New guy with tons of questions

I LOVE that your daughter's joining you in your dream. I'd LOVE for my daughter to join us someday when she can convince her hubs. We bought 10 acres at the end of 2022 and had all the conservation principles in mind - but not overdoing it, just didn't want to waste or spend unnecessarily. So I had in mind a semi-off-grid situation, composting toilet, greywater, rainwater catchment, etc. Reading internet estimates on septic scared me.

But after much research, reality kicked in. Well water would have to be treated or filtered before using for irrigation. You have to keep on top of rainwater - it doesn't stay awesome for long, composting toilets are made poorly and cost a ton or work pretty well if you make it yourself but are ugly, no, you can't greywater all that you think and it's a bit difficult to regulate how much water is going to different parts of the garden but it's also a pain to have each greywater source go to a different part of your landscape.

For greywater, I recommend this: The New Create an Oasis with Greywater 6th Ed: Integrated Design for Water Conservation, Reuse, Rainwater Harvesting, and Sustainable Landscaping - by Art Ludwig. He'll tell you some stuff, including how urine is bad in areas that have periods of low rainfall and heavy soils - like where we live in Central Texas. And some limitations of other greywater sources.

I got a fabulous $6500 quote for septic for a 2BR cottage - very thankful for that in 2023! - and will be a doing a simple 1-outlet greywater system pulling from a dishwasher, shower, and kitchen sink - 1 diverter for all of that to go to septic or greywater outlet to simplify things and not make my general contractor GC too crazy My country/ranch-knowledgeable handyman said I need a minimum amount of water flow for the toilet solids, so the GC said let's make the bathroom sink and toilet go directly to the septic - great.

The 2BR cottage is meant to be our vacation home for now, and if we love it out there we'll hire a builder for a regular house. If you want to build a legit house, I'd do it from scratch.

Our cottage - I didn't care if it was built amazingly - we wanted it up fast and affordable, so we got an already-built shed shell put on the property. I do not anticipate it to last forever, so I would not recommend people go this route for their regular house. It's not ideal, has crappy windows, and doesn't have the sheathing you would want to prevent leaks, etc. in the future nor 2x6 exterior studs for thicker insulation. We couldn't put in deep-set piers ahead of time because of the way it's wheeled into place, so it's on a series of cinder blocks on hand-tamped gravel, mini excavator-dug holes. ALSO, the darned shed company didn't put the skids at the same spacing as a same-sized unit I in-person measured from so our holes weren't even dug exactly where the skids on our delivered unit were - I was very upset about that. Why isn't skid spacing standard? Geez. Anyway, my handyman is grumbling about how I'll have issues in the future, and yeah, I know.

We'll set up filtered rainwater catchment at some point in the future. We also have a pond - have to test that water at some point because we get run-off from surrounding properties where they run cattle and hay so that may have some chemical, etc. residues that make it not ideal for some purposes. We'll see.

Enjoy your journey! I remember when we started out, since my husband and I differ so much in how we think - I thought we'll see if this doesn't break us up - and it turns out that we are learning to cooperate like we never have had to before - it's very rewarding when we get through and past conflicts and we get better each time!