I bought a set of those stock pots for a different purpose that does not involve any heat. They are really thin material. I have heard of people complaining about these and similar thin pots warping under use on top of a stove, so I would guess that the new 5 gallon 'paint' can would probably serve you better. It would probably hold up better and has a larger holding capacity. They do work great for my purpose as part of a water filter system. It looks like they are on sale even cheaper than when I bought them. It might be worth a try given how cheap it is, but you might want to open up the box in the store and see for yourself before buying them if you go this route.

That's a very good point about using both color lights together. I do the same thing in my house currently, but I haven't gotten that far yet with my small LED's. While the first set of LED's I bought work very well, even with little heatsinks added, the heat they produce is at the absolute threshold of what I can tolerate to touch. This is in contrast to the new set I got that barely have any noticeable heat coming from them. I think I will have to pick up another set like these in cool white and see what kind of fixtures I can come up with. The other lights are good by themselves but I wouldn't want to put multiples of them together in a fixture and risk any heat issues.

The LED strips are also a great way to go. I haven't used them personally, but I have seen them used for countless projects and they are very affordable. Having the flexibility to cut them into segments means you can either separate them for small jobs or bunch them together for better lighting in one area. I've had a lot of setbacks this week, but I'm hoping to get things sorted out and tinker with a few light fixtures this weekend. First I need to get batteries for my camera!

Looks like the start of a cool little house! If you are plumbing water to the exterior then I think it would be wise to recess the fittings and add insulated covers to avoid problems in the event of a hard freeze. Or perhaps you could add an interior shut off valve that is higher than the exterior outlets and let them drain out to avoid having issues with pipes freezing.

Another thing to keep in mind is weight. Just because a trailer is capable of handling X number of pounds doesn't mean it is always wise to push it to that limit. A heavier trailer will consume more fuel to move as well as increase the braking distance for the towing vehicle. If the trailer is driven off pavement then it will be significantly move difficult to move around and should it get stuck then it will be REALLY stuck. I doubt it would be any fun having your home stuck in a less than ideal location. If it won't be leaving the pavement then this is less of an issue.

There are a number of methods you can look into which can yield a strong frame without using as much wood as the conventional North American platform framing method. This Blog On Swedish Platform Framing shows a few methods to save wood, weight, and increase area for insulation. I personally wouldn't use full size studs 16" on center. Double-wide trailers tend to use 2"x3" framing members which is a substantially larger structure than a tiny house. While having only ~2 1/2" for insulation could be problematic, the point I am trying to illustrate is that it doesn't take huge amounts of wood to make a very sturdy tiny house. If you are using 2x4 or 2x6 studs then you could drill a bunch of holes up to 1/3 of the width of the board without sacrificing structural integrity.

You can also use much thinner wood for the interior and exterior and add metal brackets to the corners to increase rigidity. It really doesn't take all that much material to make a very sturdy structure when the dimensions are of a tiny house scale.

Your plan to avoid a vapor barrier is a good one! I have fixed numerous houses that were ~2 years old that had paint and vapor barriers trap moisture inside walls. By the time the leak was detected it was far too late and cost thousands to repair. Having breathable materials will help avoid mold problems and make leak detection easier and far less costly to fix. Using thinner wall sheathing can help it breathe a little better without greatly affecting insulation.

If the original layout is off then the whole thing will be skewed. Getting the perimeter laid out properly will be extremely important. I used scrap pieces of tile and brick in a few locations and measured from all sides to help with some inconsistencies. If you thing the area is 60 feet across but measuring from both sides adds up to 64 feet, then something may be out of square. It's fairly common for property lines and fences to be off by more than a few degrees at a corner.

I would definitely get a 100' measuring tape and get physical numbers as opposed to using satellite data. I used to do house framing and I don't ever recall seeing a set of plans that didn't have at least one discrepancy from one page to the next. They measure from one side one one page, the other side one the next page and the two numbers are no where near the length of the side. If the professionals and their multi-thousand dollar programs have difficulty with this then you shouldn't feel too bad if you run into a few problems. Try to take a few measurements from one side to the other at intermediate points instead of just at the corners. Once you get numbers that are within your margin of error then the SketchUp model should work without any issues.

SketchUp. It is free to use and you can make 3D drawings. When I first planned out stuff in my backyard I went into detail with the shed, but I just drew circles or cylinders where plants and trees were going to be located. There is a rather steep learning curve, but if you just want to make a 2D flat design to start out with then it isn't bad. I would suggest looking up videos or books such as 'SketchUp For Dummies' as well as A Series Of Videos At Woodgears that has helpful information.

The thing I like most about SketchUp is how precise it is. You can create several objects and then measure different distances between each part, angles, and clearance while still in the planning phase before spending any money on a failed venture. If you have more time than money then it is an excellent tool. If you have more money than time then it might be worth spending a few hundred dollars to pay someone else to make the 3D drawing for you. You can always save the file to modify at a later date or use it as a reference to measure clearances for future projects.

If you get serious into this, the best thing I learned was from one of the Woodgears videos - turn every piece you make into a component. It is amazingly frustrating trying to move or modify something and have it get skewed out of proportion because it acts like it is still 'attached' to a different object. Some of the functions are not intuitive and need to be learned from some source such as YouTube. You can easily waste a lot of hours doing things the hard way (ask me how I know).

You can also use graph paper, but you might want to use the metric system as it is easy to make mistakes trying to divide things up in tenths of a foot as opposed to inches. Getting good measurements of the area and not assuming things are perfectly square (checking with the 3-4-5 rule) should help you make a scale canvas to which you can plot things out.

That is one of the great things about solar - people aren't as afraid of low voltage. The cost of components going down over time makes the cost of entry pretty low. I see a lot of people getting caught up with things that are less than optimal, such as the Harbor Freight kit. I know some places are putting together kits that are a better value than the one from HF, and I'm sure that trend will continue to grow. With this and other movements such as the Maker movement, and the so called 'Internet of Things' (I strongly dislike that term), it has been opening the door to many people to use and learn about low power devices. I think there can be a lot of great things in this space for homesteaders and permies to learn.

One thing that really gets me is the cheap solar powered walkway lights. It seems there are millions of people buying these things and most of the time they don't get a year or two out of them before tossing the whole set in the trash. For people who want to create less garbage and get better value, you could buy a small panel, battery, charge controller, and lights for probably ~$250 or so and have something that isn't a disappointment. It would take more money and effort up front, but probably less in the long run (maybe 15+ years), and you would only have to replace the battery and possibly some bulbs every several years or so. It would double as an emergency power source.

I will be back at my property again this week and hopefully I can test out my LED lights some more while I am there. I will try to get some pics of the lights in action.

I know it is a bit silly, but I find great satisfaction making light fixtures. I usually refurbish and repurpose old fixture parts or sometimes just take old tomato sauce jars and other containers to make new fixtures. When I bought my 145 watt solar panel to experiment with solar energy, one of the first things I did was get some LED lights and make a few light fixtures. I leave these on in my shed 24/7 since I rarely ever tax my system and have the energy to spare. Also, I had bad luck with much older LED products, so I was really interested in the light output and longevity of newer surface mount LED lights.

I ordered some cheap LED bulbs on Amazon that were made as automotive replacements. Since 12V nominal solar power should generally fall within the range of a 12V automotive power system, as well as having more stable voltage, I figured these would be great for task and emergency lighting. I installed 2 cool white 4 watt festoon base bulbs which are typically used in car dome lights. They worked pretty well, but would get quite hot after a while. Since this was inside a shed that gets a fair amount of Florida sun, I decided to cut up some old computer heatsinks in the hopes of extending their lifespan. I first turned these on in October 2013 and they still run fine today after being on virtually the whole time. They have only been off briefly when doing a little rewiring.

Since that was a success, I decided to hunt down some warm white LED bulbs. I figured the warmer color would be good for certain tasks and to help avoid disrupting sleep cycles which can be a concern with bulbs that put off more blue light. I ordered These Warm White LED Bulbs from Amazon, and they work well. I only chose those because it said 'fulfilled by Amazon', which means it wouldn't take a month to ship in from China.

They have half the number of surface mount LEDs, so I am guessing they draw half as much energy, or about 2 watts @ 14V. They don't get nearly as warm as the 4 watt LEDs, so I didn't feel the need to add heatsinks to them. They were only 36mm as opposed to my other bulbs that are 42mm, but I was able to make them work in one of my fixtures for testing. I have one attached to my desk in the shed to illuminate my keyboard. It obviously isn't quite as bright as the other bulbs, but I like using the warm white bulb at my desk and it works great for task lighting. I'm going to string a few of them together and bring them with me the next time I camp out on my land. Once I get my shed built out there I will probably make some small fixtures and install them there.

There are lots of different options for LED lighting. I really can't see spending several dollars a bulb and using an inverter to run LED lights off grid when I can use cheap automotive LEDs. I have had great luck with the surface mount LEDs running for a long time and not having a drastic drop off in light output after running a few hours like some of the other LEDs out there. The Festoon base bulbs are good for making your own fixtures because it is easy to bend a piece of solid copper wire into a shape that holds the bulb, plus they send light mostly in one direction for task lighting. Other bulb styles would probably be better for general illumination. It can be slightly time consuming making your own fixtures and running wires, but I'm less than $20 poorer and I have 20 bulbs to take care of most of my lighting needs.

I just wanted to touch back on this topic with a small update. I pulled the slow hard drive and installed an SSD for better performance and lower power consumption. While I was in there I saw the internal battery which has a nominal voltage of 11.1V (typical of similar devices), and 12.6V charging voltage. I installed Linux and the information there told me it was charging at 12.59 volts, which is close enough for me. I am not terribly with Windows, so there may be a way to get this information in Windows, but it was readily available to me in Linux by clicking on the power icon on the panel. There was also a charge rating listed, when the battery was at 80% the charge was at ~25 watts, at 95% it was at ~7 watts, and at 98% it was at ~3.5 watts. I just glanced at it while it was charging to see these numbers.

It is pretty common for laptops to have an input voltage of 19V +/- 5% or something similar. Obviously these voltages are purposely higher than the voltages used by the motherboard and the battery so the internal power supply can control the power with enough overhead for the margin of error given for the external power brick. Again, this is not a modification someone should do if they do not completely understand what they are doing, but it does work and I have charged my laptop a few times with my small PV power system this way with no issues. This is definitely an option for someone looking to go solar. Minimizing your energy needs and avoiding unnecessary energy loads and power conversions will reduce the cost and bulk of equipment required to provide your energy needs with off grid renewable energy systems.

Yes, you would have to measure the rough area of the sections of roof feeding different gutters. I believe it would be a bit more accurate to measure how much ground that area covers. If you have a low roof pitch then it wouldn't be too far off measuring the roof itself, but a steep roof would have a much larger surface area as opposed to how much area of ground it covers. Then again if you have a lot of strong wind from one direction then a roof facing that way may catch more rain and a roof facing away from it may not get as much rain as it would be blown over (less surface area facing the direction the rain comes from). It is usually better to underestimate and have extra than to expect much more than is realistic.

I just got done posting this on another site, so I will give the link and reiterate what I did below:

Dell Laptop Charger Mod

This goes without saying, which is why I have to say it: Any power supply modifications can cause injury and/or property damage. Please leave these modifications to professionals and fully understand what you are doing before you start a project like this.

Most of Dell's products don't seem to have car chargers. They also use proprietary connectors and circuits to tell the computer if it is using a 'Dell Certified' power supply. After doing a lot of searching, I found one person who took apart a dead Dell power supply and repurposed the circuit used to tell the computer the brand and wattage of the power supply. Since this circuit runs off of the DC voltage that provides charging power to the laptop, it made sense to me that I could connect any power supply of proper voltage and amperage to the DC power wire between the power brick and the laptop, and that this would provide power to this proprietary circuit inside the power brick as well as charge my laptop.

I'm waiting on some connectors to come in so I can clean it up a bit and make it a bit more travel friendly, but it works great. I am able to plug a car charger into a cigarette lighter socket connected to my solar charge controller and charge my laptop. The charger I bought takes 12-16 VDC input which means I can use any power source in this range and of sufficient amperage (it has a 10A fuse, so somewhere less than that at minimum). It also has a USB charger built in, and I was able to charge my laptop and dumb phone at the same time while it barely got warm in one small spot. I figured that was pretty good considering the warm temperatures in my shed (somewhere in the 80's F). I'm slowly moving things in my life over to solar and minimizing my overall power consumption, and this cheap modification worked as well as I could have hoped!

I put warnings in my post in the link and will touch on it again here: I don't know if plugging in both power sources will cause one or both to fail or other issues, but it sounds like a bad idea that I wouldn't recommend. I won't make any recommendations on which power supply to use because this is not for beginners and if you can't choose a power supply then I don't want anyone blaming me for any problems that can arise. This is a fairly straightforward modification where you connect the DC power of a car charger to the DC wire of the AC charger; positive to positive and negative to negative. Please use due diligence and properly test your car charger for compatibility with the power needs of your laptop before making any connections.

One other quick note I have for anyone looking to power a computer or home office directly from DC - many computer monitors out there use a power brick very similar to laptops; ~19V and often under 30 watts power consumption. It should be fairly easy to convert one of these monitors over to car or solar power with the right power brick. It should be pretty easy to make a small office in a tiny house, RV, or other off-grid situation using off the shelf parts any perhaps a little modification.

I think it is a bit insane to convert DC to AC just to go back to DC to power devices. Some chargers don't play nice with some inverters and it is rather inefficient. With this cheap mod I am able to use AC or DC to charge my laptop; be it a house, a car, solar, or whatever I can find that works with either of these two power supplies. I have also been testing out a desktop computer on solar using a power supply made for the task. You can do a search for Pico PSU or check out what they have over here at mini-box.com. I have the M3-ATX which is a bit overkill for the computer it is powering, but I have used it for years in different projects and it is very small and efficient. The low power segment of the computer market has been rapidly changing, and the amount of work you can do per watt of energy used has increased greatly. I would definitely recommend anyone interested in this to look into the options I have listed or other devices similar to the Raspberry Pi for some affordable methods of working with computers that don't use much energy.

Octane rating is more of a measurement of how fast a fuel burns and the auto-ignition temperature. The higher the number, the slower burning/higher auto-ignition temperature. Many people think high octane means hotter or more powerful and that isn't quite true. It is capable of being used in a higher compression engine without reaching auto-ignition (pinging, detonation) which means you can make a more powerful engine (higher compression ratio - higher performance), but it doesn't work magic on an engine vs using lower octane rating (note: rating, pure octane is supposed to burn at 100 and the rating compares the gasoline to this, depending on the testing method of course).

Using fuel with too high of an octane rating would be more likely to cause incomplete combustion which would mean more pollution, more deposits of unburned fuel sticking to components, and lower combustion temperatures. Having these deposits build up can cause engine problems, and cause the engine to retain heat if you do get the engine running hotter using a lower octane rating fuel at a later time. I would look up the specific information for the engine online and follow those guidelines. Going with fuel that has a slightly higher octane rating will likely only have the negative effect of being more expensive. Going with too low of an octane rating can cause pre-ignition/pinging/detonation and bust the piston or other internal engine parts.

If you have a race track or drag strip near you then it might be an idea to look there for ethanol-free fuel. Ethanol increases the octane rating of fuel, but it and other additives can have drawbacks such as being incompatible with certain fuel systems and causing damage, not as friendly to being stored for long periods, and problems in extreme temperatures. It honestly might be cheaper to offer some of your fuel to a neighbor and go through it more frequently than to have it sit around for a few years and damage your equipment. Being certain to empty the fuel system before extended periods of storage/non-usage will help keep the fuel system clean.

The heating occurs at the time of compression. The molecules being jammed into each other creates friction and therefore heat (as well as friction in the compression device). Decompression will cause cooling. Where I live it is extremely humid, and when I was framing houses we would unhook an air tank from the compressor and it would ice up. The point at where the decompression occurs works just like an air conditioning unit, and moisture in the system can turn to ice which can cause problems.

It is doable, but there are a lot of drawbacks to consider. Using an ice box would be a great way of making it work, but I wouldn't repurpose a conventional refrigerator for the job. Their insulation is woefully inadequate. The same really goes for the chest freezer as well, but at least in that situation the cold air doesn't spill out when you open the door. It would probably be best to build your own ice box. I would use no less than 4" of insulation all around in a chest configuration. It would be advisable to have a table, stand, cabinet or similar to get it off the floor and save your back. This will make it easier to get in and out of quickly which would help things stay cool longer. Perhaps even 2 smaller chests side by side that you can keep more ice in one for 'more perishable' items and less ice for things that merely need to be kept cool.

If you keep the ice out of the melting water it will last a lot longer. I have heard of modified picnic coolers that have held ice for over a week, so I am certain a well insulated ice box can be made to work. It will probably work better with one or two responsible adults using it as opposed to guests/children/elderly or other people known to not be completely reliable about things like keeping it closed and well loaded with ice.

Using a generator daily for ice seems like a recipe for disaster. I have heard of smaller ice machines that are supposedly faster and more efficient at making ice than a chest freezer. If you were planning to store perishable things in the freezer and not just ice then it would require Herculean willpower to avoid a disaster. The cost of constantly fuelling plus one ruined freezer load of food would probably come close to the cost of going DIY solar for your refrigeration. If you get sick, injured, have some sort of crisis, or simply want to stay out for a night or go on vacation then it would require multiple contingency plans to keep things operational. Perhaps if you were using some sort of battery setup with an automatic system to start the generator then maybe it would be different, but that seems about as complex and expensive as going solar.

As I mentioned before, chest freezers also have pretty bad insulation. You may be able to find some videos on making a chest freezer more efficient. At the very least you can add some styrofoam to the bottom of the freezer and add insulation to the lid/door on top. If you can locate your refrigeration in a building that is kept as cool as is reasonable then that would help. Perhaps an earthen structure or thick walls with adobe, earthbags, or some other thick thermal mass shaded from the sun would be ideal. This would reduce the temperature difference between the inside and outside of your freezer and icebox which means less energy to keep things cool. I wouldn't just walk into any house and try to implement this system in their existing kitchen because chances are it would be more of a hassle than it is worth.

It's in Putnam county. I plan on doing some swales toward the middle of the property and hugel berms lower down towards the road, and I will have to measure all of these things out anyway. It's only 1 acre, so it should be pretty easy to do with mostly hand tools.

Right now my main goals are to get a shed built so I can store some tools out there,buy/make a cistern, and use the shed roof run-off for rainwater collection. Unfortunately it will be a bit difficult getting started doing this by myself, especially since staying overnight isn't much of an option with the tick infestation. Once I can get a better camp site established and mitigate the tick problem I will be able to get more done. With the oppressive summer looming I don't plan on getting a lot of work done until mid fall or later.

I chose 6'x16' because it is well below the 120 sq. ft. limit. With the possibility of hurricanes and certainty of strong tropical storms, I like the idea of my rafters not being any longer than necessary. Also, a long thin building has more perimeter than a roughly square building of equal area. Most people would build a shed 10'x12', but that doesn't really suit me. My current shed where I live now has two rooms to it, one 9'x8' and the other 9'x10'. I find there is wasted space in the center of the rooms. Ideally I would have long thin corridors lined with shelves like a warehouse. I plan on having a door at one end so I can store long pieces of lumber and get them in and out easily. Cost is also a factor.

I might set up a pole structure that is roughly square for my outdoor kitchen, and another one to keep sun and rain off of my saw horses. Not having walls means the further the center is from the edges the better your protection from getting wet. We get quite a lot of rain here (about 5'), so that will be an important factor for those areas. I have worked doing framing and hurricane tie-down, so I am capable of building a solid hip roof and strapping it to the foundation to minimize wind related issues. I'm hoping stuffing those structures downhill a fair amount will reduce the amount of strong wind gusts those roofs will have to endure.

I intend to get more solar panels this winter. I'm hoping to slap together a small generator next week which will be good for getting me started out there as well as an emergency power source in the future. I plan on clearing out some space in the center to allow enough light for my solar panels and garden. I will try to remember to take pictures of all of the stuff I am making so I can post it here.

I finally did it! I found an area with reasonable land prices (no jobs available) that I can use to start growing fruit trees and vegetables. It is about a 1 1/2 hour drive from my current location at the beach in Jacksonville which makes it bearable to travel. I'm planning to build a shed and get some rainwater collection going before the tropical storm season hits. This should set me up for growing this winter, which is my best growing season.

The property is off of a dirt road and roughly 1 acre in size. It has a good amount of elevation change for Florida (in excess of 20 feet, not sure exactly how much) that should be great for running drip irrigation. I plan on removing some standing dead trees and making some hugelkultur mounds, and starting them off with a bit of drip irrigation in the dry (winter) season. I have some fruit trees (mulberry, fig, pomegranate, loquat seedlings, a Key lime) as well as a bunch of native trees I can bring down there. The road is to the North and has a slight drop off from the road before going uphill to the south. I plan on leaving most of the trees at the top of the hill alone, and building a shed and cistern up there. Even though it is a wooded lot, there is plenty of room between the trees to build some work spaces without cutting down anything bigger than my arm.

I have a few projects planned for this year, although I probably won't be there much or at all this summer. I definitely want to spread some seed mix to get random edible growies going. I figure since I have a ton of sweet potatos escaped from my garden that they should do pretty well there. I have bought some cheap 15-16 bean soup mixes that are also doing well in my garden, so those should be particularly helpful in getting some hugel mounds growing. An outdoor kitchen is critically important. Cooking inside a house in the evening in Florida most days of the year creates a very uncomfortable atmosphere. I might even do a tiny house on wheels in the future since it is legal to live in a trailer/camper/RV there. I could probably do everything by the book as far as a well and septic and just pay for one thing at a time when I can afford it.

I spent the night camping there this past weekend and it wasn't a lot of fun. I set up camp at the back of the property on top of the hill and learned someone has a dog kennel. Drunk people antagonizing the creatures had them howling all night, and then a rooster in the distance got them howling throughout the early morning hours. Later I noticed the sound was much quieter at the bottom of the hill, so I will have to relocate my camp there. It was also loaded with ticks. I need to clean up some areas and find some permie solutions to the tick issue.

I can build sheds under 120 sq.ft. without a permit, so I am planning to do one 6'x16' to start. This will give me plenty of storage space and I can camp there on occasion when I need to get work done. I can also put on a gutter to collect rainwater. The land is really close to some great fishing, so I can also head down there and get all kinds of fresh and salt water food within a few miles. I have even kicked around the idea of building a small cabin to rent out for people travelling to the area to fish. I could set aside an area for a cabin and parking and use the rest of the land for growing food. Lots of possibilities!

My camera is old and horrible, so I didn't get many good pictures. It's just woods with mostly live oaks and some long leaf pines, hardly any of the other tree species are of substantial size. I do intend on planting specimen trees of every type of native tree I can get my hands on. Right now it looks like this:

How expensive are the land taxes and upkeep? If it is worth your while then maybe you could try and do small improvements when you can and have her hold on to the land for a year or two until you can get things a bit more established. You could perhaps work out a deal and take on the burden of some of the tax and upkeep costs. It would also allow you to 'test the waters' with a much smaller investment, as opposed to spending all of you money and finding out it isn't the dream situation you had hoped for.

You also would want some things in writing. Family and friends who have known each other for decades are also known for getting into irreconcilable differences over money situations or living arrangements. Put the two together and you have all your eggs in a basket that you don't own. It would honestly be a lot better if you spent a smaller amount of time and money looking into it and perhaps buying the land for yourself and renting it out to her. If she was laying out the cash to build or buy her own house then it would be a different story. I wouldn't put too much money into a house on another person's land. I don't know if the laws there would allow that size parcel to be divided, but that is another option.

There are a lot of places to look for land. You can go to landandfarm.com, landwatch.com, or one I found out about recently, trulia.com. The last one you can just punch in a zip code and sort by price and find land lots available in the area. I ran across this by mistake while searching for things in a specific zip code recently. Obviously it will vary in price depending on the area, but you can also see how long it and other properties in the area have been up for sale. If many places have been up for a long time then they aren't selling. This is good for negotiating a better price and bad because there is probably an issue with finding jobs or some other aspect that makes it less desirable to live there. This can certainly work in favor of some permies if their living situation allows it.

The circumstances described of how your wife's friend got the land seems questionable. If people in the area are hostile for whatever reason, then it may be better to just pass on the offer. It only takes one individual to ruin the lives of many people. You might want to find out the circumstances before investing your money there. If people in the area feel you are stepping on their toes then you may be forced to abandon your efforts before you have serious problems.

This seems to be the same issue that people in the free software world deal with. Some of the problem stems from the nomenclature of how our language equates freedom and no cost as both being 'free'. The philosophy page at gnu.org goes into detail about the difference between freedom and cost:

Free software means that the software's users have freedom. (The issue is not about price.)

Replace software with permaculture or any other form of knowledge you think should be available to all people for the benefit of mankind.

Specifically, free software means users have the four essential freedoms: (0) to run the program, (1) to study and change the program in source code form, (2) to redistribute exact copies, and (3) to distribute modified versions.

Again, very similar to the freedoms people should have in other areas of information. I don't remember exactly where I heard it (I think it was Richard Stallman in an interview) where the information is presented as a cooking recipe. If you see a recipe then no one can really stop you from using it, changing it, or redistributing exact or modified copies. There is the issue where some people make copyrighted recipe books, but with something like cooking (or making furniture, or growing plants, or may other things humans have been doing for eons) it seems awfully naive to think you are the only human being in the history of the species to ever have the idea to put together a handful of components to create something.

This does NOT mean you should find copyrighted material and break laws redistributing someone else's work. But there are certain things you cannot get a patent on because they are common knowledge, such as cooking food, building a chair, or planting a group of trees together. If you want to reiterate an idea in your own words, then you are free to give that information away or charge a million dollars for it.

Another page at gnu.org goes into detail about selling free software. Once again, this could be any kind of freely available information. For me, the takeaway point of the article is this:

Distributing free software is an opportunity to raise funds for development. Don't waste it!

It is important that people with the skills of creating or distributing free information (be it individuals or collaborative efforts) are able to earn an income doing their work. If they can't then they will be busy earning an income elsewhere and have little or no time to devote to creating more free information. If someone has worked hard and you are gaining benefits from it, then it might be nice to donate to them, buy things from them, or spread the good word so that others might be able to benefit and help fund the effort.

I wouldn't till it into the soil. If you can cover it with straw, leaf litter, wood mulch, living mulch or whatever then that will help keep the sun off of it so it can retain some moisture. Having a contiguous layer will also help wick moisture from areas of high moisture to dryer areas, at least to a small degree. If you are digging holes to put plants in the ground you can add some amendments to the soil in the hole, but it seems like it is less beneficial to mix it into all of the soil.

If the soil isn't that great and doesn't have much life to it, then it seems to kill off the life in the amendments when you till it in. Eventually the soil below it will absorb some of the nutrients of the stuff laying on top, and the root zone of the plants will make it more habitable for insects, bacteria, and fungi. I made the mistake of mixing things into my sandy soil at first, but mixing the whole area at once seemed counterproductive. I have been digging small holes to dump fruit and vegetable scraps and doing a chop and drop method with beans which seems to be doing a good job of increasing organic matter in my soil. There are a lot of methods you can use, but mixing higher quality amendments into a large area seems less beneficial than if you were to use it in targeted locations or layering on top. If anything, it probably helps the weeds when you mix it all in, as it slightly improves the soil but not enough to make a massive difference for common garden vegetables. This is just my opinion.

That outdoor kitchen is turning out pretty awesome! Is that the first outdoor kitchen structure at the lab?

If this were a purpose built community and not just designed for temporary stays then I would really want to see someone make 1 or 2 trailers and all of the houses able to slide on and off said trailer to be attached to permanent foundations. I think it is a bit extreme when people buy expensive trailers and have no intention of moving around in their house or a vehicle to do such. I have no problem with people who want to travel, but a lot of people do this to skirt around local laws and I wish this wasn't necessary.

The 2 towns I have come across that are willing to legalize tiny homes want homes attached to a foundation for tax purposes, and the added expense of buying a trailer to use it one time seems counterproductive. I wish all the money spent on these trailers was used to lobby the government into accepting the tiny house movement. This would go double for a community, as I am fairly certain the cost of 25+ new trailers is enough to get the attention of politicians at the state level.

Multiple cooking areas would be on top of my list. Having rocket mass heaters and plenty of wood fired stoves and ovens on top of other kitchen tools and preparation areas seems to go hand in hand with food growing spaces and a community. Both large shared areas and some smaller spaces out of the way for private functions would likely be appreciated by people.

A central utility station with electricity, water, internet, firewood, and any other shared resources would be a great idea. It would be nice if it was located near the community kitchen area. People could charge phones and laptops, grab water for drinking and cooking, grab firewood to cook with, and kick back after a meal and go online or perhaps look up recipes before cooking. All of this without having to make a dozen trips back to their tiny house. It would require people to be in charge of replenishing firewood supplies and I can easily see some less than careful people causing issues with the power and water, but if done right it could create a community hub built around mostly renewable resources.

I am personally of the belief that my living space should be as small as is reasonable (smaller than the average tiny house) and my work spaces should be several times as large. Storage sheds for supplies and separate work spaces for each tiny house would be important for people looking for a homestead lifestyle. People with more money than time or energy might not need the workshop area, but probably could use the storage area. This is where I think modern homes went wrong; It doesn't make sense to me to keep thousands of square feet of buildings heated or cooled when people rarely occupy many of those areas.

I have been interested in the tiny house movement for a handful of years now, so I could go on for days. All of this depends on what type of community you are looking to create. One geared towards homesteaders might want more infrastructure and growing spaces. One geared towards the elderly might have everything closer together and ready to move in. Tiny houses can be as individual as the people that inhabit them.

An outdoor kitchen is something I want to build for myself soon. I have put a lot of thought into it, but for me it will likely be a bit different since I am in Florida and only need to feed myself and maybe a few guests on occasion. Since you mention being in PA, one of the first thoughts that comes to mind is a rocket mass heater. I'm sure there are numerous ways the structure around it can be built, but it won't be much fun going outside on a cold rainy or snowy evening, especially after coming home from work. Without adequate heat it will likely be abandoned in the winter. A rocket mass heater can be used to both heat the space as well as to do some cooking.

I also agree that some things may or may not be particularly useful together. As previously described, the rainwater catchment vs living roof issue. You may want to set up an area next to the kitchen with solar panels and some rainwater collection or use another area like runoff from the roof of the house. The biogas digester seems a bit complicated. I'm certain people can make this work, but I personally wouldn't use one for cooking food when ample amounts of wood are available. I have played around with a few prototypes of rocket stoves that were clean burning and fuel efficient. The stoves were easy to build and I just have to provide fuel and heat to get it going. It's pretty hard to mess it up whereas I could easily see something going wrong with a biogas digester and ruining your outdoor cooking plans for the evening (or longer). It would be one thing if it was a demonstration site where people were paying to see things like this in action, but it is a different story if you want something to simply work on a daily basis.

Getting the structure built and sized appropriately will be the first goal for my outdoor kitchen. Once I have a roof and adequate protection from weather I can work on stoves and ovens. I really like the idea of a rocket mass oven. It is similar to a cob oven but with a rocket stove heating the mass. I have seen a few that were made with the fire going directly into the oven, such as at This Site with a Rocket Kitchen. I also want to build one with the exhaust separate from the interior of the oven. Something I can fire up and get a weeks worth of cooking done with while enjoying the outdoors. In my case, I don't want to heat my living space up. It is pretty insane to me how houses here are designed like solar ovens, and people cook inside their homes with their roof radiating heat into their house and running huge A/C systems to combat poor design.

Keeping the refrigeration well insulated and away from the sun and the stoves or other heat sources will help it to be more energy efficient. I personally am looking to go solar with a chest freezer. I am going to build a small platform to lift it off the ground a bit to make it easier to reach the bottom. I have a chest freezer at my current place and I left a blanket on top of it one afternoon. It was ice cold underneath it when I moved it that night. There is a lot of efficiency that can be gained from additional insulation. I also added some styrofoam that came with some packaging across the bottom of the freezer to minimize losses. You have to look at the type of unit you are using to determine where it can be insulated.

Some of the off-grid based freezers seem prohibitively expensive. I am going to just invest in an A/C unit with an inverter, a few panels, and batteries. The batteries need to be able to carry it through the longest amounts of cloudy days you get and the panels need to be able to charge it up enough to carry you through such an event. It is always a good idea to oversize things when powering refrigeration. Making short runs for the wiring and oversizing the cables will ensure you don't have significant voltage drop.

Only teaching logic doesn't necessarily prepare people to defend themselves against crazy 'spin'. Understanding that people pull these stunts to get their way is almost as important as understanding logical methods of how the world around us works since crazy people are a part of this world. My mother does some of this to me, but in her case she is legitimately loosing grip on reality and really can't help herself. I guess it is half my fault because she knows if she whines at me I will do what she wants to get her to stop whining. At least I am cognizant of it and don't let other people treat me that way.

I think sometimes people are raised in these environments and are never taught that it is unacceptable behavior. Other times people live in these environments and recognize this craziness and rise above it. Some people see this happen in schools, stores, in the media and other places and figure it out while others don't. Anyone not going with the flow is labeled and outsider and many people have been trained to believe that is always a bad thing. I don't see the tide changing any time soon, but making people aware of the games people play can help them to avoid these pitfalls.

Car alternators are made to spin at higher revolutions than hydro and wind power typically generate. You can change the gear/pulley ratio, but this compounded by the need to generate an electric field in order to create energy and starts to become problematic and fairly inefficient. Permanent Magnet Alternators/Generators (PMA's, PMG's) do away with the need to create a magnetic field electrically. Missouri Wind and Solar sells a bunch of these for both wind and hydro power generators. They have a bunch of videos on YouTube that are worth a look.

There are also other places online that sell both custom PMA's as well as ones made from old car alternators. You can even buy kits to rebuild an alternator you may have on hand to save money. I haven't looked at it in a while, but MWandS had a bunch of them still for sale on ebay. They usually have lots of things on their ebay store on sale if you are willing to wait and keep an eye out there. There are other brands out there, but some of them take significant shortcuts to shave a few dollars, so it is worth investigating before throwing down any cash.

Also, the amount of power you can create will be determined by the amount of flow and head your water source has. A PMA would need a sizable water wheel to create power and an alternator would need an even larger wheel to produce the same amount of excess energy.

I bought a Brown Turkey Fig tree on clearance for $7 a few years back and now have about 30 trees. It is the easiest thing I have propagated by cuttings. I cut off pieces, stick them in sand (my native soil at the beach), and keep them moist and in the shade. It is a good idea to remove most/all of the leaves, otherwise they will fall off on their own and possibly suck the life out of the branch in the process. I have done it with cuttings 3" long to 3' long and had few failures. My only issue has been an occasional white grub attack on trees in larger containers or after planting them in the ground.

I agree that it would make sense to find a donor tree to take a cutting from if you can find one. Otherwise you can check out the clearance racks at the big box stores or perhaps become friendly with a local nursery that has figs and maybe score one for cheap/free that has been damaged or similar. One tree I planted was about 3' tall when white grubs ate the roots and I managed to pot it up, take the leaves off, and get it to grow again! They are really tough trees! Some things wouldn't be worth it to try and save if it is root bound or severely damaged, but a fig would be one of the easiest to save from a disaster.

Missouri Wind and Solar has a number of charge controllers and they have videos of using a pond aerator without batteries. It would take a bit more energy to pump water uphill, but it can be done. They do have some programmable charge controllers for wind and solar which might work well for this. The one is designed to run a dump load once the batteries are fully charged. It probably won't work without any battery, but you could likely use a much smaller battery such as the type used in tiny computer UPS's or car battery booster packs to keep the electronics running. Then adjust the settings (engage dump load at a lower voltage, disconnect load from battery at a higher voltage) to run the pump as the dump load from the solar panel(s) instead of the small battery.

From what I understand, a lot of DC motors are not built to withstand a continuous load (3+ hours a day run time). I would either get a good brand DC pump like a SHURflo, or get an A/C motor rated for continuous use and an inverter. It might be more expensive initially, but burning up a bunch of motors not up to the task would be far more expensive and frustrating in the long run.

The starting amperage of a motor is much higher than the amount of current used after it starts running. It might only be a few seconds, but without a sufficient amount of current being supplied it will never start. One interesting thing I have seen is This Video on Supercapacitors. While that particular video shows it being used in a car, he has numerous videos about the supercapacitors and solar energy which are very interesting. If you were to use a programmable charge controller or design your own based on a microcontroller like an Arduino or similar, you could set it up only start once you have sufficient energy and it would allow a small amount of run time in case a few puffy clouds shade the panel for a bit. I personally think this is better for mobile uses instead of stationary because it is lighter and much more expensive to implement, but it is noteworthy as the prices of supercapacitors go down over time.

You could go much further with this and look into systems such as ones available at Open Sprinkler. They have systems based on the Arduino, Raspberry Pi, and more. This takes a bit of learning, but it can make a system that is cheaper and more reliable in the end. Also, there are millions of people out there using these devices and you can usually find someone trying something close enough to your plans that it can be easily adapted.

There are lots of places you can ask for help on this. There are tons of forums and websites that cater to microcontrollers, small computers, off grid gardening and so on where you can find people doing very similar things. I have seen too many YouTube videos on this topic to list here. Do a search there for your keywords like solar, irrigation, and similar. I'm certain you can get a better idea of exactly what you need by checking out those places and most of the people doing it are glad to help.

That design is pretty nice. The burn chamber is a bit short, but otherwise it has the basics of air in low and exhaust out high. My guess about it putting the fire out is that it is all thermal mass. If you could put some ash on the plate to insulate the briquette from the cold mass it would certainly help. Also, if the entire stove was left in a warm place such as near a heat source or a sunny window then it would sap less heat from the fire early on.

They have those charcoal chimney starters which is basically a steel cylinder with a wire rack on the bottom. You put some paper in the bottom and briquettes on top and light it from below. It updrafts the heat to get the briquettes burning and then you can transfer it to the little stove. You can make your own out of an old can. Maybe replacing the ceramic plate in the bottom piece with a stainless steel rack would allow you to put paper underneath and briquettes on top to avoid having to transfer them from a can. You would probably need to leave the top section off until it is well lit. Unfortunately it could potentially cause enough thermal shock to crack it by having something quick burning like paper in it, so it may be unavoidable to have to use the transfer method. This page on charcoal chimneys has a bunch of tips. I usually save used cooking oils to soak some paper or kindling in to help get fires going and keep them going. I dip sticks in a jar of oil before adding them to the fire and it helps me use substantially less wood on small stoves.

I personally wouldn't use that indoors. I really like the idea of having an outdoor kitchen with one or two ovens and a handful of stoves of different sizes for different tasks. Something this size would be great for making a small meal or a hot drink. You could probably use kindling in it the same way some small L-tube rocket stoves work. Perhaps get a couple briquettes started and warm up the stove slowly to avoid thermal shock and then push in small sticks to keep it going. I'm sure it will be a bit of trial and error. Good luck!

It shouldn't be too difficult to use a trombe wall with pipes or something similar to replace the active fans. You could probably even run the intake pipes across the bottom of the trombe wall with a slight uphill pitch to preheat the air, go through the mass, and then vertical through the trombe wall to create a draft. Something like an Arduino could power flaps or valves to cut off air flow and be very power efficient.

I don't think adding metal is going to be very effective or economical as the mass is already fairly conductive. There is only a small temperature difference using outside air comparatively to burning wood in a RMH, so squeezing 1 or 2 degrees extra out of a given amount of air will be difficult and probably expensive. Adding more than one pipe would greatly increase efficiency. The thing about a large thermal mass is the surface to volume ratio. If the mass is more circular or square it won't give off heat as fast as one that is really long and wide and thin at roughly the same volume. Adding surface area in the form of more pipes will give more contact for the air to dump heat in to the mass. One could be the regular RMH system for supplemental heat and another one or more for airflow only.

For a greenhouse, you probably wouldn't want a low bench, but rather something closer to square in cross section and closer to a more normal working height to serve as a work/plant space or perhaps with 'steps' for different tiers to hold plants. This would give off heat a bit more slowly but also take longer to lose heat. Given the soil all of the plants use then a full greenhouse would have much more thermal mass than many typical modern homes. The temperature swings shouldn't be drastic, so the mass won't need to be shaped to give off that much heat. In an emergency, the bell of the RMH can provide fast heat, but most of the time the mass should be sufficient if designed right. Getting the vents to open and close at the right times will be key to this.

I have been looking into this idea from the opposite perspective; I want a cool mass to moderate the hottest temperatures of my climate. Instead of preheating pipes with a trombe wall, I would use geothermal cooling. I want to take the night air and cool it further with subterranean pipes to then pull heat from a large mass. The idea of the mass and pipes is identical. Having a large monolith that isn't too thin in any direction and enough pipe surface area should be able to accomplish our goals.

Van Powell on YouTube has a lot of interesting videos, including making a greenhouse with a rocket mass heater. It isn't terrible large and doesn't have the system you are looking to implement, but there are a few ideas there that could be useful. You can insulate the north side of the building to retain heat, or maybe use charcoal to darken the surface of the mass in spring/fall to absorb heat from the sun. Hopefully some of these ideas will help you out.

I would think that it depends on a lot of things. The soil type would probably play a role. The percentage of the root zone being covered would matter. The types of trees would make a difference. Really big trees with little hugels in a straight line across one side probably wouldn't make a difference. Burying most of the root zone with a hugel ring around a tree probably wouldn't be a great idea. You can probably find videos on youtube of people using air spades on trees to relieve compaction and aerate soil.

If a tree has a road or other pavement covering a good portion of the root zone and a hugel is built on the remainder of the root zone then it could also be problematic. Certain trees that tend to do well as street trees would likely also deal with it better. You could look at similar trees in the area that have large portions of their root zone covered and look at their heath as sort of a gauge for what you can get away with. If the trees are cut back a significant amount then they would lose some root zone and eventually grow new roots where they need them.

I find them in some of my sweet potatos and they have eaten the roots on a few of my small fig trees. I think the larger fig trees outpace the speed that they eat the roots. From what I understand they have a 2 year cycle, so you may have one year heavy with them and the next year lighter. Supposedly the beetles also mate in the trees and lay the eggs beneath said tree. They tend to come out all at once for a short period. I need to set my sweet potato bins on logs next year and cover them with netting or something when they come out to mate. I don't know of any other methods of control, but they don't seem to attack most of my other plants. Then again with delicious sweet potatos around they can afford to be picky I guess.

Has anyone here seen Swedish Platform Framing? I ran across that page a few years back and it seemed pretty interesting. I agree that using something locally appropriate is generally the way to go. Certainly not a lot of rocks here in Florida. I'm pretty sure most of the stone here has been trucked in from places north of here.

Using some of the advanced framing techniques or the Swedish Platform Framing methods can reduce the amount of wood used and allow for more insulation, thermal mass, or both. I like the idea of a 'sandboxed' thermal mass. Having a large mass here in Florida on the outside of your house soaking up sun all day keeps your house far too warm all night as opposed to an insulated wall. I guess the reverse would be true in a colder climate; Using a large exterior mass facing away from the sun would persistently stay cooler than a comfortable room temperature for a significant part of the year.

Even though I don't have rocks, I do have plenty of sand. There are places further inland with a good amount of clay, but very little that I can find at the beach. Maybe I will get lucky and find some when I move, or maybe I will just have to buy some. Either way, I plan on putting thermal mass inside an insulated building to help it keep cool. Keeping it out of direct contact with the ground and adding some ducts to run cooler air through at night may be a method of keeping temperatures more comfortable. The opposite of this for colder climates would be a rocket mass heater.

One thing you can look at for inspiration is automotive exhaust systems. Getting multiple pipes from multiple cylinders in the most efficient way possible is one of the best performance per dollar enhancements that can be done to an engine, so there is all kinds of performance information on this subject that can be utilized for a rocket stove/mass heater.

Ralf Siepmann wrote:Hi,
as I read this split-run-challenge I spontaneously began to do some math:
One 6" duct and four 3" ducts do have the same CSA, however the wall length (circumference) of four 3" ducts is double to that of a 6" duct, hence I assume double the drag per run length.
If you subtract a boundary layer of say 0.2 inches the ratio between the circumferences gets somewhat better, but the "flow-open" CSA of the 4 ducts becomes smaller than that of the 6" duct.

When I think about this, particularly the surface area, I think about how much heat the exhaust is losing. If you made on long mass with 1 x 6" pipe vs 4 x 3" pipes, the exhaust of the 3" pipes would be lower temperature than the exhaust of the 6" pipe for a given length. It has more surface area to dump heat into the mass. This would work great for a mass oven (something I am working on), but counterproductive for long distances. Also, making the exhaust too cold can cause smoke back issues. You could run the exhaust back by the bell, but that makes the possible length of exhaust run an even shorter distance from the fire box.

The other thing is the amount of heat being produced (BTU's). A given firebox/duct combo size will only be able to put out so much heat at once. Splitting it up 2 ways or 10 ways with the same flow potential doesn't make it produce any more heat. A bigger system is needed. A larger batch with an appropriate single exhaust system should be able to carry more heat a further distance from the firebox than a multi tube exhaust system. A dual exhaust could be used with a central firebox and exhaust going in either direction with a unified mass going between two rooms which would help get more even heat across the mass (more even heat between rooms).

If you need to warm up a number of separated rooms then it might be beneficial to take stock of what needs the most heat and how to get the heat there. If one room isn't inhabited and just needs warmth to avoid pipes freezing then maybe adding vents in the door/wall or perhaps even a thermostatically controlled fan could bring some heat from a room with a RMH to a room without one. Popping holes in the walls up high and blowing in loose fill insulation like cellulose fiber can help retain heat. Multiple mass heaters may be the only efficient way to heat spaces that are not adjacent to each other.

It is possible. The design sounds good, but the inside diameter of the 'container' seems a little small. I can't tell exactly from the picture, but it appears to be around 2 feet in diameter. If you keep the tree small then it could work, though at that small of a size it would be easy to keep in a movable container.

Ice doesn't seem to instantly kill any of the citrus trees around here. They get hard freezes inland pretty often in late winter, and even the beach gets an occasional hard freeze every couple of years. We do have the citrus greening disease killing off our trees, and a hard freeze will damage fruit, but the tree itself doesn't seem to have cold problems since the roots and main branches generally don't get that cold. When it warms back into the 60's and the sun beaming down can feel more like the 80's then the tree only experiences a few hours of a hard freeze and many times it isn't multiple days in a row. Getting your micro climate to create these conditions should increase the chances of success. Covering it during really bad or long freezes will be important. I have used a small rocket stove to heat bricks which I threw under a canvas tarp to protect some sensitive plants in the past.

Given the citrus greening disaster going on here I have little interest in fighting a losing battle trying to grow citrus, but I have learned a couple things. Many citrus trees seem to have their fruit mature in late fall to early winter. Having an early frost could destroy those fruit before maturity. Something that bears more often or at a different time of year could bring better yields. Also something smaller that doesn't hang on the tree as long could be beneficial. Something like a Key Lime could be another option. They grow true to seed and the leaves also taste like a strong lime. Other citrus leaves I have encountered smell terrible enough that I would not try tasting them, but the Key Lime leaves can be used to cook with. I made some rice once that I added a few leaves to and it came out rather well. This was right before I found out about the citrus greening disease that ended up killing my limes.

In any case, as long as you protect the fruit then you could get a good yield from the tree. The root system will probably be substantial if it isn't vigorously pruned. I could easily see a tree planted inside that well busting the bricks apart if left to grow on its own. If you get anywhere growing the tree then it would be great to see pics!

Would something like TinyURL work for people trying to post directly to a specific page? I don't use Facebook, so I have no idea how they do things. TinyURL also provides a preview version of the link so people can go to TinyURL and see what the original link was before proceeding to its destination. It appears you should be able to add 'preview.' to the beginning of a TinyURL link to get to the preview page, or they also have a cookie they can add that does it for you automatically by clicking the Preview Feature link in their side menu.

This doesn't address the 'goofballs' issue but rather circumvents it. I guess I never really looked at the new homepage to notice it. If the TinyURL works on Facebook then I imagine other people could have a similar experience where they immediately go to the substance of this site and be initially oblivious to the goofballs reference. It does seem to connote something other than what this site is geared towards, but doesn't bother me either. I think the Facebook issue is just that, a Facebook issue. The way they manipulate links and the relationship of goofballs and permaculture are separate issues as I see it.

I would dig through the county websites and look at the statutes pertaining to anything you may want to do that doesn't fit into 'conventional housing/living standards'. There are different laws by county about how large a shed can be before needing a permit, some have laws about livestock, and other things. I'm going to call up about a piece of land in Putnam county tomorrow since that county seems to have more relaxed laws than I have seen in most other places.

Another thing to think about is income streams. I knew of some people who went to Punta Gorda for the cheap land and came back because it sucked them dry. They couldn't get much work and had no other source of income and didn't want to burn all of their savings. If you are expecting to sell stuff from your land or work a regular job to make ends meet, then it would be beneficial to secure these avenues before putting down money for land. Things may have picked up a bit in the past few years, but it would still be a good idea to figure these things out. If you have income that doesn't rely on the local economy and can live within your means then you should be all set.

Tiny homes seem to be frowned upon in a lot of places. Granted most enforcement is complaint driven, but it would be a disaster to invest a ton of money and have it go up in smoke. Many of the counties do allow for RV's for varying amounts of time (Putnam county allows RVs as permanent homes for instance), and they usually allow something like 6 months of a temporary structure while building a new home. It depends on the county, but the ones I have seen have a 600 square foot minimum for the outside perimeter. Not exactly a tiny house for 1 or 2 people, but this depends on many factors. If you are outside of large population centers then the taxes should be pretty affordable. As someone who has built a few hundred houses in NE Florida from small to insanely large, I would strongly recommend not using 2x4's for exterior walls. 2x6's 2' on center is not much more costly than 2x4's 16" on center, yet much more sturdy and more room to insulate. It must be nice to have so much money you can build a 16,000 square foot house and barely insulate it!

Rainwater should be extremely easy. My barrels have been overflowing today. I get around 5 feet of rain a year here, it is probably similar down there. I would definitely go with a large cistern. It seems like the stuff people dump in the ground can make well water much worse than rain water. I have been using gravity to power my drip irrigation. There are numerous ways to get it to work with little energy input if it is designed right.

Composting toilets will probably be variable depending on the inspector. Getting one that is EPA approved will likely have a higher chance of being approved as opposed to a home made system. Going solar should be very easy. I would highly recommend solar hot water with perhaps a small electric backup. If you are conservative of energy use and can use more energy while the sun is shining then you can spend a great deal less money on batteries.

Is this a hand miter saw or a power saw? I would not try using a circular saw blade (skill saw, chop saw, or other) for trying to cut down a tree. Especially one attached to a machine meant to chop vertical while stationary. Green wood saws have a rake to the teeth that cuts a substantially larger kerf than the thickness of the blade. I have never seen a circular saw blade that cuts that big of a kerf compared to the blade for common arbor sizes found on construction tools.. It would have a high likelyhood of getting stuck or it could kick back. I can't imagine how awkward it would be holding a chop saw up to a tree, let alone trying to hold it firmly enough to keep it under control in the event of a kickback.

As far as cost, it doesn't seem like it is much cheaper either, unless it's the only cutting tool you own. Finding an appropriate tool really depends on location and tree size and number of trees. For a handful of trees I would get a bow saw or for smaller trees some sort of green wood hand saw. Even a hacksaw or sawzall would be fine for smaller trees. They have cheap electric chain saws that work well for light duty stuff. If you want cheap and reliable then an axe would be the best tool for the job.

Woodgears.ca has a version of what I have seen a lot of people use over at Lumberjocks. Matthias at Woodgears is a true genius and has tons of projects and videos available. He also sells plans for some of the more complicated builds. Few people can look at all of his stuff and not learn a lot from it.

The projects section at Lumberjocks is also very good for inspiration. They have people from construction workers to cabinet makers to fine artists and everything in between. Some of the lumber racks I linked to make it very easy to grab a board in the middle and pull it out as opposed to needing to slide it out. It really depends on the storage area and how much space you have in each direction. Having more shelving tiers will help avoid stacking things too high so you can get at the piece you want without a lot of effort or damage to the lumber.

I had wondered for a while about this. Not only are there the automotive exhaust coatings, but there are other coatings used on pistons and other parts that are only a few ten-thousandths of an inch thick that can withstand extreme temperatures and environments, and greatly increase the reflectivity of the surface so it doesn't absorb as much heat. This leads to better combustion. Not that any of it is cheap, but it is one method of getting towards a goal of getting something that is 'regulator approved'.

The mass heaters can be much cheaper, but also are custom which makes it near impossible to get uniform acceptance. I guess this is one small area where I am lucky that I don't need much heat!

I understand being buried under a mountain of information. It can be important to remember that you can't learn it all. I think it was Emeril Lagasse that said he could spend his whole life cooking and still not learn 10% of what there is to know about it. Not that it stops me from learning, but I can only know so much. Most of my knowledge is with other areas such as construction and alternative energy. I started growing native trees before I started gardening. Of course my beach trees getting 5 feet of rain a year at about 10' above sea level is quite different from your area.

I'm not completely sure what nitrogen fixing trees would be best for your climate. I have been looking up several of them and not seeing clear information of climate range. I would think just about any that you can get cheaply that aren't wildly invasive would get some roots in the ground and build soil. The catalog from that 'Plants of the Southwest' place would probably be most useful. The people there could also be helpful with identifying your native plants that start to pop up. Bring them some pictures and ask for help. I really wish I knew enough about my local weeds to be able to say 'that growing there means the soil is alkaline/acidic/compacted' and so on. Even if I did, it much of it would only be useful only in my region.

I would look into the work Geoff Lawton has done. If you haven't already checked it out, he has an amazing series of videos at geofflawton.com. Of course now I can't remember if it was there or on YouTube where I saw it, but he talks about starting out with 90% nitrogen fixing trees and 10% fruit, nut, and other trees. After they get established you start to chop and drop or lose some trees, either way you will be releasing nitrogen and carbon into the soil from the tree roots. The same with bushes or any other nitrogen fixing plants. They create the habitat and over time the percentages should reverse so you end up with 10% nitrogen fixing trees and the rest will be fruit, nut, and other (hopefully some native) trees.

He also talks a lot about using fungi that take up toxic gick to create long chain carbon molecules which render them inert. The whole toxic gick factor is really problematic. Perhaps trying to seek out the spaces with the least harm done to them, and growing over top of them, as opposed to digging in to the soil, can get you started. Maybe raised beds made with plain untreated wood would give you several seasons of growing herbs and annuals. Mulching and creating good fungal habitats could possibly mitigate some of the harder hit areas. Lab testing sounds like a great idea.

Don't get too attached to the idea of forcing a particular plant to work. If you have consistent success with some and not with others, then maybe they weren't meant to be there. Here in Florida everyone wants a citrus tree. Unfortunately there is an invasive insect here with bacteria that slowly kills citrus. I can see them dying all over and new ones for sale all over. It's quite the racket they have going selling expensive trees with no hope of long term survival. I lost $50 before figuring out the problem. I got other trees like figs and pomegranates for much cheaper and they are doing awesome right now. I came to similar conclusions in my garden. Instead of fighting a losing battle I can save my money for better goals. I don't want to keep dumping money into something because 'I have already invested too much to lose', sometimes the learning experience is worth the cost. I want to expand on successes now and I can revisit my failures when I have more knowledge to tackle them.

How much land are you working with? I think that will dictate particular actions to a degree. Using your seeds to get some sort of ground cover going along with native plants will help the soil in many ways. It might be worthwhile to take stock of what plants are growing in the degraded areas. They can withstand the harsh conditions and might tell you some things about the soil without doing a soil test. Some of the plants may thrive under certain conditions and do poorly in others which can give you a process of elimination for the soil conditions that these plants are growing in.

Depending on how large of an area you are working with, how much labor you have available, how much outside (carbon) inputs you are willing to work with (do they contain chemicals?), and how deep your pockets are will help determine how much land you can successfully convert. Spreading your resources too thin could end up not being enough to sustain trees and hinder other long term goals. This will absorb both time and money. I like the Geoff Lawton video where he shows the progression of a food forest. Each area was one year older than the last, until he reached a mature food forest. I'm sure he didn't try to convert the entire property at once because that was too large of a scale to be successful given the available resources. Starting off by doing one manageable area at a time will keep from spreading too thin and chasing your tail trying to keep everything alive.

When it comes to planting trees, I think doing one small guild area at a time is a good way to go. Trying to buy or sow hundreds of trees at one time could end up sucking up a lot of water and have a rough time advancing. Building one manageable area at a time with a handful of trees and nurturing an entire ecosystem of different layers of under story plants and the beneficial fungi and insects will work toward creating a stable system that can start to take care of itself. If you have enough mulch to put 1 inch over an acre, or 8 inches over 1/8 of an acre, chances are the smaller area with more mulch will retain more water, grow more fungi, have more insect habitats, be less prone to losing plants due to drought or strong sun, on and on.

I have been down the road of trying to amend a larger area of sand to make a garden and have that carbon devoured and nutrients washed through the soil by the immense amount of rain that typically happens in my area. I learned to embrace most of the native plants as elements trying to repair the land. Trying to grow many things and expand on what survives, leaving those that didn't live for another time instead of trying to force something that didn't want to work. Native trees are awesome at their jobs, and they have many. They provide food and habitat for small animals, birds, and insects. They can bring water and nutrients up from the earth. The can provide shade with their canopy, as well as collect dew with the large surface area of their leaves. Ever see grass growing faster under the drip line of a tree? Shade, dew, and evaporative cooling can create a micro climate for the benefit of the ecosystems under a tree.

Instead of trying to carpet the land with these new ecosystems, you could try to strategically place these polycultures. Spacing them out could allow them to stabilize, and when they mature and need less maintenance you can put more resources towards filling in the gaps. Hopefully these little 'islands' of intense biodiversity will start to grow outwards, eventually meeting each other. Perhaps certain fungi or insects or other life will colonize one area while different ones make their home in another. Eventually they will spread out. If there is too much over here and too little over there then they will even out. A bit of encouragement can speed up the process.

My guess about watering and pulling the weeds to encourage grass was something so ingrained in what they tell everyone that they told you as well. It might be worthwhile to water a few small areas just to see what native 'weeds' pop up so you can figure out which ones are particularly worthwhile to encourage. A lot of the zone 1 stuff will be similar to above but with less/smaller trees. Maybe a lot of nitrogen fixing beans and shrubs. Anything that can grow fast and increase moisture retention should be beneficial. Getting everything going for one space as opposed to trying to do everything at the same time seems to work well for me.

Not really as far as I know, save for a few Intel Atom tablets with keyboards magnetically attached, but the new USB PD standard is supposed to be designed to allow charging of laptops with USB and sharing power with devices. For instance, any USB device with a power source or battery can charge another USB device that has the same or lower power profile. Their documentation goes over the proposed methods of determining what does what under different circumstances.

It probably would be better to use a DC-DC power supply designed to charge a laptop from a cigarette lighter/power port. There are also a number of PC monitors out there using ~19V power bricks which could also be powered by one of those laptop car chargers. Combining that with a M3-ATX Pico PSU from mini-box or similar power supply can create a nice off grid solution for a desktop computer.

I picked up one of those M3-ATX PSU's many years ago and have it running the computer I am typing on now. I dug it up more than a year ago and found that for lower power computers, using it with a power brick used less energy than standard ATX power supplies. The computer I was testing went from ~40 watts at idle to just under 30 watts. 10 watts may not seem like much, but a 25% reducing in power usage is enormous for an off grid situation. I got a newer motherboard with a built in CPU that draws around 12 watts idle and 22 watts max. It isn't fantastic, but it does everything I need. These numbers are via a power brick plugged in to a Kill-A-Watt meter, so I am certain it would be more efficient directly connected to batteries. I don't have any good test equipment to measure power draw, but I will try to give it a shot in the coming months.

This again is where the USB PD would shine. I could rig up the 12VDC USB power to this computer and be well below the 100 watt limit. Not that I need it for myself, but it could introduce new markets for green building and power. There is a race to the bottom of power consumption between ARM and[ x86 based processors. Right now on the desktop the Intel x86 processors still have the best performance per watt per dollar spent from what I have seen for desktop solutions. However the lines are beginning to blur and it is creating a lot of new opportunities for powering devices with renewable energy. The new Raspberry Pi 3 certainly looks nice for quite a few tasks such as lightweight desktop or HTPC and takes USB power. Not to mention the dozen of developer boards that have come out since the success of the Raspberry Pi.