P's new home

Oh sweet!! This would be almost as exciting as a huge in wall would be! I love star gazing with my 12 year old daughter. The son of the man who founded Premier Bank has a home about 12 miles from my house and he has a 75 foot observatory with a huge telescope. It's all I can do to keep from knocking on the door and saying "just let me look for a couple hours and I'll never ask again." LOL

 

I am not against non traditional. I like the idea in fact. But dome houses... in my humble opinion, I don't want to pretend like I'm living in a mars colony. I know that's not really what they're about, but ever since I was little and my dads friend built one of these, that's how I've seen them.

However, if my wife was into it, I would not be against a hobbit hole.
A Low Impact Woodland Home

Quote from The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. "It had a perfectly round door like a porthole, painted green, with a shiny yellow brass knob in the exact middle. The door opened on to a tube-shaped hall like a tunnel: a very comfortable tunnel without smoke, with panelled walls and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs, and lots and lots of pegs for hats and coats--the hobbit was fond of visitors. The tunnel wound on and on, going fairly but not quite straight into the side of the hill--The Hill, as all the people for many miles round called it--and many little round doors opened out of it, first on one side and then on another. No going upstairs for the hobbit: bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining-rooms, all were on the same floor, and indeed on the same passage. The best rooms were all on the lefthand side (going in), for these were the only ones to have windows, deep-set round windows looking over his garden and meadows beyond, sloping down to the river.

 

The hobbit hole would be cool, here is one of the domes in a similar fashion. I first saw this one on HGTV

http://static.monolithic.com/pdfs/glennyoungdomehome.pdf

http://www.monolithic.com/stories/earth-bermed-nature-friendly-energy-efficient-monolithic-dome-home

http://www.monolithic.com/stories/robot-ranch-an-earth-sheltered-dome-and-a-work-in-progress

 

We're scheduled to close on the 10 acre property tomorrow ;D

Hoping I'll get to go camp out there real soon (next few weeks or so) and get more familiar with the land. Should be fun.

 

sounds like the start of a great adventure to me Peredhil

take it from me, a hole in the ground is not an ideal habitat , its damp and cold in the winter and in the summer its far to humid and suffers from poor air circulation

Brer Rabbit

 

The last two are cool.

 

They have forests in Texas?? LOL anyway great news. I like the hobbit hole.

 

thats great that you found a new place, better that you'll have your own your shooting range, and even better that you'll be able to build out your fish den

if it helps i built a room in my basement for the same purpose. to display a 55gal penninsula (original because i didnt want a hole in the wall either). later added a hole in the wall for the 75gal 4ft wide reef and later added a hole for the 20gal mantis tank going next to it.

in the back i started with 1 20amp circuit on a dedicated GFI breaker. i went with a GFI breaker instead of the outlet as i feel they're better, and considering i was doing it from ground up it worked out. i estimated im utilizing about 7.5amps currently with what i have plugged in back there for all 3 tanks. so i have 8.5amps left to play with.

i too used the same style of ventillation from a bathroom. in fact i bought a bathroom fan. i already have exhaust in my basement for something else so i just piped the exhaust from the 'fish room' into that. it all exhausts to the outside of the home.

i 100% agree, once you have a dedicated fish room that stores ALL your stuff, gives you the space to do your water testings, a sink, ro/di unit right there, etc. and its all nice to have in one spot.

one other thing id recommend if you do have your RO unit there with a storage container like i do, and you start without a float valve and turn your RO water on to fill the bucket and walk away and forget about it (done it countless times so i bought the friggin $10 float valve) you'll have water all over your floor.

this prompted me later to prevent any water catastrophes that could happen because the rest of the basement is totally finished with carpet. i bought some of the rubber style floor trim from my home depot, and the floor in the fish room i left the concrete floor of the basement and didnt bother finishing it in that room anyways i caulked (using outdoor waterproof caulk) the trim to the floor. basically i have a 8ft by 7ft room that has a rubber trim around the edge to not allow water out of the room. its saved my butt three times that i can remember. namely the the time a family member decided to use my utility sink i installed back there for something else and plugged the sink up and left it running. i wasnt home and came back to a mess of water. simple siphon, mop the floor in bleach solution to prevent mold, and airdry with fans. it sucks, but its happened.

thats all i can offer you from my own experiences in having a fish room. without it my reef keeping would not be as streamlined today.

 

We did close. It's pouring rain here (and there) due to Alex.

Suppose to be heavy rains all weekend. I am planning on spending a few hours walking the property in the rain to check it out this weekend. Should be fun.



My plans now are to camp a few times and get familiar with the property and then start looking for a builder. And proceed from there. I figure that'll take a few months to a year. But maybe it'll go quick... we'll see.



I am a city boy. No, strike that, more like a suburban kid. I have a country friend tell me something that sounds amazing. From my understanding of seasons, it also makes sense. But I want to bounce it off ya'll.

The property is aligned so that the street is to the north (almost exact). It is a big 10 acre forest. There is a ~2 acre meadow in the middle of that.

My country friend says that I should build the house in the meadow against the forest on the North side. In this way the big back porch will be in the shade in the summer and in the sun in the winter. Additionally, I would benefit from the warmer winds coming up north from the south in the winter and the cool north winds in the summer. He says it is "ideal" scenario I have available.

Dumb luck I call it. But is he right? Can someone confirm for me? My 5th grade science confidence is a little rusty :-/

 

For those that are curious on this thread...


We've got a meadow in the middle/back of the property surrounded by acres of forest. We are investigating the cost of having water supply (required), power, and a drive of some sort ran. I am not worried about cost of clearing the run in this query.

So if anyone has any experience on how much it might cost to run power, water (thinking 1->1.5"), and a drive 800-830 feet or so, I'd be interested to hear your experiences.