Ned Harr

Peanut butter was recommended to me by a pest control guy. It worked well in my experience

I know you said you hated the trades, but there are many that are in demand in rural areas. In addition to the usual mechanics, electrical, HVAC, plumbers, etc., rural has a big need for hauling, excavating, tree/brush removal, fencing, and stuff like that. Doing trades work in rural areas, in my experience, is usually quite pleasant. If you start your own business, or join a small well-run one, your day-to-day should be quite pleasant I would think.

When I first learned about rainwater catchment systems (metal roof --> big gutter --> big holding tank --> some kind of filtration --> pressure pump --> maybe more filtration --> faucets, showers, toilet, laundry machine, etc.) I figured "cool, those are the parts, put them together correctly and they just work."

Someone on here (John C. Daley, I think?) has said you don't even need filtration. I accept that this person has not needed it, but I wonder if it depends on what's in your local rainwater, also perhaps on the design of certain parts of the system. (How localized are quality differences in rainwater anyway?)

Last night I watched a video by a guy who built an off-grid tinyhouse in Bulgaria or Belarus (some eastern European country whose name started with B, sorry I forget), and he said he used rainwater catchment exclusively for the first few years but got sick of algae taste and smell in his water, and had noticed the walls of his bathroom even started to turn green, so he switched to a well.

How common is the issue he described? What causes it? Did he simply do something wrong in his installation?

I definitely get a lot of algae in my rain barrels, but they are outside and not UV protected so I kinda expected that.

What else is there to say about purity/potability from rainwater catchment?

(Sorry if I'm repeating previous thread/s)

It's not quite parasitism, not quite symbiosis, but the lending institutions have an interest in you both being reliably in debt and reliably able to pay your debt back.

Many of the questions I'd like to ask here cover different specific aspects of the same expansive long-term project. I'm trying to decide if I should continue to ask each question in the particular area of the forums where it is most relevant, or if I should just start one big general thread that keeps everything together.

I can think of pros and cons for the "big epic thread" idea:

Pros:
- I could provide a better sense of continuity in terms of where I'm at in my project, without having to keep reminding people
- I wouldn't have to keep repeating myself as much when it comes to relevant details & particulars
- Most of the knowledge shared here comes from a relatively small set of "regulars" anyway
- The thread itself would become a kind of document that tells the story of my journey

Cons:
- Might disturb the website's organization schema
- Would be harder for random people with the knowledge I'm seeking to find my thread and share their knowledge
- "Regulars" would still have to be directed to the thread somehow

I see a few "big epic threads" on the site already, similar to what I envision, so I know at least they are allowed, but that doesn't tell me whether they are preferred, nor whether they are generally effective in terms of helping people share and receive information.

Having written this, I think I've pushed myself from "probably will start a big epic thread" to "probably will not start a big epic thread", but I'm still open to hearing your thoughts, plus maybe someone else is experiencing this dilemma and will be helped by my thinking through it out loud.

Mike Haasl wrote:And who has 7 laptops?

If she has one or two siblings, in a school district that equips students with laptops, in a household with parents (or grandparents, ugh*) who are giving their kids laptops, if one or two of those laptops have been replaced/upgraded before the old one became defunct, a house could easily end up with 7 working laptops in it. And it's not surprising that a teenager who's painstakingly choreographing and posting viral videos to the internet has ready access to all 7 of them.

*Both parents might be on the same page about screens for kids, but it only takes one grandparent one birthday to disturb the equilibrium.

Mark Mittner wrote:both the video claims and the thread comments can be true, but I think they represent different scenarios.

The guy in the video claims that listing prices are inflated not because sellers are distressed, but because they commonly do not know the value of their land and just throw a hopeful number out there.

I would not expect most Permies users who've sold land to be clueless like that, but it wouldn't surprise me if many land sellers were.

To be clear, I am not currently in negotiations or even actively shopping for land. I am strategizing on how I'm saving for land and trying to see what I might realistically be able to afford.

Mainly I'm trying to get other perspectives on the points made in the video I linked in the OP. It's made by a guy who has a company that (it seems?) helps people buy land. He makes a lot of points in the video I like (about the mindset and behaviors that will help buyers be successful) but he also states some facts that seemed too good to be true, such as that land often sells for 60-70% lower than the asking price.

The research I've done since watching that video has updated that "common discount" number closer to 5%-25%, but I wanted to also get perspectives directly from people who've gone through the process themselves.

I enjoyed this video (https://youtu.be/nV7G9_6hwF8?si=f5ChxPDTg4aFza4I) but it included a claim I fear is too good to be true, that raw land is frequently overpriced by 25%, 50%, even 70%.

Was that your experience? Did you ultimately pay less than the asking price for your land, and if so how much less?

For those who have watched the video, what else did you find resonated with you as true or as especially untrue?

I had always thought having to get up to pee at night was correlated with enlarged prostate (that organ being in the vicinity of the bladder, it takes up space the bladder otherwise would use, decreasing the bladder's capacity).