# Camping while you build



## MushCreek (Jan 7, 2008)

I wrote this thread for another forum I frequent, but thought it might help some folks here as well. I wanted to share my observations about living on a semi-off-grid building site for the last three months. With input from others, maybe this could be helpful to others contemplating such a move.

A preface- I'm 58 years old, and quit my job to spend a year (or more) building our homestead on our rural property in upstate South Carolina. My wife continues to work and live in FL, keeping the income stream going and the all-important health insurance. I had originally planned to do much of the work myself, but, well, more about that later. I started out in a pop-up camper, and have since moved into the space and luxury of the barn, which is weather-tight and nearly complete.

Here, in no particular order, are some of my observations:

Shelter- You need a place to live. Maybe as a younger man, I could have made do with a tent, but as I've gotten older, the thought of sleeping on the ground after a day of hard physical work is no longer attractive. The camper was cheap and works well in moderate weather. On nights in the 30's, the glaring weakness of this set-up is the the camper quickly matches the outdoor temperature. Camping for fun and adventure is one thing, but when you face a long day of work, you had better get a good night's sleep, every night. If all you have is a tent, get busy building a shed big enough to sleep in- you can knock one out in a week as long as it doesn't need to be fancy.

Water- I can't imagine trying to get by without a reliable water source. From mixing concrete to simply washing up, water is a daily necessity. Water is very heavy, and must be kept in a container, so hauling it in would be a hardship. We were lucky enough to get property with city water- a real luxury, and considerably cheaper than a well- at least at first.

Power- By this, I mean primarily electricity. Again, life is surprisingly harder without it. We really are spoiled by modern conveniences. I have a generator, and used it until my temporary power was brought in. Hauling gasoline is no easier than hauling water, and considerably more expensive. The noise and fumes from the genny are no picnic, either. Cordless tools make life much easier if you have a place to charge them. For me, the biggest challenge of not having electricity was refrigeration. It turns out that much of what we eat needs refrigeration. Without it, you have to procure and cook food nearly every day. All of this effort takes away from the main goal of building. I lived out of a cooler for the first month, and it was a pain. I averaged a bag of ice a day, which adds up, not to mention the driving to GET the ice every day. My first purchase after getting my power in was a small refrigerator.

Security- It would make many of you laugh to watch a city slicker like me suddenly living in the woods, alone. I admit it- I'm afraid of the dark, or more specifically, the things I can't see in the dark. There are bear, coyote, and feral dogs out there, not to mention the two-legged varmints that are probably more of a threat. Shortly after I started camping, I was told about a guy who shot two people, and was still at large- in my area! Having left my .357 at home (Why did I do that?) I was armed only with hand tools. Other security issues are things like secure storage for tools and building supplies. It was a pain working out of my van, having to unload and load it every single day. I quickly built a shed to eliminate the problem.

Comfort- Not to repeat myself, but you need a certain level of creature comfort, at least at my age. I can work in the heat pretty well, but it's hard to sleep on hot nights. The cold caught me by surprise. Sure, I could keep warm with enough clothes and a sleeping bag, but that doesn't get the cabin built. Rain also slows progress, and you need to have gear to cover stuff that shouldn't get wet. Plan ahead for this- it WILL happen. I can see now that not much work is going to get done this winter- it's simply too cold a lot of days.

Health- You have to take good care of yourself, particularly if you are alone. Safety, comfort, and nutrition are all vital to keeping you on the job every day. It's easy to get lazy about what you eat, but you need to eat properly and well to tackle the physical work of building. Take your vitamins. See your doctor. Buy and use the proper safety gear EVERY time. Don't forget bug spray, sun block, and a decent first aid kit.

Hygiene- Ya gotta poop- every day, if you're lucky. I started out with a chemical toilet- a mistake. It was no fun using it and emptying it. I then built a sawdust toilet (old Splinter) which worked much better. There are some good books out there on composting sawdust toilets. You do still need to have a good (and legal) place to empty it. Sawdust toilets are cheap and easy, and arguably 'greener' than many alternatives, although public health officials tend to really freak out over the idea. I know people got by without bathing for many thousands of years, but I find a good shower to be therapeutic, and helps keep you on good terms with visitors. I bought a cheap solar shower which worked OK, weather permitting. They don't work on rainy days, and poorly on cold days. I built a shower stall out of PVC pipe, and put a plastic mortar trough to catch the water. It took up too much room in the camper, so I set it up in the shed I built. After 3 months, I have a full bathroom in my barn- ahhh- civilization! It turns out they make small 110 V. water heaters, so I bought a 12 gallon one. Laundry is an expensive proposition. When did coin laundromats get so expensive? I tried washing clothes in a tub, which took a lot of water and time. For now, I stockpile lots of quarters and head into town periodically with a big batch of VERY dirty laundry.

Transportation- You need a way to get yourself, your tools, and your building supplies to the site reliably. Being out in the country, I suddenly realized the cost of running to get stuff. I now think of trips in terms of gallons of gas and dollars. A round trip to the nearest lumber yard is two gallons of gas, or about $7, not to mention an hour of lost time. Unless your budget is extremely tight, buy extras of everything for your build. There's nothing more frustrating than being one fifty cent fitting short of finishing. If you save the receipt, most places will take the surplus back, at least for store credit.

Communication- This is the age of communication, and its a little disorienting to suddenly be cut off. I have good cell phone coverage at my property, a plus. I have no internet, and rarely get on line anymore. It's therapeutic to go into town and associate with people once in a while. Someone should know where you are, and touch base regularly, both for safety and sanity.

Entertainment- It seems silly to say, but the nights get rather long. In the winter months, usable daylight is short, and there are a lot of crummy days to fill. I read a lot of books, and I finally broke down and bought a cheap TV. The computer is good, too. I do a lot of designing and writing when I have time on my hands. I find a radio somehow makes it seem less lonely.

This is just a start- one person's first observations about living on-site. I'm sure I forgot things that I'll add later. I'm sure many of you have had different experiences. Maybe we can build on this to help others prepare?


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## Capt Quirk (Sep 24, 2011)

We moved onto our property towards the end of July, with just the very basic of stuff and tents. No power, no water, most of our tools and the generator were in moving pods. We planned for the pods to be delivered after our arrival, but things didn't go as planned, and we were without them till the next year. Things were ok, until winter hit, and we were forced to rent a mobile home a couple miles away. It was extremely hard living, but we did survive.


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## ErinP (Aug 23, 2007)

Excellent points, MushCreek. 
Some replies (since we did the same thing but had two kids)--



> Water- I can't imagine trying to get by without a reliable water source. From mixing concrete to simply washing up, water is a daily necessity. Water is very heavy, and must be kept in a container, so hauling it in would be a hardship.


Nah. It's an annoyance, but not a hardship. 
We have a flat bed trailer and a 1500 gallon tank. We've been hauling water for household use, as well as livestock for about a year and a half. 

Power--Might I suggest a state/area with public power? They'll string in a certain distance off the existing line, completely free of charge. 

Comfort and shelter, I completely agree. A camper is a good way to go! We did that before we upgraded to a $500 14x70 trailer house.



> I then built a sawdust toilet (old Splinter) which worked much better. There are some good books out there on composting sawdust toilets. You do still need to have a good (and legal) place to empty it. Sawdust toilets are cheap and easy, and arguably 'greener' than many alternatives, although public health officials tend to really freak out over the idea. I know people got by without bathing for many thousands of years, but I find a good shower to be therapeutic, and helps keep you on good terms with visitors. I bought a cheap solar shower which worked OK, weather permitting. They don't work on rainy days, and poorly on cold days.


We use the exact same method for both. As mentioned, we're still hauling water, and this time of year means the solar shower is impossible to use as designed. Instead, we just heat water on the stove and dump it in the shower bag. 
We have a bicycle hook drilled into a rafter that we hang it on. In the shower stall in the existing bathroom. 
We daylight the greywater.


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## MushCreek (Jan 7, 2008)

A flatbed and a 1500 gallon tank would cost more than it did to hook up to the municipal supply, but of course, not everyone has that option.

Our power hook-up was a surprise. It turns out that there are two power companies in our area. The one I assumed would be our provider will hook you up for free. Alas, we are with the other company, who charged about $1500. Nothing we could do but pay the piper.

As for the solar shower- I bought a small (12 gallon) electric hot water heater that runs on 110V. I used it to fill the solar shower bag until my septic system was in and I could rig a regular shower.

There are many ways to survive, live, and even thrive without the luxuries most of us are used to. After all, much of the rest of the world wouldn't even know what we were talking about!


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## RonM (Jan 6, 2008)

Mush Creek we need pictures.......it is a better story with photos..


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## Guest (Nov 1, 2011)

It sounds like you are getting the basics for survival lined up. 

I am going to have to live in my 61 year old mobile home for a few winters while I build a more weather tight home. There is a whole different set of problems up here where -40 is normal in the worst part of winter.


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## fishhead (Jul 19, 2006)

61 year old mobile home? Is it made of logs? 

When I make the leap I plan on building a small simple structure, insulating it well, making some kind of water and toilet available inside.

Then when the house is done convert the original building into an out building.

I forgot to add. Good observations Mushcreek. Those will be good lessons for later.


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## BarbadosSheep (Jun 27, 2011)

You roughed it a lot more than we did! We built our first house when we were only 23. Well, we started it then, and spent the next I don't know how many years finishing it. When we moved in, I was pregnant with our first child. That first winter was not much fun. We heated with a 55 gallon barrel wood stove and it got so cold in there that the toilet water froze. Only one room was finished....the rest of the house was bare block walls and studs. The 2nd house we built when the kids were 10 and 12. We live in an old single-wide trailer for that one, a considerable upgrade to the frozen house. We moved into our last house almost 3 years ago and lived in a single wide (a different one) for that build too. Our kids are all grown and gone so we built a smaller one this time. It's my last one though. I don't have the energy to build a 4th one.


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## PlicketyCat (Jul 14, 2010)

We lived in our 16x20 wall tent for two years while clearing and building our remote Alaskan homestead. We wired foam insulation panels to the frame, and made it through 2 winters with temps well below 0F (we recorded -62F for 4 days straight... brr!) with only the tent's woodstove and a 30k BTU propane heater... and LOTS of firewood! We were, surprisingly, warmer in our tent with more room than our neighbor in his camper with attached shed/porch. Being in a wall tent vs. a camping dome tent allowed us to have a real bed up off the floor and get comfortable night's sleep -- very very important!!

One of our first orders of business was getting a battery bank and electricity wired in the tent. That allowed us to only run the generator once a day to charge up the batteries. It's a small genny (2kW), so a 5 gallon jerrican lasts nearly a week; it's expensive but there isn't a grid out here to hook up to. We had an overhead light and two outside "porch" lights to help with 22 hour winter nights and the random critter visitations.

2nd order of business was getting satellite internet. There are no phones and no cell reception out here, and satellite phones cost WAY too much. The satellite internet lets us have communications, library, banking, and entertainment all in one go. I download books on my computer or Kindle, and we stream movies/TV in the middle of the night when there is unlimited bandwidth.

We haul our potable water from the community well (30 mins away) in 5 gallon carboys. The daily max on the public well is 100 gallons per cabin, so it's easy for us to put 20 jugs in the back of the truck for a fill up. 5 gals is heavy hauling, but not as heavy as 100 gals... and we have to at least haul it inside between Oct & Apr or it will freeze (lost a few jugs that way). 

We can get non-potable water for concrete and washing up from the nearby creek or melt snow in winter... boiling and filtering will render it potable if we can't make it into town because it's too cold for the truck to start. On those occasions, we can fit 4 of the 5 gal jugs in our sled and tow it behind us... it takes about an hour to hike, and they're nearly frozen solid by the time we get home. Melting snow is easier, just scoop some up in a 5 gal bucket; but takes a lot more time since 5 gallons of snow only melts down to 1/2 gallon of water and you don't want to rob all the heat inside trying to melt more than 10 gallons of snow at a time.

We go into the village once a week or so and combine all our necessities into that single trip to minimize the fuel and time expense. While we're in town we get gas in the truck and fill up the cans (and make sure that the ATV and generator are topped off so we can fill the empties), we drop off and pick up propane bottles, we fill up all empty water jugs, we pick up our mail, we take our non-composting trash to the dump, and we stop in at the laundromat for a pay shower or the hot springs for a bath. We wash T's, socks & undies by hand in a WonderWasher and tub, and haul the rest of the bigger laundry into the laundromat when they start escaping from the hamper. On laundry day we sort and load clothes into buckets with gamma seal lids, and then fill them up with water and a little detergent... the agitation in the back of the truck on the way in gets them cleaner than 2-3 cycles through the washer alone (and at $2.50 each cycle, it's a lot cheaper, too). We're heading into town anyway, so we can splurge on the water.

We have a sawdust toilet and we compost it. Most folks have outhouses/pit latrines out here; but we'll eventually be building a mouldering toilet (an outhouse on top of an above-ground compost bin) instead. We have absolutely no plans to ever install septic. There aren't any regs out here, we just have to keep the poo 100 feet downhill from the cabin and 200 feet from any water source. We drain all greywater into buckets, and haul it out to water the garden, trees or moisten the compost.

*Everything* you do on the 'stead requires you to lift/tote/tow/haul between 40 & 50 lbs... you get used to it even if it is 1/3-1/2 your body weight 

We're in the cabin now, but most of the set up is still the same. We do have a 200 gallon water tank upstairs and have plumbed in two gravity fed sinks... one day we might get around to a well. We'll eventually hook up solar and wind, but for now the generator works for what we need (which isn't that much -- 3kw is tops so far). We'll eventually have a wash house with a bath and shower of our own, as well as a bigger laundry center (a james washer and double rinse sinks), and that greywater will feed into the greenhouse.

I guess spending so long in the tent broke us of many habits of civilization  We don't waste power or water. We reserve power tools/equipment for jobs where they really do save a ton of time and effort (like the chainsaw and log splitter), and go manual for things that really can't justify the cost of fuel. We don't care how we look or smell as long as we're covered and not getting eaten by skeeters or bitten by frost. We never go anywhere without a knife and a gun, we're just not dressed without them... we actually feel slightly naked when we go into the city and have to leave them in the truck.

But, we do have neighbors that couldn't stand/get used to living more "primitive". They worked long hours and spend lots of money to get something warm enough built faster... many times at the cost of their health and marriages. We went slower, and lived with less. It's all a trade, only you can decide what you can tolerate and what your priorities are


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## MushCreek (Jan 7, 2008)

Wow- That's a REAL adventure! Some of the factors affecting my decision making our time and age. I need to get back to a paying job ASAP, or this project won't have been worth it financially. Although designing and building my own place has long been No. 1 on my bucket list, I'd like to not end up spending more than if I simply paid someone else. Not earning a paycheck comes under the heading of 'money lost', although the experience is priceless. Unfortunately, I can't retire on memories.

I hate to admit it, but age is also a factor. I'm 58, and strong and healthy, but as the song goes- 'I ain't as good as I once was.' If I had to routinely tote 40-50 lb. jugs just to live, it would use up a lot of the energy I need to build my place.

It is interesting how your perspective changes as you live in more primitive conditions. I'm surprised by the things I don't really miss.


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## BarbadosSheep (Jun 27, 2011)

Wow Plicketycat....ever thought about writing a book about your adventure in the wilderness? It would be a great read! I am amazed at how resilient some folks are. I know I am too soft and love my creature comforts too much to ever manage to do what you did. I don't even like tent camping for a weekend anymore! Your story is simply fascinating to me.


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## PlicketyCat (Jul 14, 2010)

BarbadosSheep said:


> Wow Plicketycat....ever thought about writing a book about your adventure in the wilderness? It would be a great read! I am amazed at how resilient some folks are. I know I am too soft and love my creature comforts too much to ever manage to do what you did. I don't even like tent camping for a weekend anymore! Your story is simply fascinating to me.


I may eventually write a book, once there isn't so much work to be done on the homestead (haha, like that's ever going to happen!). In the meantime, I try to chronicle our adventures on our blog when I get a few spare moments. Some folks can thrive in rugged conditions, and others need a bit more luxury. Some work hard and fast, and others take it a little easier. It's all good as long as they're following their dreams amd you're being at least a little realistic with your expectations. As the saying goes "one man's heaven is another's hell" :thumb:



MushCreek said:


> If I had to routinely tote 40-50 lb. jugs just to live, it would use up a lot of the energy I need to build my place.


So you know why it took us 2 years to build our tiny cabin 

When a good portion of your time and energy goes towards hauling and processing fuel, food, water, building materials and 10 cords of firewood (often by hand and on foot)... not to mention blazing and maintaining a mile or so of woodland trail without a dozer just to get to the build site... well, "throwing together" a quick shed-sized structure takes way longer than a month or two LOL. 

We're not spring chickens anymore either and the body can only take so much before you have to give it some R&R, especially when working in subzero temps for over half the year. As long as we weren't in danger of dying, what's the hurry, right? Life ain't a race to win, it's a journey to enjoy!


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## BarbadosSheep (Jun 27, 2011)

Thanks for the link to your blog. I have added it to my google reader so I can easily follow along on your adventure.


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