More Texas folks ditching their mortgage

[Txcowrancher]

Hey All,
Tom & Renee here. We just got the 1 1/2 story plans yesterday, Thanks for the help with the order John. We are selling our 10 acres & house near Houston and bought 23 acres about an hour NE of Dallas. Moving into a large RV on the property while we build. We are going with the pier/beam foundation, Renee would like a slab but seems like every slab in Texas cracks. We have done a lot of projects on a bunch of rental houses we used to have, but have never built from scratch. When people ask me how we can possibly build our own house all I can say is one board at a time.    thanks in advance for our questions to come

[wingam00]

 Tome & Rennee, to the neighborhood!!! A lot of good advise here that should help you both in your adventure.

Mark

[Redoverfarm]

 w*Txcowrancher .  Sure you can. If you get stuck someone will always lend a helping hand or should I say a helping mind. 

[phalynx]

Sounds very familiar...  Check out our progress in doing almost the exact same thing.  You'll love your results with John's plans.  They are so simple and useful.

http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=2525.0

[glenn kangiser]

Welcome to the forum, Tom and Renee.  We hope to follow your project as you git 'er done.

[Sassy]

   I'm originally from Texas - only there for 2 wks though - driven through many times though as a kid when my parents were taking us to visit relatives.   Yes, do keep us posted on your progress & remember to include lots of pix 

[n74tg]

Hello Tom and Renee:

Are you over near Greenville, or up closer to Sherman?  I'm up in Hot Springs, AR building a little larger house by myself; as you say...one board at a time.

Welcome to the forum.  Take lots of pics along the way so we can follow along with your construction.

Tony

[Txcowrancher]

Thanks everyone for the welcome. We will be needing advise for sure as we get going. Meeting with the electric co and our electrician tomorrow to get started on a temp pole. Phalynx we have been watching your house go up and it looks great, hope ours looks as great as yours. Tony we are just about 5 miles east of Greenville, just north of I-30, looks very remote but only 10 minutes to just about anything. I'll try to put a pic of the raw land in another post in a minute, had trouble including the pic yesterday, something about upload folder full?? anyway I will try again. First question...if just using a wood pier on top of say 6 inch gravel in the hole, would 8x8 cypress post be as good or better than 6x6 pt foundation grade. I've seen good deals on the 8x8 cypress on craigs list. lowes/home depot don't seem to carry the foundation grade so I will have to look elsewhere for it.

[glenn kangiser]

Tom, the pics need to be loaded into Photobucket (free membership) http://photobucket.com/?link=topmenu , then the bottom link below the pix posted here in your message.  There is not enough room here to load them into the upload folder and Photobucket works much better.

Detailed instructions http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=3512.0

[Txcowrancher]

Thanks for the info Glen, here is a picture with Renee freezing while checking out the property. As you can see the land is in need of a haircut with the bushhog

[glenn kangiser]

Good job Tom, I first saw the grass pop up at the bottom of the post -- thought it was cow hair.

I flicked my screen to the bottom fast and only saw the bottom of the picture.

[Redoverfarm]

Now glenn you know there is no cows in Texas only oil and presidents. Tom I would consider my first investment as a piece of machinery that had multiple attachments.  23 acs is alot to keep up with.  Say a small tractor w/ backhoe, brushhog & front bucket to start with and add the impliments as needed.  Ask anyone who has a tractor they are as handy as the pocket on your shirt. Couldn't survive without mine. 

[Txcowrancher]

Hi Redoverfarm,  you are certainly right about the tractor. We do have one here with the 10 acres since we have cattle I needed a front end loader for round bales. Its a Mahindra 4500 with loader, bushhog and just today I found a box blade on craigslist. I have never used a box blade and am pretty clueless on it, so lots of practice will be in order. What I really need now is a post hole digger I think, I had one but traded it for the hay spear I have on the loader, I need to put the bucket back on it for a while. Only 1 side of the property is fenced so thats a pretty big problem I need to solve before moving the cows. I would like to sell them off but Renee has turned most of them into pets

[glenn kangiser]

I think your Bushhog (grass or stalk shredder/mower?) is made by the same company as mine.  They make other farm stuff.



Here's mine with my prospecting equipment.

[Redoverfarm]

Txcowrancher been there and done that with "pet cattle".  I told my kids not to give them names. It works a little easier. Having hard winters help too when you give them a choice of selling in the fall or they have to feed in the winter.

As for the backhoe. You can find some aftermarket backhoes for 3 point hitches that are made by Woods, Brushhog and others.  They work off of your existing hydrollic lines. Some have extra tanks but some don't.  My uncle got one recently for his JD I think new they are around $5K but checking around you can probably find one less or used one. It would come in handy with the footers, drain lines, septic and the like.

I can forsee you being with the forrum for a while with house, sheds, barns and the like.  

John

[ScottA]

I had a 3 point PTO backhoe years ago. Didin't like it at all, very hard to use. Thing about a backhoe is that the entire tractor is the backhoe not just the digger.

[phalynx]

txcowrancher, first, as for the backhoe,  you'll find that there isn't a whole lot you will do with it.  You "might" dig some for the foundation.  You might dig a septic.  After that,,,,  there isn't much you'll use it for.  You'll end up trying to find thing to use it on "obviously cause it's soooo cool  "  The problem is, the only safe backhoe for a tractor is a frame attached and not a 3 point.  the 3 points are very dangerous.  Since a backhoe costs about 7-8k for a tractor, you'd be able to rent a backhoe, dig your foundation, dig your septic and even install your septic for the same price as just buying the backhoe.  Rent that.....  Everything else is a tool on a tractor   

As for the box blade.  Lots of practice but the general rule I found out the hard way is pull your material around going forward and go backwards to level your material.  When going backwards, try not to touch your 3 point.  This way, your tires are driving over the smooth, level gravel.  If you were going forward and trying to level, you would be going over bumps and dips which will change the angle of your box blade in the rear and thus make your material uneven.

[Redoverfarm]

I agree that a full blooded one is far better but the cost is prohibitive to own both. I had a full blood but needed a tractor worse and traded.  I have had 2 dozen jobs for it since I got rid of it.  Yes major stuff is left to the big boys but running water and electric lines to the barn, garage and the likes just needs a little machine. And have you ever tried to bury a dead cow with a shovel.

[Jimmy C.]

Thanks for the info Glen, here is a picture with Renee freezing while checking out the property. As you can see the land is in need of a haircut with the bushhog



Remember folks..... Freezing in Texas is 50-55 degrees!    



Welcome Tom & Renee!

[n74tg]

I grew up in Texas and well remember how 50-55 feels, when it's accompanied by 20-30 mph winds and 60-80 percent humidity.  It cuts you right to the bone.  Now, by comparison, I spent a whole winter in Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada (roughly 400 miles north of the Idaho panhandle) and below freezing weather there wasn't bad at all, because of 1.) no wind and 2.) no humidity.  In fact down to about minus 10 to minus 15 Centigrade wasn't bad at all.  But, when it did get down to minus 65 C one night (actual temp, not wind chill), and we had to work outside in it (oil industry).  Now, that WAS cold. 

Here's a temperature trivia question.  At what number do fahrenheit and centigrade equal the same temperature?   

[MountainDon]

-40 and I've been there, and lower. Feels the same no matter what scale you use. 

[Txcowrancher]

I had to pay someone $200 to haul off a dead cow cause I had no backhoe. We have had to bury dead calves with a shovel and its a bitch for sure. just did the 600 mile round trip to the land and started on the driveway and culvert but had to stop after 100 ft or so because it was still to wet. we could not scrape away the grass down to the dirt so had to just dump the rock on top of the grass and it took twice the rock it should have and was way to expensive to continue that way, but at least we can pull the RV in and park. Also met with the electric co and electrician and will get a temp pole in 2-3 weeks. The elec co said they would hang a transformer and give us underground service even with the house 260 ft from the closest pole. for FREE, music to our ears. No thats not me driving the cool machinary, hired a guy and he sure could drive it.

[Redoverfarm]

Txcowrancher removing the top soil is the only way to go on a road. If not your base will be along time coming and gets expensive adding gravel until it bottoms out. Larger stuff first for a while to get it solid and followup with lighter later. Stock pile the TS for later to dress the yard up.

Smart move on the underground power. Never regreted mine.  If you have some idea of where future buildings, barns and so forth will be established it might be a good time to lay a piece of conduit if they will have to cross the driveway at any point for future water or electric lines. Sch 40-4"  20' long will ususally do it. If water also another next to it. It will just prevent from having to disturb the base and have your road tore up later.

[Txcowrancher]

Thanks for the advise on the conduit under the driveway John. The house and some out-buildings will be on the same side as the power, but the big dog kennel and probably a future barn and corral will be on the other side of the driveway and the conduit will save some trouble for sure. The rest of the driveway will have to wait til we can at least scrape away the plant material. The soil is sandy loam on top of clay but I don't know how deep to hit the clay. One guy said 3 feet. can't remove that much for the drive

The guy who is doing the driveway, I was talking to him about the concrete piers and he was saying that we should dig like 9 feet deep, seems way deep to me but what do I know. I hope 4 ft will be good, I was even thinking about cheaping out and using 6x6 foundation grade posts directly in the hole held in by the concrete/soil mix? would 8x8 cypress be any good? 

[glenn kangiser]

Foundation grade 6x6 info.

http://countryplans.com/foundation/index.html