Thursday, April 6, 2017

The Teeny-Tiny home

Well, the process of strangling new home building with red tape continues apace. Honestly, the entire exercise seems to be designed to make it as difficult and expensive as possible - for no benefit to the new home owner. We'll still get there but the time line keeps growing. So does the expense. Most of building money is now going into things like the septic system (which is a prebuilt unit a monkey (even me) can install - but needs a $90 an hour plumber) and its soakaway which -once again - has multiple possible and effective solutions - but one permitted one (far from the best one), which involves importing stone - an expensive exercise and unnecessary. Putting in a fire tank - although we have a permanent waterhole which is easier to use, getting the track gravelled and so on.

So one of my friends pops up a picture on her sidebar on facebook showing a 'tiny home' built on a truck. I was amused (it's a mobile home, and therefore not subject to all the endless crapola, unless you actually plan to take it on the road, which would make it subject to road regulations.) so I sent it on to Barbs.

So guess what I am doing next? :-)

The reality is that living on site will cut our traveling time, and our expenses (no rent to pay, no fuel and wear and tear to-and-fro) by a lot, enabling us to build faster, and save the money needed for the sea of relentless red-tape. And at the end of the day we have a little one-room place on the back of an old Bedford as guest lodging.


Anyway, as you can see, the clearing goes on. I've brought back two loads of wood as well as taking a load of corrugated iron scrap and old timber and poles
from the tip for the orchard and pig-sty. We had some little adventures there as Barbs wanted to see what I'd done and got to the steepest part of our 'circular' drive and got into the slithers with the trailer. All fun-and-games until someone gets killed as they say! Anyway, no lives lost. The grass is very slithery.

Had the NBN guys here today, saying they could do nothing - the service is just intermittently rubbish - but they did point out that I am going to have dramas with getting the internet satellite dish put up at the new place. It isn't simple ever. But we go on.

6 comments:

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    1. I'll need it :-) But it will be great to be doing not fighting paperwork.

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  2. Don't talk to me about septic tanks.

    Someone drove a tractor over our last one. It was a small tractor, so the tank didn't collapse... but since it was a plastic tank it bulged, and the centre partition collapsed. We only found out two years later after the tank had completely filled and f__ked up the french drains in the process.

    After a battle with the insurers, we got the go-ahead for a new tank.

    Great Cthulhu!

    The last french drain was a simple thing. This one? Holy crap! Half the paddock had to be torn up. They actually installed something that looks vaguely like a WWII machine gun bunker in the middle of it.

    ...and they added two 90 degree bends to the septic inflow, so we're having blockage troubles. Of course.

    Love this stuff. No. Really.

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  4. Dave. Check this out for an innovative solution.

    http://acidcow.com/pics/22326-a-home-built-from-two-shipping-containers-134-pics.html

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    Replies
    1. I like it - a lot. It would still run foul of the local building regs because of the plumbing :-(

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