my layout and bases covered. For anyone that is interested, I will be budgeting everything down to the last nail and will be running an ongoing cost analysis (predicted vs actual) as I go.

Thank you to everyone who has already contributed to these forums and I look forward to getting to know you all a little more as I myself in turn contribute.