We did it...

The toucan house looks like an earthship. Better not let my sis see it! LOL! She has parrots and cockatoos and cockatiels, ducks and chickens now. Not to mention the dogs, the cat, the rabbits, the mice, the boa, the ferrets....

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Cyngbaeld's Keep Heritage Farm, breeding a variety of historical birds and LaMancha goats. (It is pronounced King Bold.)

Congratulations, DayBird...very nice..I know you must be thrilled! I know I sure wouldn't mind waking to that view every morning! Send some of those mountains down our way

Dee

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Yeah, you can follow the link on the toucan house page and the guy that built it lives in NM and he refers to it an an earthship and says that it's off the grid. I believe that it's 75 feet long and he grows tropical fruit year round. It's got a back wall that's 3 feet thick of rammed earth.

I'm very jealous of that.

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You're welcome to come help us fence it all in. I can't wait to get the goats.

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Get it set up for camping ASAP and spend every spare moment getting to know the land. Check out the direction of the sun path for the gardens and the prevailing breeze, etc. so your home faces the right way for energy efficiency (the view wil have to take 2nd place, but a wrap around porch will cure that).

I am excited for you! Start that journal now so we can share the adventure vicariously, please.

Congrats on your property and good luck setting everything up. Your direction sounds great for the winter sun.

We used to have a couple of solar heaters at our other acreage. I am interested in building a solar heater from a huge black tiling( non-perforrated) tube, filling it with sand to absorb the heat for longer heating time. Any ideas if this concept would work?

Congratulations! It is very beautiful - no neighbors either! It's great that it's partially in what looks like a nice meadow too.

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There are neighbors, a set on either side and some across the road on the opposite slope. I have an older survey map of the place. It's roughly 230 feet by 465 feet. It's set at a perfect 45 degree angle from North to South with the top corner pointing directly North and the opposite corner pointing directly South. The view you see in the picture is looking from the top of the hill downward, showing the driveway, facing directly East. On the other side of that mountain ridge (we call it BaldRock Mountain) is I20 that runs East to West between Birmingham and Atlanta.

On either side of the property are some of the pine trees (see the other thread I started about the pine tree saplings) They're intermingled on the Southern side with thick blackberry bushes and form an impenetrable thicket. The people across the road have registered boer goats that he says we can breed to and a girl great pyrenees. We want to get some dairy goats (please, help us decide what breed, see those threads on the goat forum) and we have Sam, our big male great pyrenees. I can't imagine it being more perfect.

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Congratulations!!

The view is stunning.

Regarding the straw bale house you are considering......always keep in mind that ONE DAY, for whatever reason, you may want to sell. Be certain to build with the thought in mind that it CAN be sold if need be.

Considering that thought, we may be thinking that we'd want to buy a brand, spanking new singlewide and live in it a few years, improve the land some with fences and nice landscaping and then sell it and move to a bigger piece of land. We're less than 30 and this will be our "starter" home. Neither of us think that we'll want to live here forever, but for now, it's wonderful.

We think the resale value will be more if we buy it new than if we buy a repo or used trailer. All of the surrounding homes are mobilehomes. There are no stick built homes on the road at all.

What are your thoughts on this?

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Well, if you are going to resell, you do not want to have the nicest home in the neighborhood. The value/investment ratio won't be as good as if you have a home similar to the others around it.

A strawbale house, done right, can have a higher value than a stick built home.

Mobile homes lose a great deal of their value the moment you start living in them. If you can buy a new one and get it set up for the same or close to the same price as a good quality repo, then get the new, else get a repo or good used.

When you go to sell, the less your investment, the less you can take on the sell of the property and still make a profit. It is usually easier to sell something in the lower $ bracket than a nicer home but in a higher $ bracket.

3 acres seems like a lot compared to a trailer court, but after you have it a while, 30 will definitely look better! LOL! Tho personally, I think a section or two as a BLM inholding would be about perfect!

And THAT is what my thoughts are on the subject.

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Cyngbaeld's Keep Heritage Farm, breeding a variety of historical birds and LaMancha goats. (It is pronounced King Bold.)

There are no other site built homes in the area so one might seem out of place. A strawbale home certainly would. I'm afraid that St. Clair County doesn't want anything to do with alternative housing. I'm not heartbroken though. Blount County to the North is. Maybe we'll move there when the kids are older and we're better off financially.

We've also learned that the frame and axle is cracked on our current singlewide and noone is interested in moving it for us. We'll certainly have to go with something else. We're not going to buy a new mobile home. You're right, like with cars, they depreciate almost immediately. The cost differences between a brand new trailer and a repo just one year old is very significant.

Thanks for your help.

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I haven't read most of this thread, but ...

I live in a trailer. It was -- 8? 9? years old when I bought it, and I got a very good deal on it.

I'm very pleased with it, although it's taking quite a bit of work to make its interior more like a stickbuilt.

In any case, there's a growing kind of underground movement of us trailer folks :haha: --- many of us live in places nicer than many conventional homes. And, with proper care, a trailer can remain in very good shape and very sellable for a very long time. Old ones, in fact, have become pretty hot items.

As for resale value, my land with the trailer has increased in value significantly since I bought it -- it hasn't doubled, but it has gone up by over half the amount I've paid. So much for losing value. And that's becoming an increasingly common scenario, as more and more people find the idea of $198,000 minimum for a stickbuilt to be perfectly ridiculous.

There's some very good web forums run by mobile repairmen and populated by people who've done some amazing things. They've certainly helped me. If you're interested, let me know.

Congradulations Daybird. I just closed on a brick house near Pembroke, VA.
It's in the Jefferson Nations Forest in the Appalachian Mountains. Retired and gotta get out of New Jersey. I'm on Highway 460, a four-lane divided highway and surrounded by beautiful mountains like you describe around your new property. My property is .2 acres, just large enough for a decent size front, and fenced rear yard. No trees or shrubs on the property. My favorite tree is the Blue spruce. If anyone has ideas or experience with low, or no maintenance trees or shrubs, I'd like to know. I have Emphysema, and am physically limited in my ability to provide a lot of care for trees and shrubs.
I have a full size basement, and designed and built a low cost lift on the steps
to lower or raise boxes to and from the basement. (I don't need to ride the lift....yet, but could.)
Searching for handicapped lifts, I couldn't afford thousands of dollars, so I built mine for a total cost of about $300.00.
If anyone wants information on this lift system, I'd be happy to share the info.
I'm new to this Homesteading site, and finding it a wonderful source of information. I do not have any animals, but instead, being a DJ, I do Computer editing and production of audio and video, and produce CD's and DVD's.
Knowing that Emphysema would someday lead to being house bound like my Mother, I decided to learn Computer skills so I would have a way of being productive when that time comes. Fortunately, I'm still mobile, and hope to be for a few years yet.
Since retiring, I'm just getting into mechanical and carpentry work, and am building a workshop in the basement of my "new" home. I'm also interested in hearing from people who are into carpentry and solving mechanical problems around the homestead.
Regards to everyone out there who is moving to a better life.
Gary V. Straub
djgaryvee1@juno.com