151–160 of 508 posts
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I'm from the US and I was shocked they needed 400A plus propane. We draw more current then you guys because our voltage is lower but still, 200A services are pretty standard for large rural homes.
It's 400A at 240v, so, no, it's not more current than in the EU where most domestic loads are 230v.
The carbon footprint of this individual is off the scale. He's got a funny idea of what 'low impact' means. Low impact is a well insulated residential flat. This is extreme impact.
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If a couple in their 30s with 2 children are kids...what do you consider adults? Also, I'm approximately their same demographic and could afford to build a house like this if the other estimates in this thread are approximate, and have literally not taken a penny from my parents, or used their resources(which are scant - I was paid more my first job out of college than both my parents combined), since I was 16.
OP uses 'kids' to imply maturity, not age.
Always intrigued by this idea. But the thing that I never see addressed in these discussions: what's the plan for schooling? just do small local rural schools? do online supplementation? This is the sticking point that keeps me from going far down this path.
I've done this in Portugal, but on a smaller scale and pretty much with only my own labor. I purchased 6 hectares (15 acres) for mid-5-figures. I've built an A-frame studio house for around €10k (excl tools), and installed a 5kw solar system for about another €10k. The house has air conditioning and underfloor heating (water-based, heated using wood from the land). I've also brought a 50-year-old tractor and started…
How does one start a rural ISP? Would you mind sharing a bit about that?
- Find the customers*
- Find somewhere to broadcast from*
- Find a wholesale fibre provider*
- Register with your country's regulator & read a bunch of laws
- While you are doing the above, learn about networking. Get this right before you launch, then forgot about it. Post-launch all problems will (hopefully) be non-tech related.
And also lots of good old-fashioned business cash-flow spreadsheets.
I really like enjoy it (even though it can be stressful) because:
- I like geekery
- I like business (even thought it can be stressful)
- I like being in nature, and this one of the few lines of work that combines the OSI model & chainsaws.
- I like having a reason to meet people in my area. Great way to make friends.
- This area really needs it. There is fibre in the villages, but lots of people live & work on remote patches of land. The service I provide really makes a difference to their lives.
It don't think it'll necessarily make you rich, but it may give you a meaningful livelihood if you have the market for such a service.
* You kinda need to do these three simultaneously, because they all need to be in the same location. At some point I just had to commit to one of the three and hope that everything else fell into place.
"The bigger issue was that the energy demands for the house, which included hot water heating for the pool and hot tub, outstripped the electrical supply we could get on a rural residential build: 400A" Am I the only one who almost spit out his coffee when reading this paragraph? I mean, building a remote home in the middle of a forest is a cool idea, sure. But then end up feeding the whole thing with 400A worth of e…
A heated pool for a single-family home in the wilderness seems particularly decadent and indulgent. It looks like they wanted a California house, with flat a roof and giant windows, in the Canadian Wilderness. But there's a reason houses in the mountains look the way they do. This house looks as out-of-place as a ski chalet would on the beach in San Diego. In any case, it looks as if they have enough money not to car…
They're going to have a hell of the time with the weathering on that siding and roof in 10y, too.
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I would guess construction costs for this home would be around $2MM including labor, materials and management overhead, but excluding land. Source: am finishing up a home at a similar finish-level at a similar size, although not quite as fancy as this I don't think.
this seems accurate source: We're currently working with an architect on a similar project.
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The amount of cognitive dissonance required to say "we want to limit impact" on one hand, and to run a 400Amp electrical connection to heat your hot tub and pool in Canada, is staggering.
"low impact" for North Americans, maybe... No wonder that we're at the begining of a climat change disaster.
The way to do this if you're not wealthy is to get a cheapo plot of land on the Oregon/Washington coast ($<100k for up to .5 acres) and put a manufactured home on it. It's way simpler, cheaper, and the construction on manufactured homes has improved a lot over the years (they're framed with 2x6s to survive transport, and this makes them sturdier and better insulated than most traditional houses). I did it and it's be…
The book How to Build a House, by Larry Haun, is a great read if you want to try this yourself. irishvernacular.com/ also has a guide to building a lovely, modest, warm home yourself (with friends, admittedly) for <50k .