David Wieland

Low frequency sounds travel far, subsonic sounds included. That's a major reason that people living in the vicinity of industrial wind turbines complain, because sound too low in frequency to be heard can still be sensed.
As for relying on remoteness for avoiding road noise, I recall decades ago visiting a remote property on a mountain in the interior of British Columbia and noticing sound from a highway miles away in the valley below, despite the intervening forest.

Matt McSpadden wrote:What subfloor options are there for solid wood or other natural materials?

I am planning an addition to my house. Somewhere in the range of 12x30ft. Everything I have ever done either used plywood or already had very old 150+ year old boards on it. Most of the 1x lumber I see these days doesn't seem strong enough for a subfloor. I supposed I could just line it with 2x4 or whatever dimension was cheapest. Are there options specifically for this?

What options have you heard about? What options are available near you?

I don't understand the concern about plywood, but 1" (nominal) boards is strong enough for a residential subfloor. If the species available to you seems too weak for joists on 16" centers, just reduce the spacing. Expect a squeaky floor. Tongue and groove subfloor plywood is not only much faster to install, but it's also quieter, especially if you include construction adhesive or cushioning on the joist tops. Perhaps cushioning could be used with a board subfloor, something like the flashing tape I used for "100 year joists" on my deck rebuild.

Timothy Norton wrote:Does MIG require shielding gasses?

Yes, MIG (metal inert gas) does, but the acronym is often misused to simply refer to a wire-feed welder. In fact, my first such welder (from Princess Auto) was labeled MINIMIG 100E, despite having no shielding gas line. I guess the manufacturer thought that including MIG in the name was an upgrade. 🤔

Amy Clarke wrote:...
Does ground-contact foamboard hold up ok for you? I thought the pink/purple foamboard insulation was impervious to nature and left some pieces of it leaned up against a wall with their bottom edges on the ground, and something termite-ish ended up turning it into a bunch of cool-looking tunnels and uncool purple plastic powder.

Maybe it's because termites don't come this far north, but I haven't seen any tunneling in the foamboard (actually ordinary white expanded -- not extruded -- foamboard that I already had when I made my hoop greenhouse several years ago).

I'm an occasional welder, still at what might qualify as novice level. With each new project or repair,  I have to try to recover the necessary skill for making strong welds. Decades ago, when I was homesteading, I took a night school welding course at the local high school. As I recall, it was oriented more to gas welding and brazing, which I used only during the course to repair a broken tool and make a modified C-clamp for welding. The cost to have my own equipment was simply prohibitive.

A couple of years ago I decided to do some arc welding, motivated by rocket mass heater designs (for use in my greenhouse) that used steel air intake tubes. The gas cylinders needed for MIG welding seemed ridiculously expensive (and space hungry) for my very limited use, but a 120V flux core welder didn't require much investment and did the job. I did make sure to buy an auto-darkening helmet and later a "cheater" magnifying insert to help my old eyes see where to strike an arc (which I still find a little tricky). I didn't take another course but watched numerous YouTube videos, a blessed DIY aid these days. I'm not trying to become a real welder and care only about the strength of joints. I understand that MIG welding has a couple of advantages over flux core, but the extra cost is a big disadvantage for me.

More recently I became aware of a new generation of 120V stick welders and settled on an $85 one from Amazon (https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0CRTKRS9P). I've used it only on a 20 amp 120V line, but it's extremely portable, which made it easy to take to the greenhouse to touch up a weld on the RMH airframe. It's not supposed to be able to weld steel thicker than 1/4", but I managed to weld an 11/32" thick bar (for root cutting) to my mini excavator ripper claw. That required grinding strong bevels on the bar and welding in short sections and multiple passes. (I still managed to trip the circuit breaker three times.) If I had farm equipment to maintain, I would invest in heavier duty equipment, but I can't see it for my needs at this point (especially since my nextdoor neighbour got a 220V arc welder ).

Just a normal email. Congrats!

Phil Stevens wrote:
...
The bigger issues I need to solve if I want to get a better yield are humidity control and light.
...

I don't have as severe a humidity issue, but I've learned that air movement is important to reducing fungal problems. An oscillating fan has been a big help.

Anne Miller wrote:If I were in this situation I would want a rocket mass heater to keep the greenhouse warm.

That's what I've done in my 12x19ft polytunnel greenhouse in rural Ottawa. I designed and built a "shorty" stove (Thanks for the advice, Peter!) that warms a bench made of salvaged concrete patio slabs and filled with stones and gravel.

That's not enough to warm the entire space in our truly cold weather, so I built a smaller plastic covered greenhouse within it, leaving the stove outside it in a "vestibule". A small fan heater with a thermostat adds enough supplemental heat to ensure it doesn't freeze in the coldest weather (~-30C).

That's my setup for cool and cold weather. Summer overheating is a different problem to solve.

John C Daley wrote:The bit i find hard to understand is having a septic and a well on the same property.
How is that safe?

You wouldn't put a relatively shallow dug well near a septic leach field, but a drilled well, required in most jurisdictions, draws water from an aquifer at a much greater depth, so there's no risk of contamination. Water testing easily confirms that.