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No debt

No Debt

As I watched this video, listening to Karen and Bob describing their life in the home they built themselves, the one phrase that really jumped out at me was “no debt”. That was their main motivation. I know (from personal experience building our own place) that they did most if not all of the work themselves, which is one of the biggest money eating parts of building, you would have to buy the materials anyhow, but doing the work yourself means YOU know what is in your place, no one else has cut corners unknown to you, I think it’s great!

I love the look and style of their home, it is warm and inviting. Watch and enjoy.

(ADDED Jan 21, 2016)
I received a message from Karen, it’s in the comments below, but I thought it best to add it here:
How cool our video got shared to this great channel! feel free to share our email and phone number if people want some more info. karenk@usa.com 520-366-1984 We are also open to visitors. There is a off-grid,alternative building get together the first sunday of every month from about 10:30 am to1pm at a friend of ours who did and earthbag dome. for directions email m_m_gibbons@yahoo.com all are welcome!!!!


https://youtu.be/EBN4R2XhU6c



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School teacher’s tiny home build

Tiny home

When I was a little girl, my dad had converted our single car wide garage in our home into a dining room on one end and my bedroom on the other end. He built in a small closet, I remember taking everything out of the closet and pretending that space was my home, my hideaway. I would climb into the top shelf of the closet, that was the best spot, it felt safe and it was all mine.

I get that same feeling when I look at these tiny homes, of course they have lots more room than my little closet, but the sentiment is the same, it’s safe and it’s yours.

This tiny home is a real custom job, created over a period of years using about 80% recycled, repurposed material, working on weekends and summers, Ian and Jessie put together a really interesting home. I love the kitchen since they used full sized equipment, I could really cook there.

The one place where they deviated from most tiny homes is the toilet, many prefer using composting toilets, theirs is a plumbed flush toilet, I suppose you have to draw the line somewhere, and that was their line (grin).

I like the use of windows, light and the high ceiling to give the feel of more space than is actually there. Watch the video and enjoy this tiny home.


https://youtu.be/ODNKhV5qL2A




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Do you see what I see?

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There are many things we can live without and still do pretty well, but eyesight isn’t one of them. I know there are many folk who live with limited or no sight, but living independently is near impossible without good vision.

As I am getting older, I have noticed my eyesight going south, it’s not terrible, but I have used readers for a number of years, and my night vision has been something troublesome for more years than I like to admit. I can see OK at night, but lights bother me when I drive, street lights, oncoming traffic, I noticed I was getting “dazzled” by lights at night while driving, nothing that would stop me from driving, but definitely something that bothered me.

A few months ago, I flashed my brights at an oncoming car out on a lonely dark road, I felt like they had their brights on, that car turned around on the highway and came back toward me, I thought that I had really ticked someone off and was getting prepared to defend myself. Then the red and blue lights came on, turned out I had flashed a highway patrol car. He was very polite, and I was very contrite, I didn’t get a ticket, just a warning. That’s when I decided I needed to do something about my night vision in particular.

After a bit of research, I settled on 2 (technically 3) supplements for my eyes. The first is Bilberry, after taking it for a good week, I added a Lutein & Zeaxanthin combination, I had read the reviews and many said after using the 3 together, they noticed a difference within a week, I didn’t know if I believed that, but I’m going to tell you that after taking the 3 for a week, I noticed a difference, specifically in my night vision! The biggest change was the fact that lights, oncoming traffic and streetlights no longer bothered my eyes. If that is all it does, I’ll be happy with those results, but I’m expecting even more results as I continue to take them.

According to herbwisdom.com, Bilberry has a long medicinal history in Europe. It has been used to treat anything from kidney stones to Typhoid fever. During World War 2 British pilots noted that Bilberry jam before a flight dramatically improved night vision. Modern research now supports these claims.

WebMD says Lutein and Zeaxanthin protect the eyes from harmful high-energy light waves, such as some ultraviolet rays in sunlight. Studies suggest that high levels of lutein and zeaxathin in eye tissue are associated with better vision, especially in dim light or where glare is a problem.

I am absolutely a believer now, fortunately these are inexpensive supplements, especially for their benefit. Have you tried these? If so, how has it worked for you?


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Replacing our 12 volt water pump

12 volt pump

Most of the time, items are replaced when they fail, break or quit working. We decided to get a jump on replacing a critical piece of our daily life before it stopped working, I’m referring to our 12 volt water pump. I have written about our water system before, the pump is an integral part of our water system.

We had a 12 volt Shurflo pump, it came out of an old RV and has served us well. I liked having a 12 volt system because it hooks up directly to the batteries, not going through the inverter, so even if everything else is not working, as long as the batteries have juice, the pump will work.

old pump

We replaced it with a newer 12 volt Shurflo pump, but an improved model, this one has greater flow and it’s quieter. Honestly the noise factor for us isn’t such a big deal, PB has isolated the pump as much as possible from the structure of the SkyCastle, and most of the time, it’s just us here and we are used to any potential noise it might make. Also, there is a light switch type switch over the sink to cut off power to the pump should we wish it.

new pump

A day after the pump arrived, PB went to work exchanging the pumps. That went smoothly enough, we have the capability of draining the outside pipes/hoses so we don’t have to worry about it freezing and breaking. The pump needs to be able to draw the water up some 6 feet from the water tank and this one does it quite nicely, the first time. The second time we drained the water and turned the pump back on, no water.

The pump came on and make the appropriate sounds, but it was clear that it wasn’t pulling the water up. After some reading and troubleshooting, we discovered this pump has a bypass system built in, I’m not up to speed on all of this, but it has to do with the size of the pipes/hoses used, apparently if you are using smaller diameter hose/pipe on the intake side than you are using on the outgoing side, it doesn’t work. BUT after reading the info on the paperwork it came with, it turns out you can adjust the bypass part, once PB got back under there and fiddled with it, it works like a charm.

12 volt pump

Our water system is fairly simple, it starts out in a tank outside, gets drawn into the SkyCastle, through the pump, next the pipe/hose is split with one line going back into the water tank, we merely have to turn a valve to drain the system for freezing weather. It goes next into the pressure tank, that keeps the pump from having to cycle every time the water is turned on.

From there it splits again into …

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Encyclopedia of homemade tools website review

I am always on the lookout for websites where you can learn about DIY, I recently found a fun site all about homemade tools, this site is a repository of links to other sites, they and their readers add more and more links. They refer to themselves as an encyclopedia of over 22,000 homemade tools.

I found it because they had linked to some of my DIY pages (with links back to the original post), I was happy enough for them to include some of our ideas, sharing the wealth (knowledge) is all good.

You can find the site here
https://www.homemadetools.net/

Give them a look around, be sure to bookmark the site so you can return later. They say:

We find homemade tools across numerous forums, and organize them in one place, always with full credit to the original builder and site. HomemadeTools.net is updated multiple times daily with new homemade tools.
Browse homemade tools by category!

See all homemade tools in over 150 different categories, including Woodworking, Metalworking, and Automotive.

If you are into DIY, then this is the place for you! Be sure to check out their other “build” sites linked from there, I think the one about 4×4’s and cabins have lots of good information.




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Improvements on the rotisserie

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The chicken rotisserie has really been a hit around the SkyCastle, PB has been working on it, tweaking it, improving it, making it work better and better. We cooked the best chicken to date on it the other evening, I didn’t have to work that day, I brined the chicken overnight in salt water, it cooked for about 2 hours, I added 6 small baking potatoes wrapped in foil for the last hour of cooking. We have been discussing all the other things we could cook on this, I’m thinking corn on the cob, smaller chickens (Cornish game hens) and the such.

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Here is what PB had to say about it in his own words:

The professor strikes again!

I (lol, get ready) re-engineered the rotisserie mechanism, trying to add some ‘run time’! Took me all day, runs good, and because I got a gear ratio assembled backwards, lol, I did nothing but add another shining tutorial on my fb page for yall! ——- I’m feelin’ like an ‘Einstein’, lol.

I’m going to get the gears corrected and make a fresh chicken for Wretha as she did not participate in the first two test chickens for obvious reasons! (mainly, so I could be credited with saving her life!) Today she’ll be here all day, home form work, waiting, tick, toc, for the best chicken so far. Actually, she’s preparing and starting the chicken, and I’ll babysit the machine.

Last night she breined, bryned (however), the chicken,,, and she’s gonna be in charge of this one! I’m lettin’ her ‘chef prowess’ shine. Fixin’ that chicken all up with it’s own zip code and everything! She’s gonna have a blast. I guarantee it!

I’ll still act as, ‘spit boy’ because,,,, I like being ‘spit boy’! Just sittin’ there with the weather, tic-toc-ing past… Makes me feel, primitive! Like a million years old! — and that’s worth something!

and

Chicken #3. The Majik Chicken

This was a fresh chicken that Wretha fixed up and it turned out so juicy and with so much flavor! It put me in an instant 9 hour coma! Thank you Wretha, Executive Chef at SkyCastle! Best meal so far.

The heating section is working fine in the rotisserie. I increased the gas flow and added more ‘breathing’ holes. The flame is blue, contrary to the video, as I had bumped the cooker just prior to the video, thereby disturbing some rust (iron oxide) and causing red colored flames. I ran the burner at about 2/3d’s of ‘wide open’ and saved some fuel. Plus, getting things too hot seems to cause a smoke, from the spattering of chicken fat, that imparts bad taste. I’ll make a suitable knob for the gas valve soon.

The rotisserie mechanism ran much better than expected this time. After swapping the chain driven gears and getting the ratios correct, it ran dependably, for an

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Low-energy rotisserie made from scrap

chicken-cooker
The chicken cooker went live, this is something PB has been working on for a few months now, I might have thought it wouldn’t be finished, but I stopped doubting PB a long time ago.

He wanted a dedicated chicken rotisserie cooker and needed a way to make the chicken turn on a spit, we considered buying an electric motor to achieve this, but in good PB fashion, we call it Bobbage, he used miscellaneous parts found on the property and manufactured a clock works pendulum and weight that would turn the chicken over the heat.

He spent the most time working on and tweaking the clockwork mechanism, going through several different iterations, he finally settled on this design. The body of the cooker used to be the main body of a Lehman’s manual washing machine, we received that many years ago from a neighbor, PB fixed her chainsaw that is no longer made and parts aren’t available, she really liked that chainsaw and didn’t want to have to buy a new one, she had this manual washing machine but never used it. I didn’t like it much once I tried it, but the wringer on it was worth its weight in gold.

So PB took the stainless steel body and made that be the body of the chicken cooker. He used a lightweight sink for the lid. The main part of the clockwork mechanism is an old circular saw blade, the chain and sprockets came from an old trash compactor that someone gave us years ago.

This is propane fired, but it can be made to use wood or charcoal.

The rest of the materials were scavenged from here and there. I purchased a chicken from the grocery store a few days ago, I am shocked at how expensive chicken is now, they were running near $10 for a medium-small chicken! When I got home, PB had the chicken turning on the spit.

It still needs to be tweaked, but for the first test run, it was pretty tasty :)


https://youtu.be/xtkgOgu45wY




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Shade in the desert, priceless

Our rainy season is about to start, but before it does, it gets warm, some might call it hot, I call it mildly uncomfortable. It only lasts a month or less, and it’s not terrible, not compared to when I lived in the DFW area in Texas, where it was hot and humid, a nasty combination.

One of the ways we live on the cheap, with a small solar system, is by living in the high desert, I’m sure you have heard the phrase “dry heat”, well that sums it up quite nicely. And if you can drum up some shade, especially in a breezy locale, then even those mildly uncomfortable days are quite bearable.

Over the years, we have put up tarp shade in the front and back yard, mainly when our friends and family come to visit in the summer. It works great, but it only lasts one season, our sun and wind really destroy the tarps. So this year, PB decided to use up some scrap aluminum sheeting we scavenged from an old mobile home being torn down, it’s the same mobile home where we got the frame that PB turned into a bridge.

I have a little spot under a patch of oak trees that keeps me cool as well, it’s my art nook and nap place. Here are some pictures of the metal covering, oh I should tell you about what these are mounted on. A few years back, a friend from across the neighborhood gave us a bunch of sucker rod from a well, it’s made of fiberglass and can be bent pretty far, just don’t slide your hands across it unless you want itchy hands. I believe they are about 30 feet long each. Since putting them up, we have not had a major wind storm, but we have had some weather, it is holding up quite nicely, barely moving in the light gusty winds we have had so far.

There is one more picture, it’s the semi-enclosed deck area between the bedroom and the laundryroom/closet/junkroom… we still don’t know exactly what to do with that space, turn it into another bedroom, or make it an outdoor kitchen, or even just a place to sit outside but be protected from most of the elements…

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Filing cabinet smoker

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I’ve seen some ingenious peeps on FaceBook and YouTube, this has to be in the top 10 of cool DIY, have you seen the filing cabinet smoker? This is a first for me, not sure if it’s something I would tackle, I would just have PB make me a smoker (the wheels are turning now), but this is still a great idea.

Of course it would take some work to get the cabinet ready, but once everything is together and you have burned off the paint a couple of times, then you would be good to go. Let me know if you have tried this or seen it done….

I grew up in a BBQ shop in north central Texas, my dad and uncle owned it and I did my tour at working there, I admit to being a bit of a BBQ snob, especially when it comes to smoked meat, after watching this, the wheels really are turning, I’m going to have to hit PB up for a DIY smoker, or find one around here somewhere, I love smoked meat, beef, chicken, pork, veggies, I love it all!




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Manual washing machines – pre-electricity

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When going off-grid, things can tend to get a bit primitive, but you still need to get your laundry clean, there are many ways to do it, from washing by hand, to buying high tech off-grid washing machines. I have used a few different methods of washing my laundry. I often just toss what I need in the sink, wash it by hand and hang it out to dry, if I have a large load of laundry, I can use my neighbor’s washer and dryer (we trade out keeping his place up for such luxuries)… I have used a 5 gallon bucket with a long handled plunger.

 

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This video shows some of the old washing machines before electricity, all are hand powered, well one of them is apparently goat of dog powered. I like the ones with fly wheels or rack and pinion gears. Most of them are simple machines, using gears to turn what looks like a model of a cow’s udders to agitate the laundry. At least one of them had a set of wringers, also known as a mangle on the top to get out more of the moisture.

I hope you enjoy this video, I know I did, and be sure to check out the rest of the videos on this YouTube channel.




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Project green junk – Reflector oven

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I have some truly ingenious friends on FaceBook, and Kent Lee Ivey is one of the best, he loves nothing more than to travel around, pick up seemingly unrelated junk and turn it into really useful stuff. Earlier today I saw pictures he posted about how to build a reflector oven, these are really cheap items, but with a bit of effort, it is transformed. Here is how he did it in his words (and pictures):

Two sets of cheap baking trays from Wally World, a pack of brass fasteners from their office supply, and a cheesy trellis thingy from the garden section..
Whalla !
A reflector Oven for $15
Folds back down and nestles together for easy travel.

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Re-posted with permission




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Oogoo

oogoo

As frugal and creative off-gridders, we are always on the lookout for good DIY projects, recently I “discovered” a product that can be made with 2 simple ingredients, one of them I’d be willing to bet you have in your kitchen cupboard right now, the other one you might or might not have BUT it’s easily purchased inexpensively from your local store, even the dollar stores carry it.

The commercial version of this product is called Sugru, it’s basically a silicon molding product, it has many uses from the obvious, creating small molds of nearly anything, to creating rubber coatings and bumpers on items. The only drawback to Sugru is it’s expensive and not readily available.

There is a DIY alternative that seems to be every bit as good as the commercial product, and it’s very inexpensive to make. It’s called “oogoo”, look it up and you’ll be intrigued as to what it can do. The two ingredients to make it are corn starch and 100% silicon, that’s it, unless you wish to color it or make it electrically conductive.

A few days ago, I purchased a big tube of 100% silicon, I was going to get a small tube, but when I compared the price, I could get the larger tube for just a few pennies more, I couldn’t pass up a bargain, and besides, if I don’t use it all, then PB will use it on something.

The way this works is you use about a 50-50 mixture by volume of silicon and corn starch (it’s also referred to as corn flour), you mix mix mix until the starch is fully incorporated, do this is a well ventilated room or outside, it does release fumes that smell of vinegar, it basically smells bad and can irritate you eyes and lungs. Once mixed, it’s like a soft clay that can be shaped, molded, or you can stick small items into it to create a castable mold.

You can experiment with the ratios of silicon and starch, the more starch you add, the quicker it sets, you can add graphite powder to make it electrically conductive, I’m thinking things like making your own stylus for your tablet or phone…

Silicon by itself takes longer to cure, but mixed with the starch, it cures inside and outside at the same time and much quicker. This can act like a glue, it sticks to other items very well, but can be removed, it also sticks to itself very well, so you can add more layers of it after it cures.

I did some searching to discover what this can be used for, I am thinking that it will be perfect for repairing PB’s mukluk boots, the rubber heel part has worn through, they are basically unusable as they are now, so if it works great, if it doesn’t work, then we haven’t …

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