We are just getting started on homesteading. (just put the earnest money down on our land.) We are planning on living in a travel trailer for a few months while we build a workshop that we can live in for a while then build our little house. We are buying 10 acres with mostly trees but about a 3 acre clearing at the back for our house and stuff. The land has no electric or water on it. Electric is available but will be expensive to put in. To have a well drilled here in Missouri will be about $2500 - $3000. I would like information on the least expensive yet most sustainable way to get water and power. Also need info on waste disposal. There is no running water on the land that we know of. We've thought about a cistern for water, but what do you do in the winter. Maybe just have a big enough underground tank to last through the winter? What about power? We've thought about solar but the expense seems to be just as high or higher than having the electric run to the homesite. We want to be "off the grid" but are not sure how we could afford it. I am working right now to earn the money to do this with but due to a problem we will have to get on the land soon (less than a month) so we don't have time to save up the money to do it and we will have to make do until we get more money. We have a tax refund to help with some of the initial costs and all of my income goes toward getting established. Any ideas that would be a less expensive alternative would be appreciated as we homeschool and me being gone to work is making it really difficult to do a good job of it. I want to get back home as soon as I can so I can get down to the business of really living. We are willing to consider any viable solution. If you have any information that would be helpful, please let us know. Thank you so much.

-- Lora Morris (LoraMorris@excite.com), February 10, 2001

Answers

I am checking to see if I get a response.

-- Lora Morris (LoraMorris@excite.com), February 10, 2001.

Lora: Sounds like you will still be going to work for a while, at least? I would invest in some water jugs and fill them daily at work, bringing the water home. You really can manage without all the modern conveniences for as long as you need too. Can you set up an outhouse arrangement for now? Read through some of the old postings in the archives, there was someone who posted last winter, I think, who lived in Michigan, and had a baby. She was washing diapers in a bucket. You can do the same for your usual laundry. Wear things longer, etc. Get some camping gear, propane stove, lanterns, flashlights, to use. You can get an adapter for the cigarette lighter in your vehicle to run some items for a brief time, also. If you want too, you can make it work. Takes some adjusting, but lots of folks have done exactly what you are doing, and spring is coming, so things will get easier! Good luck, and get back to us and let us know how things are progressing! Jan

-- Jan in CO (Janice12@aol.com), February 10, 2001.

Lora some of your questions depend on which part of missouri you are talking about. I live in the West Plains area. Here you just about have to have a cistern. A well is very expensive since they have to go down 650-800 ft. If I could get a well drilled for $3000 I'd be thrilled. Here it will cost me $10,000. We have water delivered to our cistern on a big tank truck. When you are thinking about your electric service don't just think about the initial costs. We are on a very small co-op and the electric is very expensive. We are going to change over to solar panels gradually. Should save us in the long run. I personally wouldn't care if we didn't have electric at all(I already do all our cooking on a woodstove....in summer I cook outside) but hubby and the kids think satellite is a basic necessity...sigh. Waste disposal......drive around on some of the back roads and look in the deeper gullies...I guarantee you will see trash and appliances. For some reason landfills are sky high and really don't seem too interested in receiving trash. Most folks just use a gully or dig a hole and toss their trash into it and then burn it(I'm not endorsing this....just tellin you what most do). As far as septic is concerned almost everyone uses a lagoon. I also homeschool so I know what you are dealing with. I'd forget about building a shop first and concentrate on the house....it'll probably save your marriage! Living in temporary housing with a family is very stressful...been there done that. If you have any further questions feel free to email me. Amanda

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), February 10, 2001.

The new Countryside issue has an article about cisterns. Pretty informative. Best of luck, and hang in there.

-- melina b. (goatgalmjb1@hotmail.com), February 10, 2001.

What about fuel cells? I've heard that a fuel cell about the size of a largish fridge will supply a modestly, but modernly, appointed house. I once heard that they would be aobut $2000, or so, For a not too big one, which puts them in the same cash range as solar. ALl they produce as a by-product is hot, moist, air with CO2 (perfect for warming a reenhouse in the winter!) A new hybrid breed (not comm available for a few years) even puts a little turbine in the stack to extract that much more energy, making it the most effiecient in turms of fuel use to energy production technology available anywhere. No doubt you could rig up your own turbine if you wanted to. They use any hydrocarbon as a fuel catalyst and sip it exceedingly slowly (equal to about a pilot light's worth of gas in a normal sized home model), so they can be run off of methane (pig power!), or diesel (bio-diesel, too) or any type of similar fuel. Check out the Rocky Mountain Institute for more info. They have a website, but I can't find it offhand. Just run the name through your search engine. You can plop one of these babies down just aobut anywhere, and most are plug and play simple.

-- Soni (thomkilroy@hotmail.com), February 10, 2001.

Fuel cells are not quite ready for the average homeowner. The first- generation home fuel cell has had some reliability problems. Current price for a 3KW cell, peaking to 5KW, is about $20,000 (not $2000). New models will be introduced on a steady basis over the next few years and prices will start to drop rapidly as the technology matures.

-- Lynn Goltz (lynngoltz@aol.com), February 10, 2001.

Has anyone used the "China Diesel" generator? I have read they are very cost effective, reliable and reasonably quiet. I have just about decided to, eventually, get one as a back-up for our TN home.

-- Martin Boraas (boraas@miliserv.net), February 10, 2001.

Hate to say I have heard nothing good about a china diesel .Check the archives there should be several posts about them .

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), February 10, 2001.

I looked in the archives, under "Alternative Energy Threads". Searched for "China" and found one entry called "China Diesel Generators?" Everyone on that thread loved, or at least liked, the China Diesel.

Where else did you look?

-- Lynn Goltz (lynngoltz@aol.com), February 10, 2001.

I have to agree with Amanda, a lot depends on what county you live in Missouri. Where we currently live in Jefferson county if they find out you are using a outhouse the health department will close you down. All the new restrictions and new construction is what has driven us out. (We are getting ready to move to a less restrictive county ourselves) If possible you may want to consider a pole barn type facility to start with and move on from there. They can be built fairly cheap then it's just a matter of finishing the inside as you like.

Septic systems are another issue. As long as your soil will pass a perk test a new septic isn't that expensive but if they force a drip irrigation system on you that will cost somewhere in the neighborhood of 8000 - 10000 dollars.

As far as water goes, it's either a well or cistern, or haul it in from wherever you can. I know it may seem daunting but don't give up. It took us 5 years to finally get to the point to where we considered the house finished and now we're selling it to move further out away from the sidewalks. Anything can be overcome just remeber that and it will all work out.

God Bless

Jim Tanner

-- Jim Tanner (tannerfamily1@prodigy.net), February 10, 2001.

Don't know about the water situation, but instead of septic you might look into composting toilets and a graywater system- much cheaper than septic, and it will save a lot of water, which will be a consideration if you have to rely on a cistern, or bring in water. Also, much more sustainable.

-- Elizabeth (ekfla@aol.com), February 11, 2001.

I'd like to second the composting toilet idea. Since I'm on a cistern and it is kind of high(at least to me) to have it delivered we save water whenever we can. I rigged up a very cheap and easily built composting toilet. We empty it every several days into our lagoon. The lagoon was here when we bought the place or I would have set up a composting system. You don't realise how much water you flush down the toilet till you start filling the tank on your toilet by hand(ours had a leak I just could not find so we filled by hand). When I have my washing machine...grr it's still in the shop....we use the dirty wash water to flush the toilet. Lol the kids now think it is a luxury to waste water by being allowed to use a flush toilet. I'd also like to recommend a wringer washer...I picked mine up for $75 at a flea market. Talk about a water saver! It gets clothes cleaner than a regular washing machine too. I let mine agitate about 10 mins per load. If our clothes are really grungy I get 2 loads out of one tub of water. If they are just average dirty I normally get 3 loads.....overalls go in last and whites first of course. I wring the soapy water out of the clothes then rinse them in a smaller container a couple of pieces at a time. Then run them back through the wringer and hang them on the line. I even use my slightly soapy rinse water to start the next fresh change of water in the washer. If you are frugal with water you can get by on a lot less than you think.

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), February 11, 2001.

We are off the grid, and it was expensive. But when I factor in the cost of running a line here and then turning around and paying an electric bill each month..it was worth it. Plus, we never have lines down,brownouts, etc. For water, we have a cistern and we also catch roof runoff in a large tank. We do get fairly low in July/August if there isn't much rain, but have managed to get through so far. We get drinking water in jugs (and usually refill them several times where my wife teaches.) We use a septic system with a low volume flush toilet, but I intend to look into a composting one when we can afford it.

-- Wayne in Kentucky (wallen328@aol.com), February 11, 2001.

Lagoons are required by law in Missouri if you plan a regular system. I don't know if that changes with the composting toilets.

I can't address the water source or energy questions but I can't imagine in this day and age of recycling and dumpsters at every gas station that anyone would think dumping in any available gully was an acceptable solution to solid waste. That gully belongs to someone and I'd just about bet you dollars to doughnuts that the first dumper wasn't that owner. It costs tax dollars to clean up such messes and if you are caught the fines are far worse than a few fees to use a legal dump. I found some women dumping on our property and went down to "see if they had car trouble." Instead I got their license plate number and immediately called the sheriff's office. The people were made to come back out, clean up their mess and were fined. The kicker was that these people lived in town where they had trash pickup included in their water bill yet they chose to drive 10 miles out in the country to dump stuff. And there was no previous trash to attract them.

PLEASE DON'T USE ANY AVAILABLE GULLY OR DITCH. Do unto others....

-- marilyn (rainbow@ktis.net), February 11, 2001.

Lynn , i'm sorry i guess it was late .I thought it was for the China diesel tractor , there wasnt much good said about them.

-- Patty {NY State} (fodfarms@slic.com), February 11, 2001.

Just curious. How expensive is it when you have to have water hauled in?

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), February 11, 2001.

We are originaly from Missouri and have lived in Colorado for 8 years. We have lived on a cistern the whole time. I will say that you will learn rather quickly to conserve water. We haul our own with a 200 gal tank, and then dump into our 1000 gal. cistern. We use a small solar pannel and a 12 volt camper pump to pump into the house. The tank is buried in the ground and as long as you are using and refilling the tank ice is at a minimal. We too just bought a 10 acre mini farm in Mo, up by Truman/Lake of the Ozarks area. The reason is family is all back there and I foresee a great change in the economy and a need to be able to grow our food. Something that we could not do at 10,000 feet. We fortunate though to find a place with a good well and electricity already there. We are off grid now and will take our solar with us, but we will get some wind generators to back it up... I do not hold much faith in affordable energy in the future and feel the need for a backup. As I remember during the 40 years I lived in Mo..you usually have more wind than sun. I would not buy solar for an off grid home in Mo ...wind is much cheaper and better for the midwest. We were also told if you have more than 5 acres you do not need a permit for anything...sewer...house etc...this is in Benton county. We also will be moving there in a month and living in a camper to build.....Hope to have good neighbors and more Mo. cyber friends to share this with. Lynette

-- Lynette (fear_the_bear@webtv.net), February 11, 2001.

Ken, 1200 gallons costs me $17 to have delivered. Now this may not sound like much but when you are having it delivered every 5-7 days it adds up. I will be hauling my own once I get my truck fixed (really long story). We don't use that much but out cistern leaks. I can't fix the leak till I have my truck and can have water in the tank that will be on the truck. The repair will have to cure for several days. Danged if I do danged if I don't!

I believe it is correct at least in most rural areas that as long as you have 5 acres you don't have to have a septic permit. There are a lot of advantages to owning 5 acres or more. One of them is being able to hunt deer and using a farm tag. A farm tag is basically a scrap of paper you put your name on and fasten to the antlers after you shoot the deer. Makes no sense to me....if you are hunting on your own place(which is the only place you can use a farm tag) who is going to see if you put the tag on or not? As far as wind power being better than solar....it wouldn't be where I am at. Solar isn't that great of choice because it is cloudy a lot but the wind doesn't blow enough for wind power either. If there is a spring on your place hydro would be ideal. Wish I had thought more about that and made sure my place had a spring!

-- Amanda in Mo (aseley@townsqr.com), February 11, 2001.

lets get simple. contact a farm service, they sell metal septic tanks, price around $250.00. This takes care of disposal. Don't forget your pipes, go to lowes. Water, fire stations sell water, get a water tank, farm service also. fill up, haul home. We put a tank in upstairs, reinforce 2nd floor,pump up, gravity flow.Works great. electric, figure needs, go solar, just the basics. It is real simple. works great, we do it.House, garage kit, everything there except inside walls,doors, windows and bath. now this is simple. This young generation makes everything complicated. Go do it. Enjoy! Back when , the young people lived in wood sheds.

-- lexi Green (whitestone11@hotmail.com), February 13, 2001.

forgot the cistern, had one on farm grew up on. they are in the ground, does not go dry if big enough. turn water in from roof. I am assuming you have all the hook-ups in place.tin roof, right paint,gutter and pipes,by-pass in pipe to turn water away from cistern, box with sand and rocks, charcoal? lines in house? have to clean out cistern too.line pump or hand pump installed to access water. let roof clean off with good rain,then turn in spring rains and fall rains. if you need advise old people know a lot. we just act dumb, ha-ha

-- lexi Green (whitestone11@hotmail.com), February 13, 2001.

Thanks so much to everyone for all of your help. We will definitly consider what you've said. I have a question about solar power but I'll list it under the solar or energy catagory. Thanks all!

-- Lora Morris (LoraMorris@excite.com), February 15, 2001.

I found these web sites and thought they would be a help, Oregon small farms smallfarms.orst.edu/crops.htm and hometown.aol.com All kinds of farm and garden information. I wish you the very best on your homestead, If you can fine and older farmer to help you, they have wonderful infor on your area. We worked on a farm before we bought, we learned so much. If you want a money saving sites colonize.com and stretcher.com

-- Joanne (ronandjo@sisna.com), March 03, 2001.