Well, its now the 2 year anniversary of my wife and myself living in the fifth wheel while building our house. The shell of the house took 10 months to build, we finished (except for the soffits) last october. We have been working inside on electrical, plumbing etc since october.
We have no well and are on a rainwater system, which so far has provided all our water.
We are building only with monthly cash flow which has slowed us down a bit, we hope to move in around november, but it will be far from done at that point. When we move in we can sell the RV and save almost 600/month to put into construction.
The house is 24x36 down and 12x16 up. The upstairs is supported by large cedar beams. A 8x12 inch main beam and joists of 4x12 on 3 ft centers, with 2x6 T&G for the upstairs floor.
We got many items on craigslist, knotty alder front door for $25, 8ft french door for $250, all the cedar siding at about $1.20 per sq ft. jacuzzi tub $250, All brand new.
Downstairs we have a 10x10 bath, 9x7 laundry, and a 4x7 utility rm
upstairs we will have a walkin closet and ½ bath.
We designed the house ourselves, The downstairs walls are all 2x8 on 16" centers and upstairs 2x6 on 24" to reduce weight a little. The height of downstairs goes from 8 ft to 12 ft and upstairs 7 ft to 10 ft..
the main bad issue is the foundation, it works but does not meet code. We have no permits or inspections here. This happened because originally this building was to be much smaller and be a storage building. Also I would have liked the main beam to be engineered, cedar is not the most used wood for support beams, it seems beefy enough though. Another problem was that the plywood subfloor was damaged by rain and we had to install another layer of subfloor over the first.
My wife Renee has been incredible on the house, among other thngs, she installed the entire 2nd level floor, stained both sides of all the cedar siding and then installed it using scaffolds, and helped with the metal roof install. I got real lucky finding her.
The rainwater system consists of 2 1500 gallon tanks, one on each side. In the utility room we have a 2 filter system and a UV light to purify the water and a pump and pressure tank.
(https://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg43/txcowrancher/framingbeams0003.jpg)
(https://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg43/txcowrancher/3.jpg)
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Looks great , thanks for sharing.
What kind of filter did you use for the water filter?
The first filter is a sedimant filter at 1 micron and the second is a carbon filter also 1 micron, then a UV light. Thw water tastes great and is naturally a bit soft.
Cool beans.
Do you have any sort of filtration between the gutter and the tank?
Is there an overflow for the tank? What sort of pump do you have in it?
Is there a way to clean out the tank?
beautiful, more detail please
Hi NM
This goes in the top of the tank under the lid, keeps out junk & skeeders.
(https://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg43/txcowrancher/land/rainwatercadpter4thumb-80.jpg)
I would like to set up a first flush diverter as we have had to hose off the roof a couple times after the birds visited.
we keep the lid loose on the tank so when it overflows it just leaks out the top. only happened twice this winter.
when we bought the 2 tanks, Renee climbed inside and scrubbed them, we should probably do it every year. it has a 1/2 hp shallow well pump sitting on a 50 gal press tank.
(https://i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg43/txcowrancher/land/water.jpg)
Nice set up, where did you find the information you used to set up the system?