Buying a homestead

[mjohns]

We are in the early planning stages of buying a place in the country and have come across a few amish farms for sale. Most of them have the ideal setup that we are looking for - barns, sheds, land, etc but are obviously lacking in electricity and plumbing in the house.

Just wondering if anyone has ever bought an amish house (or any house for that matter) without electrical wiring or plumbing and had it installed afterwards. If so, what kinds of problems did you run into and what was the cost?

Thanks for any info.

[Micheal]

The few Amish places that have been purchased around here - 1 was torn down and a new house built; the others were completely gutted to the rafters and a complete remodel done inside. Guess it was easier than trying to fish wires and piping from where it was removed....
Cost? Don't know. A general contractor did the new build and the remodels were done by the people who bought the places so I'm thinking materials only.

[geo in mi]

First, welcome to the forum. I think what you be will able to do will depend on local codes. Nowadays, most places use national standards for electrical and plumbing, but there may be some allowances in your area for running electrical conduit on the outside of the walls. Since you will be in an Amish area, this has probably been done before, so a local contractor may be able to advise you. Otherwise, you may have to do a retrofit, which would involve stripping off walls to get access. Maybe not such a bad proposition, since older Amish houses may or may not have been insulated or fireblocked.

In the area that I am familiar with, newer houses are built with standard materials, to code--excepting electric and plumbing, of course. Pretty plain, but to code.

If you are in the middle of Amish country, check to see if you have roadside wires....running electrical to your site may be a big cost factor if they have to run service a mile or two.....

geo

[blufford]

A lot of Amish are in the building trades so ask the seller if they'll make the house fit your comfort level (at a reasonable cost) before signing the sales agreement.

[MichaelK!]

The land we bought as our homestead had a windowless concrete block storage shed on it. We're in the process of converting the building into our cabin. The process might be somewhat similar to converting an Amish house.

To run plumbing I drilled 3/4" holes with a commercial hammer drill rented from Home Depot. We used flexible PEX tubing to carry both hot and cold water. Installed a shower by building a 8" platform on top of the concrete floor to simulate where drain pipes would go if they were inside the joists. I anchored treated wood to the walls with 1/4" redhead bolts, then attached the tub/shower to that.

I rented a commercial jack hammer from H. depot again to punch holes for windows and an additional door. I lined the openings with 2X8 wood attached in place with powder nails.

Eventually I will add foam insulation to the walls by powder nailing 2X4's against the inside concrete walls, insulating the spaces with foam, then covering everything with sheetrock. Will finally wire the walls for 110VAC once I start finishing the walls.

[ET1 SS]

I am not sure where you are located. Many areas have no building code enforcement. So an owner can wire his/her house as they please.

I think this would be a great opportunity though. Have you considered solar-power?

There are three homes in our township that are off-grid and I think two of them are wired for 12VDC.