Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch

Gavinmad · Saturday at 5:01 PM

Haus said:
How many of you have build houses from scratch on your land? What all was involved for you? What tips, tricks, and things to avoid might you be willing to share?

You mentioned it at the end but I'd say the number one thing is researching what your utility access is like since these kinds of dreams often involve a somewhat remote plot of land and you can be looking at a cost in the multiple tens of thousands of dollars just to get electricity.

Blazin · Saturday at 5:11 PM

Haus said:
Not sure if this should go here, or the home improvement thread or where but here we go...

As some of you might have seen me post I have a long term goal I call "Project Peaches", which is buy land, build house, live there until the wife and I die. The Peaches part is that I plan on buying enough to start planting fruit trees for little more than self entertainment, but still...

How many of you have build houses from scratch on your land? What all was involved for you? What tips, tricks, and things to avoid might you be willing to share?

The game plan right now is land purchased within the next 6 months (pending a stock event involving my job), with enough additional to finance the house build. But I don't know where to start with building a house from the ground up. So far it's just been floorplan shopping on line looking at that. I figure it will involve probably hiring/finding a GC to manage sub contractors, or trying to tackle that myself. Then foundation and all the fun of building. Plus making sure proper utilities are run where possible, and planning/installing a septic system along with this.

I bought land and built a home recently, I can probably answer any questions you would have or at least point you in the right direction.

In general it's more complicated than most people expect and much more expensive than people are planning for.

Borzak · Saturday at 7:35 PM

Live in a rural enough and out of the way area they really don't even have codes. When I built the shop at my parents place I was going to get a permit and was told no permits required unless it was a commercial establishment. The power company required the sign off of an electrician before they would energize the meter. That took him of all of 2 minutes walking around and done.

At my place in TX I was not required to get a permit either on my 40'x100' shop but they needed a sign off of an electrician as well which which they waived since I knew someone at the electric co-op. I'm pretty sure they do require permits for a house, but not a shop.

Odd thing about my parents house in MS it is very well built. Instead of 2x4 studs they used 2x6 for extra insulation and has triple plane windows and the water faucet cut offs like you see much further north that extend from inside. I think the guy must have been an exec at a near sawmill and moved down here. Even has a room like a sunroom/airlock so you don't have to open the door to outside to get in. Lot of overkill for warm weather.

lurkingdirk · Saturday at 8:50 PM

Haus said:
Not sure if this should go here, or the home improvement thread or where but here we go...

As some of you might have seen me post I have a long term goal I call "Project Peaches", which is buy land, build house, live there until the wife and I die. The Peaches part is that I plan on buying enough to start planting fruit trees for little more than self entertainment, but still...

How many of you have build houses from scratch on your land? What all was involved for you? What tips, tricks, and things to avoid might you be willing to share?

The game plan right now is land purchased within the next 6 months (pending a stock event involving my job), with enough additional to finance the house build. But I don't know where to start with building a house from the ground up. So far it's just been floorplan shopping on line looking at that. I figure it will involve probably hiring/finding a GC to manage sub contractors, or trying to tackle that myself. Then foundation and all the fun of building. Plus making sure proper utilities are run where possible, and planning/installing a septic system along with this.

This was my plan as well, but I happened to find a place with 40 acres that fit all my desires. It's taken a ton of renovation, but the house is really about as it would be had I built it from scratch. The property has been amazing. Barn for livestock, chicken coup, huge woodshop, enclosed and heated garages for all the vehicles, heated storage shed, and barn to store firewood. I have several acres of fruit trees, and a two and a half acre garden in which I grow enough that we rarely buy produce. I also have a couple acre pond we dug and stocked. Next summer we should be able to fish for dinner to our hearts' content. One major thing I would encourage is to figure out everywhere you need power and water. If you're planting peaches, figure out irrigation, and put a well there. I have three wells, two of them have a pump house. Those are the water sources for watering all my crops and getting water to my livestock. I have two electric meters, one on the house, one on the barn, and from the barn all the out buildings have subpanels.

Just think ahead with everything.

BrutulTM · 2025-01-26T10:51:23-0500

Haus said:
Not sure if this should go here, or the home improvement thread or where but here we go...

As some of you might have seen me post I have a long term goal I call "Project Peaches", which is buy land, build house, live there until the wife and I die. The Peaches part is that I plan on buying enough to start planting fruit trees for little more than self entertainment, but still...

How many of you have build houses from scratch on your land? What all was involved for you? What tips, tricks, and things to avoid might you be willing to share?

The game plan right now is land purchased within the next 6 months (pending a stock event involving my job), with enough additional to finance the house build. But I don't know where to start with building a house from the ground up. So far it's just been floorplan shopping on line looking at that. I figure it will involve probably hiring/finding a GC to manage sub contractors, or trying to tackle that myself. Then foundation and all the fun of building. Plus making sure proper utilities are run where possible, and planning/installing a septic system along with this.

My brother built a house from scratch on our ranch starting in 2015 and I helped him with it a lot. A few things I remember...

1) Floor plan is not the place for creativity. They did a few things that I just think turned out goofy. They haven't really complained about it but I would just say that standard floor plans have worked out some issues that you won't be able to think of when you're just drawing shit on paper. They even used a friend who is an architect to help them but IMO she didn't guide them that well.

2) They used insulated concrete forms which are a very nifty way to build a house. I would seriously consider that if I was going to build a house now.

3) I would echo what someone else said about getting detailed information about utilities and water before you buy. Since you're planning to grow peaches I'm guessing you're someplace in the Southeast so probably drilling wells isn't that big a deal but you need to know about that in advance. If you can hit water at 30 feet and drill a well for $5k then certainly just drill them wherever you need them. I live out west and I have drilled 4 wells in the last few years at an average price of about $50,000 so you can't really do that casually around here. There are places where it's even more expensive of course.

4) If you figure out the tree growing, give me some tips. I have planted probably 50 trees in the last 3 years and I think maybe 5 are still alive. A couple of those I will actually be surprised if they make it though the winter as well. Anyway, growing trees sucks.

Haus · 2025-01-26T11:12:17-0500

BrutulTM said:
My brother built a house from scratch on our ranch starting in 2015 and I helped him with it a lot. A few things I remember...

1) Floor plan is not the place for creativity. They did a few things that I just think turned out goofy. They haven't really complained about it but I would just say that standard floor plans have worked out some issues that you won't be able to think of when you're just drawing shit on paper. They even used a friend who is an architect to help them but IMO she didn't guide them that well.

2) They used insulated concrete forms which are a very nifty way to build a house. I would seriously consider that if I was going to build a house now.

3) I would echo what someone else said about getting detailed information about utilities and water before you buy. Since you're planning to grow peaches I'm guessing you're someplace in the Southeast so probably drilling wells isn't that big a deal but you need to know about that in advance. If you can hit water at 30 feet and drill a well for $5k then certainly just drill them wherever you need them. I live out west and I have drilled 4 wells in the last few years at an average price of about $50,000 so you can't really do that casually around here. There are places where it's even more expensive of course.

4) If you figure out the tree growing, give me some tips. I have planted probably 50 trees in the last 3 years and I think maybe 5 are still alive. A couple of those I will actually be surprised if they make it though the winter as well. Anyway, growing trees sucks.

1. Floor plan - I'm looking at pre-done floorplans for that reason. I have a few things that are essentials :

An office/study space for me. I want that old school "bookshelves on the walls dark wood tones" kind of office/study
Laundry room NOT on the opposite side of the house from the master bedroom (like our current house), preferably attached to the closet for said master bedroom. This seems to be a pretty common feature these days.
Large master bath featuring an overly fancy/luxurious tub for a certain Mrs. Haus
A large room which can be used as a "wall to wall, floor to ceiling bookshelves" library, also for a certain wife of mine.

2. Construction, I'm still at the point of looking at everything from traditional stick framing, metal based barndominiums, to concrete.

3. Most of the locations I have looked at are in east/southeast Texas and wells are not difficult in most of the areas. Many of the parcels I've looked at already have wells on site. All so far have had electricity at the road. Around 2/3 of them also have water co-op available. I anticipate a very large propane tank, at least one well, and some level of solar/battery. Not thinking whole hog off grid, but the closer I can be to it the better I will feel.

4. So far the tree growing for me is very limited as I'm still here in the suburbs of Dallas. I've had odd success literally just planting the pits from my favorite strains of peaches and having a good number sprout and are now in the 4ft-5ft tall seedling phase and ready to transplant. This should be the year they start putting on fruit, we shall see. It's mostly a "keep me occupied" hobby and I don't plan on building out a full on orchard. Several of the places I've been looking at also have established pecan trees, which would be a nice bonus.

The full plan would be , in a perfect world, find the parcel of land and it already has a single wide or something on it, so I could post up there while the house was being built to oversee things but still maintain our main household in Dallas. Once the big house is finished, we move and house in Dallas (paid off) becomes a rental. End goal will be to have no mortgage of any type. Once we live in the big house, we maintain the trailer/small house as an option for eventually moving aging parent(s) into.

Gavinmad · 2025-01-26T12:14:52-0500

Haus said:
Once we live in the big house, we maintain the trailer/small house as an option for eventually moving aging parent(s) into.

Nah I'll come be a groundskeeper

Haus · 2025-01-26T12:27:36-0500

Gavinmad said:
Nah I'll come be a groundskeeper

Don't think a little part in the back of my mind was already thinking about finding somewhere where I could draw in the rest of the miscreants around here to eventually own enough of the land to incorporate as "Hoofsville" or "Rickshaw, Texas"

Blazin · 2025-01-26T17:26:16-0500

If you want or have to have the power line buried just keep in mind they can go about 500-600ft without a box, and even with power at the road you often end up needing to pay for a pole ($3500 or so a pole) because they have to change the voltage if there is not already a transformer at that spot. There is all sorts of "grey area" in construction. Power lines are to be buried in Sch 80 conduit pipe (grey pipe) which is a lot more money so some people will bury the cheaper white pvc and then just use the sch 80 at the terminations. In stricter jurisdictions that won't work because they will require a trench inspection before closing it up. Also see if you stoned the base etc.

My largest "wtf" expense was storm water management while there is nowhere in the US exempt from these rules counties/municipalities that dont have zoning code enforcement the Feds don't really have much way to enforce. Normally the bureaucracy goes DEP->Local State Institution, here in PA that is a Conservation District. They catch you into the fold via permitting/zoning so if you don't have that can normally just skip but when looking at property its very important to know. Water management cost me about $90k in hard costs + plus engineering.

Some regulations are complete BS some corners shouldn't be cut even if you can get away with them. Locations without proper oversight is more likely to have contractors who will cheat you knowing that nobody is looking at it. So as annoying as inspections can be they can also protect you.

Septic systems are another area of regulation. What matters here is how the ground percs. Some types of soil are very slow to absorb water that means systems have to be built larger.

I'm not a big fan of large sand mounds and have an ECOflow system which is another tank after the main tank costs about $5k more but can reduce the size of a sand mound considerably.
I had contractors for the foundation, framing, roofing siding and a few other things because I knew it would just take me too long, if you aren't in a hurry can save a lot of money doing some things yourself as long as its scope you are comfortable with. Some people it's a lot easier to just let a GC take the entire or almost the entire scope.

How long of a drive? Stone/Asphalt? Thank goodness we have starlink now as how to get internet in a rural property use to be a real PITA. In my experience most people do a great job on focusing how much the house will cost, and the most common missed aspect are the costs outside of the house which can really vary by property. How much dirt needs moved, how hard will the drive be to cut in, do large areas need cleared and graded for yards, groves etc. Silt socks? I eneded up needing hundreds upon hundreds of feet of silt socks.

And of course equipment...Because really why would you want to move to a nice piece of land and not buy a shit ton of equipment and then the barn to put it in.

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Homesteading and Hobby Farm/Ranch

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole

Blazin

Creative Title

Borzak

Bronze Baron of the Realm

lurkingdirk

AssHat Taint

BrutulTM

Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.

Haus