Stampie's Grosh Mahal

sleepyhead the buffalo said:

Stampie said:

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Ok the current process is temp living quarters. The trailer will house a 6.5x8 room, a 3x3 toilet, solar/electronics providing 12v DC and 120v AC 15 amp. That last part with the toilet is important because I'm required to have both to get a building permit. 

so, that's kinda like a "Super Tiny House". 

cool; good luck!  I'm curious to see how that works/works-out as that concept might be helpful in my sojourns at the in-laws.

This is a super tiny home. I can't wait until the upgrade. 

Today was let's get done and go back to Jax day. Today's project was building an 8x8 deck to serve as the foundation for the water storage, shower, and kitchen.

I'd be using my miter saw so I hooked up the inverter like I had it yesterday. 

Went to mark my wood and discovered that Lowe's sells 2x8x8s that aren't quite 8 feet long.

Hmmm ... not going back to Lowe's so I mentally changed my design and went to cut. Nothing. Saw didn't even try to do the soft start. The inverter has a feature where on high draw start ups like an electric motor, the inverter will cut for a split second every few until the motor spins up. Yesterday the circular saw would bump two to three times before coming all the way up. Ok let's bolt the inverter straight to the Suburban battery.

At least now the soft start tried to kick in but it couldn't fully spin the blade up. I assume it just couldn't draw enough amps on start up. Time to go back to the circular saw. 

I changed the blade first. This saw came from my uncle and talking to my mom she said she'd never seen him use one. She thinks maybe my grandfather used it to build a house for my uncle 30 years ago. Now the interesting thing is with the inverter bolted to the Suburban the circular saw spun right up without even hitting the soft start. I also was able to cut normal speed but I think that was the blade change. 

Let's get going. Notice that in the following pictures I planned the location to take advantage of solar energy. That also meant I was working in full sun all morning. 

Base in and squared up.

Moving along.

Finished

I've worked way past when I should have but I need to pick up stuff, pack up, take a shower, and then I can head to Jax. I got all that done but learned something about water for the shower. I've been taking the showers by 9am at the latest. Today it was noon. The water had been sitting in the semi white translucent containers they come in. It was warm. Like dude this feels nice.  I found out that if your water is warm you tend to use more. Think I used about 2 gallons. 

I got back to Jax, took the perishables out of the cooler, and crashed. Just woke up a couple of hours later but my body is saying wtf man. 

Awesome work!

Can you use solar panels as a bit of a roof?

In reply to wvumtnbkr :

Meaning instead of a roof?  Would be difficult to seal correctly.  I'm dividing up my utilities.  The trailer "house" will have the electricity.  For it I'll just bolt the solar panels to the metal roof and seal them best I can.  Not totally worried about leaks on it as you'll see in the future.  The deck will be the water side so it's roof will have the solar hot water heater.  I haven't completely formulated that design yet but I'm more worried about the extra weight than a dry inside.  As I type I'm thinking more and a stepped roof might work better on it.  I'd describe it but I haven't had good luck in the past trying to explain what's in my brain.  If you really need a visual I could design something in Fusion 360 to show you.

Naw.  You answered it.

Good luck brother!  We are all counting on you!

I'm sure it will be nice to have a home base setup so you won't have to keep farting around and running into town. Keep up the progress

In reply to Norma66-Brent :

Oh yeah a big part of this week was how to handle the heat and hopefully making it easier in the future.  I realized real quick that I needed to control my temps.  Best move all week was spending a couple of hours in a public library.  Free internet, AC, and very clean bathrooms.  At this point I'm trying to put in some work so that later it isn't that hard.  

Are you working under an EZ-up? They're a pain to set up, but make a drastic difference in how hard/long you can work. 

In reply to Tom Suddard :

No partly because I didn't want to buy one and also space is very limited right now. I basically have a single car wide drive that opens up to two car wide right after where I was working on the trailer. Plan is to keep it that way as much as possible. I'll clear to the east of there to build but I can't put this stuff in the way of building. Anyway long story short I wouldn't really have the space to move an EZ-up around to stay in the shade. It was supposed to be cooler this week. I can see a big difference going forward. 

Early starts are worthwhile in the heat. I usually start at 6AM, and try to do less stressful indoor work or office work in the afternoons when I can. 
 

Stay hydrated!

Alternate material roofing idea.

In reply to hobiercr :

Our YouTube feeds must be similar.  I just watched that this morning.  

Toyman! said:

Stampie, you might check out some of the videos from Narroway Homestead. 

https://www.youtube.com/@Narrowayhomestead

He has some decent videos about water collection, solar, and being off-grid. He also has some videos on pulling in distant cellular signals and making them usable. 

 

 

I finally got around to checking this out.  First second I go oh that's Nate.  Yeah cool dude and major beard action.  I hadn't seen his InvisaGig stuff so I'll look at that.

More toys from the rain forest. 

12v cooler with crimpers, cutters and 1/0 battery lugs.

Thanks to pimpm3 for turning me on to this. 12v 100ah AGM battery that can flow 1100 amps for 5 seconds. Having once dropped a wrench onto a normal car battery this scares me. 

Is there enough room to put the solar array on the ground? Way easier maintenance wise and no holes in the roof. Just wondering. Wired up one that would pivot with the arch of the sun. It was cool as hell. The panels even moved to get the best angle. I'm going to say probably a bit more than you want to spend. Have you checked with the municipality to see if you can even be off grid in the area. Around here in the lovely PNW you have to be attached to the grid but if you have a big enough solar array your putting it back onto the grid and getting credit for it. Battery backup keeps things going at night so in essence your not paying for electrical.

In reply to brad131a4 (Forum Supporter) :

Plenty of room on the ground but I'm trying to ride a fine line.  At this point I'm trying to come under "RV" rules so that means portable.  I'm not worried about holes in roof as you'll hopefully see soon.  According to the county they have no problems with me being off grid.  In fact that was one of my selling points to them for buying this property.  Right now I see the 120v 15a and a bathroom as my largest hurtle with them.  I want them to show up and say damn I didn't think you could do temp power and toilet off grid.  I'm also trying to not waste money for something that I don't need after building is done.  That isn't as easy as I thought.

I got into town about 11 this morning and jumped right in. First up was laying down some Kilz on the wood. I tried to be all proper and use a paint tray but quickly just started pouring it on from the can and rolling it out. 

Next up was the temp solar setup. I had to make a quick run to Harbour Freight for a screwdriver but it went very well. Got the 12v cooler doing cooler things and headed downtown for a late lunch. 

Question - are those 2x6 joists for the platform?  If so, I strongly recommend adding another row of concrete blocks down the center while you can still (hopefully) lift up the deck.  I didn't for my shed (8'W x 16'L) and the floor sags in the middle more than I'd like. 

In reply to Ian F (Forum Supporter) :

Yes but those blocks will probably be temporary. I'm worried that the deck isn't a trailer. 

Would skids make it "portable"?

is there enough space (after the tiny build on the trailer) that the deck can mount onto the trailer?  Then you might just have a mount on one end-side of the deck for wheelbarrow wheels to roll the deck up to the trailer for "demonstration" of it being moveable/portable/removable.

In reply to sleepyhead the buffalo :

I have a solution I think. Didn't have time to put up the hotspot this evening so no pictures. Was surprised that the solar panels charged until 7:30 this evening and that was with rain and clouds since 5. I made a mistake setting up the cooler so it was drawing power constantly since 2:30 this afternoon. The battery didn't go into float charge today but that's probably why. Tomorrow it'll have a full day and the cooler shouldn't draw so much. 

Let's see if I placed the hotspot perfectly in the Suburbans windshield. 

After lunch I headed over to Newberry to grab yet another trailer. Thought is two fold. First it'll let me get stuff from Lowes much easier than putting it in the back of the Suburban. Second and bear with me here, if I jack up the 8x8 deck I can put this under it to make a second "RV" on the property. With the tongue pointing out towards the back it wouldn't be in the way. Also because the deck is 4x8 that would put the wheels right between two joist. Paid more than I wanted at $400. 

So how do you triple the value of your brand new to you trailer in the first 30 minutes?  You take it to Lowe's and load it up. 

As you can see it has started raining while I was in Lowe's. I did a quick stop at Publix and then back to the property. The ditches when I first turned into the road were overflowing so I got a little worried. I parked on the road to check things out and my ditch was flowing much better than theirs.

I tested it and it seemed solid enough so I drove on thru and went right in. The mistake I made earlier today was assuming this fancy ass cooler was in Celsius not Fahrenheit. So when you set it at 4 degrees you come back to very cold stuff.  My gallon of Crystal Light has some ice on the bottom. 

I rushed to unload the Suburban and get my sleeping quarters set up before dark. Had to do the last bit with the dome lights on. That meant all the bugs when into the Suburban. Figured out that I could turn off the dome lights and put my Harbour Freight light about 10 away to draw all the bugs out. It's currently raining which is dropping the temps and I think I'll go to bed soon. 

Nice progress.  If possible, a few run offs cut to the sides of the driveway may help drainage.  I fight this problem on our 1/4 mile driveway, albeit we are on a hill.  I know I'm spending your money, but how about some gravel in there?  If not, possibly some straw or hay.  Check your local regulations to see if skids (as mentioned) would work.  Here in my part of NY, our sheds (12x16) are not considered permanent structures.  Good luck with this project.

In reply to Dirtydog (Forum Supporter) :

That ditch goes all 800 ft along the frontage. It must have hit hard right before I got here because I've never seen the ditch overflow down the road. This is the same spot shown above but this morning. No standing water. This is also where I'll put in the culvert. 

So far this morning I overslept. For some reason I woke up at 4am thinking about my design. Couldn't get back to sleep until at least 5:30. But I got the trailer moved into position and side leveled. Had to move it by hand because the tongue will be where you can't get a vehicle in easily. After a few more minutes of AC I'll front to back level it. Oh the solar panels were charging at 8am without the sun over the trees yet and it overcast. 

Edit - I guess I should have explained that the ditch drains into the creek about 300 ft downhill from there. I could see it flowing last night.