Some Stuff

I hope everyone had a good Christmas holiday. I finally had a few days off from work myself for a change. It was good. I hav'nt done a darned thing on the house since the last blog, however I did find some new aquired items. I got my 1000 gallon propane tank and the next day it was filled to about 75% full. 80% is the maximum allowed, but it was a pretty cold day, and just incase I don't happen to use any of it by the time summer rolls around, I kinda thought we should maybe hold back a bit and allow for expansion on the hotter days. I kinda wanted to buy my own used tank and I will be kinda keeping my eyes open for a good deal some day. This one costs $180/year to rent, and $175 to bring it out. That price includes the haul away I understand. It costed $2142.66 to fill the tank to 75%, including taxes. That is 2967 liters of propane. Usually a fill from empty to 80% would 3200 liters.

This is my honda 2000 generator that I have been using ever since I moved out here. I actually purchased this baby brand new on ebay and it came from somewhere in North Carolina if I remember correctly. I managed to save myself a little over $300 on it by the time all the shipping and importation fees etc. were all said and done. They are expensive for the size, but they are quiet, and very reliable. It is the inverter type generator also. It hardly ever gets used in the summer, but this time of the year I start it up quite often as the sun is pretty low and not out for very many hours in the winter up here.

I managed to get my Drolet woodstove home. This sucker weighs about 375 lbs.

So used the backhoe to shove it into the house. I did'nt take it down stairs yet, just incase there may be some reason that it may not pass the inspection for some reason or another. Maybe it's too big or something, who knows. I don't think so, but it's just better to be safe than sorry I guess. I think I can get it downstairs myself easy enough, but bringing it back up could be a bit of a chore.

I went auction saleing again and purchased a new generator. I looked up powetek on the internet, but could'nt find it, although I think I figured out that this is actually quite a popular generator, just sold under alot of different names. $600.00. I see the same thing advertised quite aften ranging from $1200-over $2500. It is diesel and is supposed to be quite quiet when in action. It is not the fancy inverter style generator, but I'm going to try it out and see how it goes anyway. I was kinda planning on a Honda eu65000, but they cost over $5000.00 new. That just don't seem very frugal to me, unless I get a real good deal on one someday.

There she is out of the box. A little more power for when I am in the house to charge a much larger battery bank than I am using now.

I also bought some other goodies at the auction. The contents of these 3 boxes is propane hose and electrical cables. A big industrial camp company was selling out the Grande Praire, and Grimshaw divisions of their company. This trailer load costed me $55.00.

Inside one the boxes is these hoses. It is alot more than I will be needing, but better to have too much than not enough, I guess. I am planning on running some hose from the 1000 gallon tank to my shack temporarily. 200 feet of 1/2 inch above ground lpg hose would have costed me over $300 to buy new in town. I feel that I have done pretty well on this purchase although, I still hav'nt run any propane line yet. It will be alot more simpler and cheaper to run propane from the big tank. When I fill the 100 pound bottles it costs me .945/ liter compared to .6878/ liter from the big tank.

Anyway, country life is treating me real well still, even though I am still living in the shack. Don't think I could ever go back to town living. I don't know how busy things are going to be in the new year, but I am sure looking forward to spring so I can get right after my little project again. I may find time before spring to get some things done, but I really can't say for sure. Surely this has got to be my last winter in this shack though. I hope. Happy New Year.


Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

My life. November update.

I appologize that I hav'nt been on here much lately. Just incase anyone is so curiously waiting for an update. There really has'nt been much to blog about lately. The summer is gone and I'm still not in the house. But hey, thats ok. With me it is anyway. Whats the panick, I'm already living the dream. I have now lived totally off grid for 2 years as of Oct 25, and I am just coming into the 3rd winter of living in the shack. I'm kinda starting to feel like Richard Proenneke. Not quite though, he did'nt have an interenet connection.

Anyway, I really did'nt get a whole lot more accomplished on the house project since my last post. I have been fairly busy at work. I have had time off, but you just don't feel very ambitious after all the work at times. I have always worked the busy times, and holiday, play or do my own thing in the slow times. Gotta grab it when it is there. I do have plans in the near future to be pretty much done with bustin my ass working my life away. I'll always do a little here and there, once in awhile probably, but I would really like to be more of an independent homesteader type guy. I have big hopes and dreams. I've practicly got it all planned out. I just hope it goes kinda like it is all planned. That's kinda weird just saying something like that, because usually my plan is to have no plan. You know, just kinda go with the flow, but I do have a plan. I am starting to get real eager to get into the house for now though.

I am trying to get at heating. The above picture is the pad I built for my 1000 gallon propane tank that should be coming tomorrow, (Nov 16 2010) The last couple times I filled my 100 pound tanks for the shack I noticed that propane is cheaper now than it has been all summer. I'm thinking I want to buy propane now, before it goes up. That being said, I wonder if it will drop more for some unknown reason. Like maybe the double dip recession that you sometimes hear about possibly happening. I suppose it could, but I think I will take a chance on it anyway. It will probably cost me somewhere in the area of $2200.oo CAD to fill the tank, but I'll know more when I see the bill I guess.

I managed to smuggle some prime firewood home one day. We had a hoe sitting out on a job that was pretty close to an old log deck that people were bucking up and taking home. I threw a few scoops on the lowboy and brought it home. I don't think they were planning on salvaging this stuff anymore. I was told to help myself, so I did.

I went auction saling and picked up a turtle tank to haul water in. I'm not hauling water yet, but when I do, this will be handy to just leave in the pickup at times. Whenever I happen to be going by the water station, I'll just bring a load home.

Then my boss had these big ones. I can't remember, but I think they are 4500 hundred liters or more. It costed me a big bottle of vodka for both of them. My plan for these is for summer storage of water for general yard use. Livestock, garden, fire fighting or whaterver. Sometimes the creek runs and sometimes it is just a trikle, but when it is running, I will fill these for dryer times and convenience. I suppose I could use one for hauling to the cistern. Two of these full would probably fill the cistern. The cistern is about 3500 gallons.

Oh ya, by the way it snowed here and it is pretty cold, I think winter has arrived. Today I finally shut off the fridge in the RV. Seems things in the fridge were freezing and things in the freezer where thawing, so I guess it is time.

I purchased a wood stove awhile back, but it had to be ordered in. It's not here yet. After I purchased it, I realized that you can't hook combustion air right to the stove from ouside. Something I kinda wanted in a woodstove, but oh well, I'll bring in some outside air another way I guess. I'm also wondering if I should have got a bit smaller one. Sometimes I get thinking the little house is a mansion. I know it will seem like one when I compare it to the shack anyway.

I will try to be on here more often. We sometimes do have a bit of a slow down this time of year, before the real winter work starts up, so I might concentrate on getting some heat in the house soon. Thanks for not deleting me from your friends list for being absent for so long. We'll talk to ya in a bit.


 
Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

Caribou

I sure don't see many of these critters in my travels usually. Actually this is the second one I've ever seen in my life. A caribou. aka: reindeer(I think). I was a fair distance away, so the pictures are'nt the greatest. I put on three pics, but it was just the one animal. Moose, elk, deer and black bear are all pretty commen to see on a weekly or daily basis, but this guy was quite a sight.

It has been very busy with working out in the bush the last two weeks. I don't even need a house as I just seem to live in a peterbilt truck most of the time. I even had to sneak into a camp and borrow the shower one night. We have a big oilfield job in the Grand Cache area and it really keeps us truckers smokin trying to get all the equipment there.

Since my last post, not a whole lot got done on the house. I did manage to get a little more drywall up though. It sure won't take long to finish hanging drywall if I ever get around to it.


Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

Starring Contest

After having supper, I got up to get something from the kitchen area of my shack, and to my surprise there was a deer standing on the top of the hill right outside the window of the shack. It kinda caught me by surprise at first. The deer was looking at me as I was very still trying to remember where the camera was. When it started eating some weeds on the hill I made my grab for the camera. We had a bit of a starring contest, but obviously, I won. I am always looking over my shoulder and checking around before going outside from the shack. That could have easily been a bear, which if it was would more than liking run away at the sound of me opening the door, but you never know.

The following pictures are in no particular order, just a bunch of random pics since my last post.

Since my last post I did find some time to build, but I did work at the pay job a fair bit too. I just had a pretty good splurt of work and today was the first day back building for awhile.

I finally got the loft all insulated and the vapour barrier up. I also managed to get a little more drywalling done. Still a bit more drywall hanging to do yet though, but it is getting narrowed down. So far I have purchased 66 panels of drywall. I did'nt think a small house like this one would take that much. I might even have to get a little more yet, but I'm not real sure yet.

All the heavy rainfall that we have been getting has sure been taking it's toll on the creek banks. I've owend this property for probably over ten years and have never seen anything like this. Build a house overlooking the creek and guess what happens. lol. I'm not real concerned at the time, but I do have plans of doing some kind of erosion control for future flooding. If it were to rain like this for a few years straight, I would probably start to worry a bit if I did'nt do something. The water level is'nt overly high in this photo, this is just some of the aftermath.

I have been doing a fair bit of trucking lately. When I snapped this photo, I was kinda stranded out in the middle of no where for a bit. There is four belts on this truck, and for some reason they all blew off. I suspect one broke and caused all the rest to derail. I managed to salvage one belt for each set of pulleys to finish hauling what I had to haul and then get home. Alot of squealing was going on when the fan kicked in. So I managed to finish the day with half the belts anyway.

The insulation in the loft ceiling is R40 value. I thought would take a shot of the space above the insulation which will be the ventilation space. You want to have some ventilation above your insulation. On my house the air flows up through the soffits under the roof over hang and goes out through the vented ridge cap. That's what it is supposed to do anyway.

Just a shot of some of the wetness we've had around here lately.

Before I did my drywall surrounding the tub, I wanted to test it for leaks. My first test actually failed. What a mess downstairs. So I redone the drain and overflow installation, and this time it was good. But, as I was pumping the water out of the tub, I accidentaly bumped the drain plug with my pump, and I made another mess down stairs. I don't have the tub completely connected in the basement yet.

Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

Drywall, Heater, Solar Equipment, Bathtub.

I seen the dog in the corner of my eye and something just did'nt seem right. I guess she wanted to have a birds eye view while searching for mice. That seems to keep her occupied while I'm busy doing my thing.

For a while there we had some pretty good rainfall happening. The creek was alot higher and wilder than I've ever seen it before for a few days there. A long with the rain came a fair bit of time off from the pay job, and I did manage to accomplish a few things on the house.

I got my loft door framed in, then I insulated it, and will vapour barrier over the whole the thing for now. I think it will be alot easier to install the door once the the deck is built up there, and who knows when that will be. It could be this summer, but it could also be not this summer. The other gable end is insulated with vapour barrier installed. I still have to insulate the ceiling.

The basement outer perimeter is drywalled and most of the main floor perimeter is also. I just have the bathroom to do on the main floor perimeter. I have one 15000 btu propane heater hanging on the wall down stairs so far, but it is not all plumbed in yet. There will be another one of these just like this one on the adjacent wall, but both will be on the same end of the house. Anything vulnerable from freezing up is in the same area as these heaters, and the bathroom and kitchen is directly above. These heaters don't require power to operate, but I have equipped them with the optional fan so I do have the option. I expect to be able to walk away from my place in the winter for days, and have nothing freezing up with just these two heaters running. Unless, of course if it gets so cold that the propane freezes off. -42 propane quits moving, and it is quite possible to reach those temps here, usually if it is that cold, I think I'll just try and be here. I realize that heaters should be mounted lower to the floor, but these are direct vent heaters and the exhaust goes out at least a foot above grade. Larger direct vent heaters would'nt pass the location/distance codes, unless they were mounted on the floor and had a B type vent system. The b vent system gets it's combustion air from inside the house, and I did'nt want that. The b vent system also requires a chimney to be run all the way to the top of the house. Did'nt want that either. I don't expect my two heaters to keep the house at a comfortable temp, but you never know, they might. Yet to come is a wood stove for the basement, and possibly a smaller forced air furnace more for use in the spring, summer and fall. I'm pretty sure that I could also use the forced air furnace in the night as the fire burns down in the winter, but I sure would not expect it to run constantly for days on solar power alone in the winter. I'll be doing alot of experimenting in the near future.

I purchased some more goodies online. All the stuff on the second plywood backing board. Plus a new inverter that is not installed yet. Shown is an Outback 60 MPPT charge controller, solar panel combiner box, and an ac/dc disconnect box. This is the main power in connections all in one convenient place. The Magnum 24 volt to 120/240 volt inverter mounts right on the face of that disconnect box. This system is going to be pretty high tech for me. So far the power that I have in the house is still coming from my shack through an extension cord. But it's all solar.

The plan is to have my batteries right in the basement so far, but that could change also. I could possibly have 24 6 volt batteries, depending on the the size I choose to buy. It could be less but larger batteries, I'll have to do some pricing out when the time comes. It would be nice to have the batteries in a box outside, but then it just seems like more headache to try and keep the batteries warm. In the last two winters that I have lived off grid, I have started the generator alot of times just to warm the batteries up. They lose capacity the colder they get, and if they were at room temperature, I probably could have gotten away with not starting the generator on alot of the winter days or nights.

I don't feel real frugal lately. I do shop around and get the best deal I can find, but I did spend more on some things than I have planned on. It's not like throwing the money away though. I'm sure it will increase the value of the house. When you go shopping for things like bathtubs where I'm from, there sure does'nt seem to be much of a selection. I guess I probably could have ordered something. I'm actually quite happy with my new tub though so far. I thought it was going to be quite the chore to get it from the trailer into the house, but it actually went pretty good.

I laid it on its side to get it in the main door, then had to skid it through the kitchen and into the living room, where the vaulted ceiling is, to stand it up. Then back through the kitchen and into the bathroom. I had to do some debuilding to get it to go through the bathroom door. The door header had to come out as the tub was too high.

I can't wait till I'm using this baby instead of showering in town, or the RV all the time. My bathroom is quite small, so I could'nt really get far enough away for a good picture, but it's looking pretty darned good so far. The tub seems to be a good fit.

Well it sure has been nice to find a little time to get a few things accomplished, but it has'nt rained for awhile here now, and I'm actually wondering why they hav'nt phoned me to go to work yet, but I'm glad they did'nt. Just trying to get as much done as I can before it happens.


Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

June 9 2011 House and Work Update

We have been pretty busy at work lately with a little bit of free time off and on. So I wanted rain
in hopes that we would get shut down for awhile. Well it rained, now we play around in the mud. It don't matter, the machines need to be there I guess. I unloaded the cat I was hauling and trying to get turned around, this is as far as I got. I'm stuck.

We always seem to haul something that can help with getting turned around, or up hills that you normally can't do with the truck alone. And it does happen at times. So I hooked the cat I just unloaded onto the trailer.

Then jump on the D6R Cat and simply drag the old girl around the corner.

This is how it all ened up. The jeep (small trailer between the truck and main trailer) wanted to kink towards the ditch more instead of follow along, but thats ok. We're turned around and ready to roll. I hate trucking in the mud anymore. Everything was nice and clean before this road. They call this the Teddy Lane. I think named for all the bear sightings. I have seen alot of blackbears on this road and one spring a few years ago I can remember watching a young grizzly bear rolling around on dead road killed moose right at the beginning of this road as you turn off the highway. Yip, right at the chain up area. Nice. They don't seem to drop all road kill there anymore, which is kinda nice. I have seen alot of black bears this spring so far. I think almost every day I'm out in the bush. No grizzly yet though.

I get alot of different looks from Traction at times. She's just about ready to retire from the swamping lifestyle after this day we had.

One evening while driving home from work, I noticed this old truck parked in a farmers field. I just had to turn around and snap a shot, as it brings back old memories, just like an old friend. I used to drive this truck for a previous employer. I have been into the United States one time in my life and this was the old friend that took me there. I was hauling 108 head of young bull buffalo from close to home to Gooding, Idaho. It was quite a journey. Permits, log books, heat, this old girl don't have air conditioning. The DOT shut me down in Shelby, Montana for two hours for being over houred in my log book. lol. If they only knew the whole story. By the time I arrived at my destination, I thought for sure that I would have had some dead livestock aboard, but when I opened the gate, they all ran off one right behind the other. They are a tough animal. They are quite different from cows. Cows would have trampled alot of the sleepers on a trip like that I think. I do plan on doing some more hauling across the line sometime in the future. I think it would be a great way to see the country.

One other funny thing I can remember about this truck. Most vehicles I have ever driven has a speedometer that is in both kilometers and miles. This is the only vehicle I have ever driven in my trucking career that only had it in kilometers and not miles. Just another minor obstacle while driving in a country that is in miles. I can also remember when this trucks odometer turned from 999,999 back to zero. There are actually alot of different trucks that I run across from time to time that bring back some memories, kinda like an old friend, and some maybe an old enemy.

Anyway, back to the acerage project. Once inawhile I do get a chance to start doing things on the house or the acerage before getting phoned to go to work. I managed to install a couple of deck headers on the front of the house. It's going to be a deck over a deck. In between the two ladders will be a sawed off door. I just gotta be different. I'll be taking about 1 foot off the door and will have to step over the knee wall to get out onto the deck. I like the idea myself. Awhile ago, Annie over at Edifice Rex kinda mentioned that it might not be a good idea to cut into the top plate for a door opening, and after thinking about that for awhile, I thought I would agree. So this is the solution I came up with.

I managed to get a few other odds and end done, and the house is pretty much insulated except the ceiling and just some odd pieces that would be in the way for other things. After being so busy at work for a few days at a time, I always seem to find it hard to get motivated again. I'm always thinking the phone is just going to ring anyway. It sounds like we may have another driver coming as we do have another truck now. I think I will find some extra time for building soon. I sure do hope so anyway. I hate the thought of quitting, or taking a bunch of time off, sometimes I just wish the boss would retire or something. Well, not really. I love the job, but I just find it hard to enjoy it at this time knowing that nothing's going on with the house. I don't plan on working like a dog for ever, it's just that it's easy pickings right now, and you just never know if it will come to a sudden halt again soon or not.

Another thing that kinda slowed down the building process was that when I did have time off work, I used about three days in total to cleanup the bush areas a bit, with some help from mom one day. After the forest fires in Slave Lake, Alberta, that destroyed a good sized chunck of the town of 7000 people, it made me a little paranoid. So I thought that I would prune the spruce and pine trees in the bush that come close to the house and garage. Well I don't know if pruning is the right word for it, as I just delimbed with a chainsaw. Probably not the correct way to go about it, but I had alot of trees to do. It is alot safer now, I think. If those trees ever did start on fire, I imagine it could take the house with it pretty easy. The way it was, the limbs so close to the ground and all that dead quack grass under the trees, a little harmless grass fire would have almost garanteed a major disaster. As it is now, it could still be bad, but there is a pretty good chance that a grass fire might not automatically ignite the trees so easily.

I raked all of tree broughs out of the bush and piled it all into one big pile in the middle of my land. It was a few loads for the old backhoe. I'll probably burn it in the winter. There is alot of extra things a mans gotta do when country living. One chore that I have, that really dos'nt make any sense what so ever, is mowing. Is'nt that what cows are for? I just don't have time to get rigged up for everything just yet. Eventually though, I would like to find two calves in the spring and let them graze the acerage all summer and sell them in the fall. That way they can keep the grass down in the hard to mow areas also. I need fence and the time to build it etc. I guess I could tether them or use solar electric fence, but I just don't have time for things like this right now. For now I'll just mow it. Just another thought, I could put a couple horses there instead, but then they will be burning hay all winter. I guess time will tell.


Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

Insulating

I had my rough electrical inspection on May 13, and all is good. Except I forgot to wire in the smoke detecters, as I just kinda thought I would be using battery operated ones instead, being off grid and all. But I guess they need to be wired in anyway. I need one on each floor and they all need to be wired together so that if one goes off, they all go off. No problem. I started doing some insulating right after the inspection. I did have a little in basement from before. The basement is pretty much done except for all the smaller pieces that go in the floor joists on top of the basement wall. Most of the main floor is done except for one end wall, as I need to have axcess to it for install the deck headers. The Knee walls in the loft are done except that same end wall for the same purpose. The electrical inspector is also the building inspector, and I mentioned to him about my idea of having a sawed off door to enter the deck off the loft bedroom. It is all a go, he kinda liked my idea, although if I were a contractor building this house for someone else it would have been a different story. Monday will probably be a bit of waste as I am going to go to town for some more supplies.

I finally went and picked up a load of water from town the other evening. Before I unhooked the trailer I thought I would fill up the RV, as I was in major need of a shower after insulating all day, and I sure have no intentions to go all the way to Grande Prairie for just a shower. This way I can just gravity feed the water into the RV instead of hooking up a pump and doing it.

The shower in the RV is pretty tiny, but it works. It was busy day.

Things are sure starting to get dry around here lately, which is kinda hard to believe after seeing all that snow we had this winter. It's pretty smoky around here all day. There are some fires burning in the Whitecourt and/or Slave Lake areas.


Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.

More wiring and other things.

Well it's that time of the year again, where I need to start using some store bought energy to keep the growlies cold. The propane fridge in my RV. I think I finally decided what I will use for refridgeration in the near future. DC powered fridge and freezer combination which I think I will use all summer and then in the winter I will utilize the natural refridgeration as I have done for the last two winters now. But it may come later as I can still use the RV fridge for a year or two. Whats the panick. I believe that I will have power to burn in the summer time, but the winters will be kinda tough. I really see no sense in using energy to heat a home then put a box in there that burns energy to make things cold when it is -30 to -40 celcius outside. Gotta make some use out of that cold weather.

I hav'nt been very busy working at work, but it is that time of the year for work related courses and meetings etc. Then when I thought I got all that out of the way, my old GMC decided to quit on me on my way into town. I caught a ride with a good samaritin who gave me ride to my place so I could get my Dodge and trailer to load the GMC onto. I got it home and trying to figure out what was wrong with it the next day while it was still loaded on the trailer, I managed to rip the door handle off the truck. I wasn'nt having a real good day. I kinda boiled the truck issues down to the fuel pump, but I was'nt positive about it, and I ended up taking it in to town for repair. I just did'nt feel like spending time on it when I have so much building going on. It was the fuel pump and charged me $800.00. I bought a door handle for real close to 100.00. I sure don't feel real frugal lately. lol. I know I could have changed that fuel pump myself and I would have if had nothing better to do. It is inside the fuel tank, and the tank was pretty close full. I would have been a day just trying to find some place to put all that gas.

One evening after supper I decided to install a tv antenna on the shack. I've had one kicking around here and always wanted to get it up. Now I have two whole channels that are alot less fuzzy than the two I had before. You sure don't see many of these around anymore. I wonder if you can even buy a new one of these. I got pissed off at the satelite tv company finally. I don't really feel off grid with it anyway. Internet is enough. Ever since I moved out here, I put my satellite tv on suspension to avoid paying the disconnect fee and the reconnect fee and all the other stupid fees. It was supposed to be $10 a month while on suspension, but they seem to know how still squeeze more larger fees periodically, so bye bye satellite tv people. I don't need ya. Maybe someday, but I'm good for a long time for now.

The creek is running pretty good for the last couple of weeks.

There's the house from down at the creek.

My breaker panel is made for both shore power and generator power as an emergency backup source. Every house should have one of these. It makes it real easy to hook a generator up to the house in case of power failure on the grid or whatever. Normally my off grid power will have the generator hooked into the inverter, but my way of thinking is that if the inverter should blow up on me, there could be a time where I might have to bypass the inverter all together temporarily.

The branch circuits before.

The branch circuits after.

A closeup view of the breaker box. My neutral to ground connection will take place in a different box between the inverter and this breaker panel. I will be adding some more circuits to this panel. About 5 more that I can think of right now. Septic pump, septic alarm, garage, HRV, furnace, but I'm just not ready yet. NOTE, I am not a professional electrician, so if you copy my wiring and your house burns down, or you get injured or worse, please don't blame me. Get the info from the real pros please. Although, I do think things will be ok, ya just never know.



Disclaimer--IMPORTANT


This is a personal blog, mainly for my own use. I am building a house with my own two hands, but I am learning alot of things as I go. I do not claim to know what I am doing, or if anything I do is even close to being done correctly or safely. So please, if you are planning on using any of my ideas or methods for your own use, please get professional advice before actually following through with your actions. I will not be held responsible for any injuries or damages of any kind caused by information or comments from this blog.