Harriman Tennessee

[Jens]

Hello all of you who live in, or used to live in TN.  My wife and I are selling our house in Oregon right now, and after a 5 month detour to Santa Cruz, CA to have our 4th child, may be looking into TN as a place to set up shop, buy some land, and actually live for ourselves.  I have suggested Harriman, for three reasons;  it is close to Knoxville, which I know has all of the conveniences we would desire;  there is a drive-in theater in Harriman, top reason for a family;  and I am told that in Roane county, yo don't have to have a building permit to build.  Can anybody verify this last point?  What can anybody tell me about the weather there, length of humidity ridden days, culture, etc?  If you would like, give me a call today while I, and perhaps you still have free nights and weekends, or I could call you back.  My number is 541-331-5466, just ask for hobbiest.  No prank calls please!  There is a possibility that we will be moving to Argentina, but if not, TN, VA, and that area is intriguing to us.  I also think that it would be a good area for me to persue my dream of building houses for people who may not be able to afford standard housing, i.e., retirees, young hard working families, etc, and simply build no houses over 1100sq feet.  Might also be able to show America in some small way, that you don't need a huge house to be happy.  If I could do those two things, I think that would be an incredible legecy to leave behind.

[Amanda_931]

Weather, at least in the U.S.  Don't know to do Argentina.

If you put in your zip code--or just city and state, then scroll down a ways you should be able to go to a set of charts with average highs and lows and records under History and Almanac.

http://www.wunderground.com/radar/map.asp

I was going to put up a history page for you but for some reason I couldn't.  oh, well

I was up somewhere near Waverly TN--New Johnsonville maybe, don't think it was across the river in Camden--the other day, saw another working drive-in movie, thought they were all gone.

I know Middle Tennessee pretty well, at one stage I was in every county in the district, but know very little about East Tennessee.

Call the Chamber of Commerce in Roane County, most of those are very happy to send you a nice big packet of information.  (865) 376-5572  thank you Google.  Also thank you for this URL:

http://www.roanealliance.org/community/community.html

The Roane County C of C seems to share space with the industrial development people, might be either a good or a bad sign.  But then the Wayne County one is in the courthouse.

[Leo]

Go to microsoft terra server the map guys as you look at the map of the area youre intrested in to the left side will have a link to demographics by area code a wealth of info here,also realtor.com is great for checking out realestate prices. also the southern poverty law center web sight has maps of all the hate groups of all kinds in america by state,My experience is that areas lacking such groups tend to be happy campers and finally some of the weather web sites have  weather history for areas

[Shelley]

Harriman is the home of Dagger canoes/kayaks.  Therefore, we once made a detour whilst in the area where NC/GA/TN come together.  We were running rivers.

It was in Harriman that himself had his first experience with sweet tea given without ordering and a question about whether he wanted his bread grilled on the sandwich that he ordered.  She asked three times, he looked at me as tho she were an alien, then I translated the mountain twang for him.  Was a hoot!

Anyway, I remember Harriman as a very attractive little town.  More than most.  Isn't there a little lake right in town?

Hot humid summers, damp dreary winters, lots of green, friendly people and way different from CA and OR.  Good.

[Tabasco]

I live in Knoxville and have many friends in Roane County. I am almost positive you have to have a BP. I also think RC has very high land prices. I would recommend Morgan County which is the next county over. MC has very good land prices, is relatively close to Knoxville, requires no BP, and has some very nice creeks and rivers. To give you yet another option I would recommend Fentress County which is Wesy of MC and Roane County. I recently purchased 115 acres that is bordered by over half a mile of river frontage (Clear Fork) and has almost 3/4 of a mile of a blue ribbon Smoky Mountain like creek. I also have numerous massive bluff lines where we frequently find indian relects. I paid less that $1000/acre. Although I feel I got a great deal for the many features I have, including several year round springs, I don't think someone else looking as hard as I did could not also find similar deals. My property is an hour and 15 minutes from Knoxville (where I live), 25 minutes from Crossville Tennessee, and about 40 minutes from Harriman. Good Luck!

[dad-of-4-in-tn]

I'm building in bledose cnty tn. just a littlw SE of roane. Bledsoe has no building codes except electric. Many people even skirt that by having permanent temp. elec service.

There are also drive-ins in Dunlap, TN and Athens, TN.

[Amanda_931]

That's how our (in the county at least) codes enforcement is, but our utility manages to discourage people from permanent temporary by having excessively high rates for that category.

And unless it's grandfathered in somehow, we pretty well have to have a septic tank in order to get regular electric service.

All of that kind of thing varies from utility company to utility company, as do the prices for running lines.  Sometimes non-grid-tied PV makes a lot of sense.