I'm going to try and strike a balance between farming research, commentary, thoughts, ideas, and of course farm building. But, last evening when we went out to the farm to do some work we laid our eyes 25 sticks stuck in the ground! This is a pretty big deal for us because what you see in the picture on the left is the very beginning of our new house. As I have mentioned numerous times we are building a pole building that we will finish off ourselves so these posts are pretty much the foundation and frame of the house. From here things will hopefully go up pretty quickly.The plan (pending weather and contractors) is to have the building framed up by Thursday (it looks like the weather will hold). Then on Saturday we are going to rough in the plumbing underground so that hopefully (fingers crossed) we can do some grading and pour some cement early next week ... after the septic is in I guess. Once all that floor stuff is done than we will be ready for steel to go up on the sides and the roof. Of course we will have a slab floor, which could be cold, but we are going to put a combination of high density foam and bubble wrap under the concrete to help keep it slightly above freezing!
But, the cool thing about this house is that it is a little different and it will have a barn look to it. The building will be red with white trim and have a big sliding door on the end facing our pastures (a little storage). And, to top it all off there is going to be a great view of the pastures below the house. Here are some of the plans for the week:
Finish mowing the perimeter of the property in preparation for fencing.
Expand the pig area (training to electric) with the panels I bought at an auction this weekend.
Fence in the garden (garden fencing and electric fencing).
Get water on the property (should be coming in tomorrow and then we'll install a hydrant).
Find more berries for my family to eat (I don't care for them, but I enjoy finding them and clearing out the woodline).
You may want to consider installing some plastic piping in the slab. They do that a lot here in Illinois. You feed it with a small pump and a 6-10 gallon water heater. It keeps the slab warm during the cold winters and is pretty efficient. I will see if I can find a link to what I am talking about.
ReplyDeleteWe have considered some sort of radiant heating in the floor, but this house is being built on a tight budget and it just isn't in the cards. Besides, this is somewhat of a temporary house until we build our stick built house down the road. Until then we may just buy some slippers :)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.radiantsite.com/category.php/infloor-heating-packages/?category=158
ReplyDeleteI plan to do this in my workshop. I really hate to be cold when working on projects. The workshop sized systems are fairly inexpensive.