I often see items that could be used for my homestead, yet most the time
I pass on it due to the cost feasibility of transporting it to nevada.
Does any one know if the construction barrels can be used for non
potable water storage? What about for solar power the bus stop solar
panels that provide lights at night? Or the construction signs with the
light bulbs? Do those use solar or a battery? They run for days or
months never seen anyone do work on them. What about the orange flashing
lights on construction barrels? How do they keep flashing? We have many
auctions in florida and I could get these items for next to nothing. But
again cost feasibility in transporting them to nevada.
Saturday, March 6, 2010
The 3 R's
Recycle Reuse Repurpose.
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Barrels could totally be used for water storage. Water is what they put in them for weight. Would be a cool looking conversation piece too!
ReplyDeleteAll solar powered lights like you mention run off of batteries. Just like an off-grid home system, they collect the sun, store them in batteries, then the lights use the energy stored until dead. Great ideas!
neighbor,i live in south carolina,i to bought a place in montello.about two or three miles out of town.on the west side of the hiway.i spent a week last year looking for the place ,i never did find it,however,this year will be different,i now have my gps,and a 4 wheeler.so this time i will be in hot pursuit.in answer to some of your questions#1 solar power is fairly cheap.i have it here in south carolina. harbor freight,or northern tool has solar panels on sale most of the time.so far i have 600.00 dollars in my solar light system.my biggest expense was the battery,which was a regular car battery.i have in my possesion a new portable saw mill,i was just thinking about taking it to montello.if it is anything i can do to help you then e-mail o0ld tbird99.melvin@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteNon-potable water storage you are already handling with ponds or I assume with a gray water setup (http://www.greywater.com/)
ReplyDeleteForget the barricade lights. If you look carefully you will notice they have a large orange box on the bottom where the batter is stored.
Frankly what Augie stated is best. Go light maybe take your shed since you have that already and whatever tools, storage, food you may have. Then purchase/re-purpose local or semi local your building materials. Since you have a shed for temporary living you can build extremely cheap the earth bag dome with poly bags and most of the sand you will dig out from your ponds. That shouldn't set you back more than a 1k$ for a 16 ft diameter dome which is plenty of space for two. Problem is length of time it will take you to put it up. Winter catches you and you may freeze in your shed. Unless you beef up the sheds insulation. I'm south of you in Miami and I can tell you that I've seen friends waste close to 200$ a month on propane fuel just to heat their trailer, more so in electricity fees for air conditioning. And this is south Florida where winter is very very tame. So you may want to reconsider living in a trailer as-built in Montello (definitely beef it up).
Guy of the Montello homestead blog has a link to another blog he follows that has much relevant information for moving to high desert country. You may want to look at John Wells blog (http://thefieldlab.blogspot.com/).
Also another point to consider is that Montello is a town of less than 500. Jobs are probably not available. I mention this since you stated you are planning this on a shoe string budget. Maybe jobs will come with the Ruby Pipeline (http://www.rubypipeline.com/) the government wants to build but that is a ways off in the future. You should look into what your monthly fuel costs would be like if you need to travel for work. Geoff of Montello Alpaca mentioned in his posts before that one should have an income producing plan before heading there. Yes it's cheap but even modest living (http://www.simpleliving.net/ or http://urbanhomestead.org/) costs money. No man is an island. You may be able to barter for much of what you don't produce but not all. In general I think you should be able to get by with 7K$/year if you fore go things like satellite internet, phone service, medical insurance for catastrophic incidents... Even less if you skip on truck insurance and you eat simple. Another problem is water. From my research, and even some of your research, potable water will cost anywhere from .30 to .10 cents per gallon. You will use for yourself about 20 gallons a day maybe less if you skimp on showers :) and I'm not sure of goats but since they will be your main method of earning a living you don't want them drinking swill. Yes you can fill from the park but should you? The city pays for that water and Pilot Valley residents may or may not be providing for its availability. Anyhow in the end 20 gallon a day of gray water would keep a small garden along with supplemental rain catchment and drip irrigation technique. Or hand watering. But most of us aren't good enough gardeners to manage by hand an entire gardens watering needs. Also since this is high desert area you may want to look at (http://www.highdesert-organicgardener.com/) since growing plants for food there is not that simple. The goats are a good idea. They provide multiple products that you will be able to barter with and are resilient little buggers. Look at the columns and blog of Back Woods Home Magazine writer Jackie Clay (http://www.backwoodshome.com/index.html). She keeps goats and lives about as much of a self reliant lifestyle as one could hope for.
Good Luck on your quest! Cheers!