Talk me out of it? Passive house.

[DrewInToledo]

Dang! I'm sitting here thinking that I would love to find a couple of acres to pay off over the next few years and construct a passive house.

It seems like this Ideal Steel Hybrid thing I installed and burnt a few cords of wood in wouldn't be needed....

I could downsize... It seems that I could build maybe 1200 square feet (and heat a superinsulated, supersealed house from body heat, a hairdryer, maybe even an electronic gaming system, etc., ) for about 10% more of a conventionally built house. I never imagined I'd be thinking about building a house.. but here I am...

I'd love to have a bit more land and a large shed... maybe a pole barn. I could move the girlfriend's horse on the property and use my knowledge of conservation to live on the cheap.. I mean... I'm living pretty cheap now, but I could do better!

[matt walker]

Talk you out of it? Dude, we want to see your build videos!

Seriously, I think we've been left a pretty crappy deal with all these stupid systems, so I am going to encourage you every step of the way. We could do way better man, for sure. Do it!

[TruGrit]

.. my thought was always to build a concrete bunker 3/4 underground into a south facing hillside .. I do now have that hillside, might just try it with a cabin .. oh yeah, talk you out of it .. don't Drew .. it's a trap!

[pa_friendly_guy]

Land is the only thing that matters, land is the only thing that lasts. This quote from Gone with the wind is the reason to do it. Forget the house, forget the inconvenience of building a home, forget all the work, are you happy living where you are? If you can see yourself there when you are old, if you see yourself happy with what you have there, then stay. If on the other hand you feel that you would be happier with more land and living a different life, than go for it. Building a house that you can heat with a light bulb and a fart is always a good thing. Having more land to raise livestock, orchard, garden, etc is always a good thing. Look at Tru, he is living a dream that he has had for years, now he owns his little bit of heaven and he is happy playing with it. Do what will make you happy, that's the best advice I can give you.

[matt walker]

Guy......thank you. Great, great stuff there. I guess I need to go watch GWTW again!

[pa_friendly_guy]

The quote was from Scarlet's Father, he was talking about Tara, while he still had his mind, I think it was before the war. That advise was why she never sold the plantation. The quote made an impression on my, land does last, land does matter and they aren't making any more of it. My Grandfather told my Father " Never cheat yourself on the land". He felt it was better to build a cheaper house on a Good Lot than to build a larger better home on a crappy lot. More fortunes have been made with Real Estate than by any other way. Just ask Donald Trump.

[DrewInToledo]

Thanks for the good words. My current commute is 20-25 minutes, and I may have a difficult time finding land that inst a long drive from where I work if I stay there and begin this journey. That is, given that I stay in Ohio. Everything north is Michigan and Lake Erie, so that limits things a bit. I'd like to get out of my current county, and the county west is quite a drive so I'm going to start looking east / southeast for land. I can't afford much, so I don't know what I'll find. It's all still just an idea at this point, but everything begins with a thought, right? Either way, it will be a couple of years before I'd be able to begin unless I were to somehow sell my house on the high side freeing up enough equity to move forward. Still need that dang land though!
Every heard of the great black swamp? That's what I'm up against.. In the 1800's, the german and irish came over and the trees were cut and the stumps were blown to bits with dynamite. The swampland has been drained (which is a real shame) by digging huge deep ditches along the roads still in place today.. funnystory.. some of these ditches can be as deep as 10-12 ft. deep. Every once in a while during a good snowstorm the ditches will blow over and fill with snow. Of course these ditched aren't everywhere, but they're on most of the "original" roads... My friend, driving a 1970 Pontiac Catalina, decided he wanted to turn around on the road in the winter time. He proceeded to do a 3 point turn around, pulled off of the road and right into the ditch! He was grateful to find a large 4x4 driving down the road behind him who pulled him out.

Overall, what this means is that the land around here is prone to flooding. I'm not sure how to find data on flooding for a particular lot of land, but I bet Manny knows how!

[mannytheseacow]

Lust can enslave the mind, my friend.

Maybe you can start with a goal, find that piece of land, wherever it is... work towards saving the cash to get yourself there, pay off the land, and make a complete lifestyle change. If you're restless in your place now, I'll bet you continue to be restless in your new place with a long commute and working at the same job, etc. "If you aint happy with what you got, you won't be happy with nuthin else."

But yeah, I frequently check out land around the world. Two good sources for that:

The USDA's web soil survey:


US Fish and Wildlife Service wetland mapper:


A couple weeks ago I just about got a great deal on some land in Oregon until I used the FWS site to learn that the land was in a bog with standing water most of the year. The USDA site can tell you some of the same information but even more technical. You can even determine crop yields from that site.

Like Guy said, land is an investment. Sometimes even poor land is worth buying into to keep as an option down the road, and it will only go up in value if you wait long enough, assuming you don't make a stupid purchase from the get-go. Don't let it haunt you though, happiness comes from within.

On a separate note, draining the Great Black Swamp is a major contributor to the nutrient loads feeding the algae blooms in Lake Erie. It was doing a major service for us before we thought we could manage it better than nature.

[DrewInToledo]

You got it Manny... all of those ferts are spilled into the lake now...

On a personal note, I'm fairly easy to please but love challenges...
However, a major reason for wanting to move is because of divorce years ago... been going on for 10 years... My ex punched below the belt, lied, stole... oh, and threw me in jail. It took me a year to prove my innocence, and I've not been convicted of anything. My case has been dismissed.
In the small town I live in, I confided in a policeman here. I used to go straight to the station from work before going home and tell him what's going on... He knew that my ex is nuts and kept calling with false allegations. He just reminded me to play it cool and everything's good. We became friends and he knew I was looking to find a place during the divorce proceedings. After about the 5th call from my ex, the cop turned on me and took me in on false allegations.. I have a few choice words for him. I confronted him about his bad decision and his reply was, "I was doing my job". My reply, "So were the fellows at the Nuremburg trials. that doesn't make it right." During this time, a restraining order was place on me (again, all from false allegations) which enabled my ex to aquire full custody and abduct my children hours away. My house now sits empty at this time. this was all in 2005-2006. After a year, I regained possession of the now empty house but couldn't afford to live there, so I rented it out for many years. Quite recently, ex has now been found in contempt for her actions, which really amounts to nothing for women. But, this is the same house that I had from marriage. I was out of the house from 2006-2011. Oh, did I mention that the a$$^%*# cop bought a house across the street that was for sale during the time when I was out of the house? Yep, if I were to place my roadmaster in neutral and rolll out of my driveway, I'll roll right into his. So... that's been bothering me... to know I live across from a crooked cop, and my ex had ruined my reputation in the neighborhood.
I just couldn't understand how this happened. I'm a good law abiding citizen whose never even been in a fist fight in my life, and here I am being called a child abuser and wife beater...
...until I did reaserach... it turns out that the state actually gets rewarded for keeping the breadwinner away from the children. This is why you hear of men, most of the time, getting screwed in divorce in a time when we have more women leader than ever before in history. No doubt Hitlary will become the next president. Anyhow... Title IV-D of the social security walfare reform act of 1996 put in place by good old Billy states that FICA funding will be rewarded to the states for holding a father accountable for child support. essentially, the state has no interest in keeping the father involved with the children, it's the exact opposite. Title IV-E is even scarier because it will benefit by creating 2 non-custodial parents. How does this happen? CPS is involved, makes up lies and rips children out of their home. (I challenge you to google CPS corruption). I've been a child advocate since this time, leading a march in washington DC for father's and children's rights. I was working with Senator Nancy Schaefer who was exposing this horrible scheme in Washinton, but of course she was murdered. I was then working with pastor Ron Smith in grand Rapids Michigan where we were getting national attention. Guess what? He suddenly died. I was on two local news channels, but then decided it was time to call it quits before I was killed.
Moving isn't so much about lust for me as it is healing.

[DrewInToledo]

Thank you for the links, Manny. I've been playing around with them for a bit now. They will prove to be useful during my hunt.