10 Things to Know Before Buying Land in the Country

If your dream is to leave the city to live in the country, there are some things you should know before making an offer. We thought we had covered all our bases before we bought this place, but we didn't. Maybe others can learn from some of the mistakes we made and from some of the things we did right.

Whether you want move to the country to sit on your porch and enjoy the view, or you want to be a homesteader or hobby farmer who raises chickens to sell eggs at the farmer's market, or you want to be a full-time farmer who raises acres of corn and wheat, you need to find the right land. You can, and should, start with a realtor. Even if you decide to buy from an individual, you can use a realtor. Just remember in that case that you, not the seller, will be paying the realtor's fee. And remember one more thing: people lie. Sellers lie. Realtors lie. It may be a lie of omission, or an outright falsehood, but no one wants to admit to something that will kill their deal. So you need to verify everything you are told, and search for information you aren't told.

Now you've found the land of your dreams. What next?

1. Soil Quality

If you want to grow anything, find out what kind of soil it has, how deep is the soil, and what is under the soil. The USDA has a Soil Survey Map for every area of the U.S. You can find out how deep the topsoil is, what type soil, and what rock formations might be beneath the soil. The soil data tab will give the suitability for crops, the percolation rate, and the soil stability for building or setting fence posts. Had we known there was solid rock under our thin soil, we would never have bought this land. Not only did our septic system cost twice what we anticipated, we had to put in an aerobic system instead of the cheaper lateral line system. Also, the hay we intended to raise won't grow in thin soil, and the grass that will grow isn't desired by most hay buyers.

When we looked at this land, our realtor told us the land was in hay production. That wasn't true. We signed the contract in the spring before the "hay" started growing. After a month or so, we could see that the land was growing mostly weeds. After closing, I talked to a soil and water conservation agent who knew the property, and he said the land had been converted to native grasses twenty years ago and had been in CRP until the last few years. That brings me to the next point.

2.  Land Use and Taxes

Find out if the land is in use for CRP or another government program, and if it is, see if you have to abide by the contract until it expires, and how many years are left on the contract. You find this information at the local USDA Soil and Conservation District office. Also, find out if the land has a current agricultural use exemption on it. If it does, you will have to keep it in agriculture use. If you don't, you could be liable for taxes and fees. In Texas, it is five years back taxes plus penalty; a good incentive to keep the land in ag use. If the seller divides the land into smaller parcels, the land may not be eligible for an ag exemption, and you will be liable for these taxes unless you get the seller to pay them at closing. In Texas, different counties have different requirements, but few counties allow an ag exemption for land under 10 acres. If you want to use the land for agriculture and it doesn't have a current ag exemption, it could take you several years to qualify, and in those years, you will pay premium taxes for the land.

What are the current taxes?  This will only be pertinent to you if you are buying the land in whole, not being subdivided.  You can find this at the county Appraisal District, possibly online.  While you are checking, see what the tax is on nearby homes that are similar in age and size to the one you want to build to give you an idea of your future taxes.

3. Topography

What is the lay of the land? If you want crops, is the land flat enough, or terraced? Are there hills or trees that will make part of the land unusable? If you can't tell in person, check the land at USGS Topography Map. Can a tractor get through to your field? What about a building site? Will water runoff from higher ground be a problem? Is there a flood plain on the land? You can check that at FEMA Flood Map Service Center.

One other thing, and this isn't topography as much as it is the shape of the land, especially if it is land being subdivided. If the land isn't fenced, or marked in any way, it's hard to visualize where the boundaries are. A ten acre rectangle won't seem as narrow when it's in the middle of a hundred acre farm. My advice here is to take some stakes and flagging tape with you when you walk this type land. Measure out the distance of the narrow side of the piece of land for sale and place the flagged stakes at each end. Then you can see how much room you will have for a house, garage, driveway, etc, and see if there is enough room and enough space between your house and a house that could be built on the next lot. Our land is long and narrow, and while it is not a problem now, someone could build just two hundred feet away someday. If we had used the stake idea and visualized how narrow the land really was, we might have chosen a lot that was more square than rectangular.

4. Ponds and Streams

If there is a pond or creek on your property, see if it is federally protected by the Clean Water Act, or can you use it to water your crops or your cattle. If there isn't a pond and you want one, see if the ground will hold water. The USDA Soil Survey map will help, but you should have a pond expert come out and examine the land. Also, make sure the pond will comply with the EPA and Clean Water Act.

5.  Utilities

Find out where the water and power come from. Is the water from a local co-op, or do you have to drill your own well? If it is from a co-op, is the co-op solvent? How hard is it to get a meter? How much does a meter cost? Is the pipe big enough to give you good water pressure? How well are lines maintained? How does it taste? What is the base cost?  You can get a copy of the water quality report from the co-op but that won't tell you how it tastes.  Ask a neighbor if you can taste their water.

If you have to drill a well, how much does it cost to drill?  How far down do they have to drill?  What is the water quality?  Are there contaminates in the aquifer?  Your answers to these questions will come from neighbors, the local co-op, and local well drillers.

Our water comes from a co-op well and it is very alkaline and tastes terrible. The lines haven't been maintained well and can't support any more meters in some areas. That means that people buying land without a meter on it already cannot get a meter.  I know of two properties where the buyers weren't told this prior to closing.

Other services you need to check are trash service (most rural water service doesn't include trash service, residents are responsible for choosing their own method or service), internet service, telephone service, and cable service.  When you walk the land, check your cell phone by the road and in several possible building sites.  Ask neighbors what internet services are available and then call the services to find out about speed and if service drops with the number of users or time of day.

6.  Easements and Restrictions

Find out if there are any easements, mineral right owners, mineral leases, or restrictions on the land. You can get this information at the county clerk's office. All you need to know is the name of the current owner of the land and the legal description. You can get that from the county appraisal district office. If there are easements, do they allow someone to drive across the land to get to another piece of land, or are they utility easements? Either way, some people will have the right to enter the land on the easement at any time. If there is an easement, where is it located and will it interfere with your use of the land? You may need a utility easement to get power to your house. If any or all of the mineral rights have been kept by previous owners, you may have drilling on your land whether you want it or not, depending on the size of the land. If there are restrictions, usually written by the current seller, who is going to enforce them?  Will you be able to build the size and kind of home you want?  Generally, once all the land owned by the seller is sold, restrictions are a civil matter. Meaning, if the restrictions say buyers must build a 2000 square foot house and one buyer brings in a mobile home, the other buyers either accept the mobile home or file a civil suit against the offender.

7. Insurance

How much will your insurance cost? Will you need farm insurance, or liability insurance for the guy who is mowing your field and his tractor rolls over on him? Even homeowners insurance is higher if you are more than a specified number of miles from the city limits. It's five miles here, and we are four miles from the fire department on the edge of town. Another 1.1 mile and our insurance would have doubled. Where will you get insurance? Your current insurance company may not cover a farm, or a non-conventional home like a barndominium.

8. Financing

Where will you get financing? You may have to look at Farm Credit agencies rather than your usual bank, and you may have to put down more than you would on a city building site. Some financial institutions won't let you diy any part of building your home. If they will let you build it yourself, how long do you have to get it done before rolling the building loan into a conventional loan? If part of your dream is to diy, you may have to finance your own building.

9. Investment Value

How is the neighborhood? Even if the next landowner is a quarter of a mile away, their farm could affect your home value, and certainly your resale value. Are the neighboring properties trashy, or maintained? Will their fences keep their cattle off your property?  Look on Google maps and see if there are four-wheeler trails all over their land that will disturb your peace while you are sitting on your deck trying to listen to the birds.  Or maybe there is a shooting range, or they dump their trash within sight of your property.

How is the land you are looking at?  Does it have trash on it?  A dilapidated barn?  You can make it a term of sale that the seller haul off all the trash.  Is there anything on the property you want to keep?  Stock tanks?  Round pen? Squeeze chute?  Greenhouse?  Write them into the contract too.  You can also negotiate other things, like livestock or farm equipment.  It will benefit both of you not to move them, IF you want them.

10. School System

How is the school system? Even if you don't have children in school, the school system will affect your resale. Property in good school systems sells quicker and for more money than properties in poor performing school districts.  Good districts will probably get more money from the state and be able to offer more advantages to students.  Check the ISD website or call the local administration office to find out. If you have children in school, a visit to the schools would be a good idea.

Built-ins For Master Closet

Our closet is wrapped on two sides by the his and hers master bathroom. Actually, it's the only bathroom, but his bathroom can be closed off for use as guest bathroom. Each bathroom has an entrance to the closet and the storm shelter room also has a door.  So it's a little hard to photograph.  This is the not-to-scale plan.

We thought the closets would be the easiest to finish (little did we know) and then we would have a place to store things and get our clothes out of storage boxes.  First up was the narrow end between the two doors, Side A on my drawing.

To speed it up even more, I started with a couple of Billy bookcases from Ikea.  The plan was to use them for a short time, but after getting them in place, and seeing how well the adjustable shelves work for shoes, I decided to keep them permanently and built them in.  I left the backs off.  For one reason, the folded back on the 30 inch bookcase looked pretty cheesy, and it didn't match the back from the 15 inch bookcase in either finish or color.  But the main reason is that I wanted the full depth of the bookcase and I wanted access to the electric outlet on the wall.  Building them in was more trouble than they were worth though.  Their toe kick area isn't built in a way that makes it easy to add furniture style baseboard, and I wanted furniture style to make it easy for a robot vacuum.

While I finished the trim on the Billy bookcases, Hubby built the cabinets for Sides B and C.  Then, I finished out Side B, where the ladder is in the photo below.

Side C was a little more complicated because we wanted a laundry sorting cabinet that could be accessed from the bathroom on the other side.  You can see the cutout for it in the top photo.  Hubby built a hanging clothes cabinet around this laundry basket cabinet.  He hasn't put a clothes rod across the bottom section yet.

Here, you can see the laundry basket cabinet from the bathroom.  It is close to the washing machine and so far is working really well.

Painted Ceilings in Preparation for Wood Planks

I haven't been keeping up with everything we've done lately, but I'll try to go back and fill in.

This week I've been painting ceilings.  Either that extra foot in height makes a big difference or I'm just getting weak, but painting these ceilings is a lot harder than our last house.

We didn't tell my mother-in-law why we painted the ceilings brown and she looked at it, and then at us, with a strange look on her face, but she didn't say anything.  Then we told her we were going to put wood on the ceiling and didn't want white showing between the joints.  She was so relieved.  I know she wanted to tell us it looked bad. lol

This photo is dark but lightening it a little didn't seem to make a difference.

Afterward, Hubby couldn't wait to get the paper off the floor and see what it looked like, so against my better judgement, I agreed. It will make painting the walls a little harder though but we have tarps.

After the Rain

A neighbor took this photo.

Finishing the Lower Wall in the Barndominium Garage

Our choices for the wall between home and garage were Hardie siding like we used on the porches, ribbed steel to match the rest of the barn, or T1-11 plywood siding.  We rejected Hardie because it requires a special saw blade and the one we used to do the small amount on the front and back porches was already ruined.  We rejected the steel siding because it dents fairly easy and this will be a working garage/shop.  So we chose T1-11 despite all the complaints about it.  But being used inside, we shouldn't have much trouble with delamination.

 

I tested out a dark green to see how it looks with the unfinished pine and galvanized steel that we will use on the upper section.  I like it!  Then I hung the brooms and rakes to get them off the floor.

We used fake brick panels on this section just to make it look a little less odd.  It's actually the back of the refrigerator and freezer that will be recessed in the kitchen.

I don't know if I mentioned it here, but we found an auction from an appliance store and bought nearly everything for the kitchen.  Hubby installed the dishwasher here temporarily.  Sooo nice to have a dishwasher again!  When we finish the inside kitchen, the shop sink will go in this spot.

Installing Our Own Mini-Split System in the Barndominium

Last summer we bought an air-conditioner to put in a window. It did as well as anything in a building that wasn't completely sealed, open to the attic, and had no insulation in the ceiling. In other words, it was only cool right in front of it. Because of that, work inside the barndo came to a halt near the end of June 2017. When it finally began cooling off at the end of September, our momentum was gone and it was really hard to begin working on it again and we didn't work as hard at it once we started back.

During those hot months, we also cleared out three rented storage units and the added clutter made it hard to work. We've completely run out of space to put one more thing in the attic, so anything brought in is either in the way in the house or in the garage. It's hard to decide which area needs to be kept clear more. After we began work again, my main project was to start building cabinets for our tools so we didn't have to spend so much time searching for them or working on the floor. The next time we move the trailer, I'll take a picture of that. While I was building tool organizers, Hubby was wiring, and wiring, and wiring. He still has a few things to finish, but he is on the homestretch with the wiring. The first thing he did was wire the space for the washer and dryer to end our weekly trip to the laundromat, the un-air-conditioned laundromat.

This spring, Hubby decided that we weren't going to shut down when it got hot this summer. We had some bids for central air-conditioning and he had been researching mini-splits, and for our purpose, we decided that mini-splits made more sense. He used software to calculate the size units we would need based on the size of our living space, insulation, windows, and so on, and he ordered one to use as a trial in the attic. If it worked like we hoped, we would buy the rest.

This unit cools in summer and heats in winter.  Hubby was able to mount the inside and outside unit and a hvac technician did the final vacuum and connected the lines.  We mounted this trial unit on the wall between the attic and garage so that later, if it is needed, we can move it to the other side of the wall to heat and cool our garage workshop. 

Hubby installed the outside unit onto the steel wall above the porch awning. Most people set them on the ground, but he wanted to reduce the distance between the inside and outside units, we didn't want them on the ground where they could be damaged by fireants, deer, or the neighbor's cattle, and the awning seems to block what little noise there is. Really, I can barely hear it running when I am standing under the awning and I have excellent hearing. So for that, we are very pleased.

The inside unit is mounted on the wall between the house and garage as close to center as the length of lines would allow. It was recommended that it be in a central location for maximum efficiency. It's hard to tell how well it is working because we have had some gaps over the garage doors and because we only have a half inch of foam board separating that space from the hot garage. If it is turned on in the morning, it can maintain a temperature in the high 70s to low 80s, and that was with the window a/c in the house running also. But if it is turned on when the house was hot and the temperature in the attic is already over 110 degrees, it took hours to get it down to the upper 80s. We felt it passed the test though so ordered two units for the house.

What I am not completely happy about though is that it didn't keep all of the attic at the same temperature. Hubby usually had it set so it blew toward the electrical equipment in the attic and that part of the attic was noticeably cooler than the section directly under and in front of the unit. It does have an option to have the blades in motion which would keep the air moving. In the house, we will also have ceiling fans, which will also help distribute the air.

The two house units arrived in August. Hubby has the outside unit mounted on the wall above the awning with the first unit, and he installed the inside unit in the center of the wall over the windows. Installing the outside unit was fairly simple, he just bolted the frames onto the building's steel wall posts. The inside unit was a little more involved with wiring and condensation hoses. It came with the pipe flared and ready to install. We do have to have an HVAC technician vacuum the lines and do the final test of the unit. With our attic test unit, that was only $100. (Try to ignore the junk under the awning.)

Here's a side view of the unit on the brackets attached to the wall.  The brackets were ordered separately.

I would rather have waited until the whole house was sheetrocked before hanging the inside units, but Hubby wanted to have air-conditioning inside while we insulate. So that's why there is one sheet of sheetrock here with the inside unit. I'm sure the sheetrockers will appreciate air conditioning when they come too. I just hope they can work around this unit because Hubby doesn't want to take it off again.

One unit is mounted on an inside wall, and the lines are in the garage.  When ordering, the lines come in different lengths and are already flared and ready to attach.  The inside unit lines are too long, so Hubby had to order a flaring tool so he can shorten the lines.  We've also noticed a drip or two of condensation, so after we have the siding up there, we'll run a gutter, both to hide the lines and to direct any condensation outside.  So far though, there hasn't been enough condensation to fill a tablespoon, even on the most humid, hot day.  The photo below was taken at a later date but it shows the lines better.

We bought Mitsubishi mini splits and spent between $1500 and $1800 on each unit.  The hvac technician was $100 each time he came out, and he came out twice.  That makes them half the price of the central heat and air systems we were quoted.

We hadn't planned on working on that upper wall since it isn't critical, but one of our bay lights already quit working, so it looks like we will be renting a scissor lift soon.

We're not quite ready for insulation, but we are going to buy it tomorrow anyway, and not just because we need more stuff in our way. We'd like to avoid the extra expense if Hurricane Florence causes a price hike in building materials like past hurricanes have done.

Sheetrocked a Bathroom for Workers and Closet for Us

I see I need to do some updating, so here is a catch-up post.

When we started building our barndominium, rather, when the builder started, we rented a Porta-Potty for the workers. I always thought that was something the contractor provided for their workers, but apparently not, so we rented one. We're too far from town for them to leave when nature calls. The men didn't abuse it intentionally, but they usually left the door open, banging in the wind. The last time I saw it, the door was hanging on one hinge. To the neighbor downwind, I apologize. After the metal building was complete, we had the Porta-Potty picked up and the subs who came after that just stayed a couple of hours at a time so it wasn't a problem.

After we finished the framing and the electrician and plumber needed to come back for longer periods, we decided to rough finish one bath instead of renting another Porta-Potty. Since we were living here by then, I didn't think I could stand the smell of another portable, and since men aren't as picky as women, this worked fine as long as they were the only ones in the house. The walls were sheetrocked, but not the ceiling. The permanent toilet was installed, but we used a shop basin as a temporary sink. The framework for the pocket doors were done with the rest of the framing, but for temporary privacy, Hubby put the doors in too and then they came back out to keep them safe.

We were also bringing more and more boxes from storage in search of our tools, and began to have quite a collection of clothes and other things we didn't want to pack up and store in the attic. So we finished a small closet and put a plastic zipper wall over it for the time being. It is nice to be able to find clothes without digging through boxes, and finishing the closet gave us a chance to experiment with stains, wall texture, and paint colors.

Sometime between the last post about the storm room and the end of December, Hubby finished the walls in it and installed a clothes rod and shelf. I don't know if that will be permanent or not. I'd like to have a file cabinet in there, but space is limited if we want to have room for two people, a couple of folding camp chairs, a cat, and a few supplies to ride out a tornado and its aftermath.  Shelves, rather than a clothes bar may be a better option.

Keeping Cool in the Garage - Without an Air Conditioner

We designed our barndominium with garage doors facing north and south so we could have passive cooling in the garage too.  With the doors on each side open, we can catch a breeze on days with even a slight wind.  But with cattle and ponds nearby, flies and mosquitoes were a problem.  We even had barn swallows fly in and not want to leave.  So I built six screened frames, three tall ones and three short ones.  They fit in the garage door tracks, and simple latches keep them together.  When the garage door is pulled down, they are stable.  While not completely sealed, very few insects get in.  Problem solved.  And the cat likes them too.

Framing a Home Inside a Barn

We planned on having polished concrete floors in our barndominium.  Before the walls were insulated and before a single board was brought into the building, we had to clean and prep the slab before staining.  It's easier to do this before the walls are up and more dirt is ground into the concrete.   

Grinding concrete:

Acetone stain applied just on the house side:

Densifier applied:

Honing the concrete:

Polishing the concrete:

And after it's final buffing:

It is shinier than I wanted, but maybe it will tone down once the walls are up.  The guy said I could dull to a matte finish with wax, but the whole point of doing stained concrete floors was to reduce maintenance.  Waxing is maintenance!

Published Mar. 19, 2017

Building Walls

We have framed walls at least.  In this barndominium, we are doing double wall construction separated by an air space.  This creates a super insulated and very energy efficient living space.  But it's also a little more work than just nailing the framing to the steel.  The walls are built like a regular framed house, but before lifting them, foil faced polyiso foam insulation is attached to the back, and all the joints are taped.  But once those difficult walls were finished, the next wall went up pretty fast.

Hubby's brother came out to help us this weekend, bless his heart.  Thanks to him, I didn't have to do a lot of heavy lifting.  We got most of the bedrooms framed but need a couple of pocket doors before we can continue with that part.  The kitchen, dining, and living area just has three walls, so that shouldn't take as long, even though they have a lot of windows and doors to frame.

Hubby's father was a builder and both boys worked for him when they were living at home.  I got the feeling they didn't have a choice in the matter.  Hubby enjoyed the work but his brother would have liked to be with his friends instead.  But he said he likes it more now, especially when it is something like this when you see what you've accomplished at the end of the day.  I like seeing this come together too.

We still don't have electricity, but we are one step closer.  Last week, the Oncor inspector came out and didn't approve two things.  Today, the guy who did the ditching came out to put gravel under the pull box, and tomorrow the electrician will come out to replace the conduit going to the meter.  Then we'll cross our fingers and hope they get out here quickly to install our lines and transformer.

Published Mar. 29, 2017

Slow Building Progress Without Electricity

It took Overhead Door almost two weeks to get out to replace both doors.  We've had a lot of wind since they were installed, but the new doors barely move and are much quieter too.

Since we couldn't do any building while waiting for them to replace the doors, we finished the ceiling joists over the bedroom section, and then moved stuff out here from two storage units.  These were the units with our tools, and while we haven't found everything yet, at least we have enough to work with for now.

However, having all that stuff here made it hard to work and hard to find anything.  So Hubby built a ramp out of three ceiling joists and floor decking.  Then we bought a 12 volt winch so we could pull things up the ramp on a dolly.  It worked well a couple of times during his testing, but the next morning when it came time for me to put all the boxes in the attic, it wouldn't work.  After a long, hard day of pulling the dolly up by hand with a rope, I was beat.  But I had most of the boxes up there.  When Hubby got home from his real job, he worked on the hoist and it worked like a charm after that.

The lease on our duplex was up April 15.  Rather than sign a new lease, and to save time and money driving an hour each way from every day, we decided to move out here and live in the trailer full time.  The Oncor representative said we should have electricity by April 18, or April 20 at the latest.  We thought we could live off the generator a few days.

Have I mentioned how long we have been waiting for electricity, and keep getting promises and excuses from this guy?  Needless to say, we did not have power by April 18.  Maybe by April 20, but I'm losing hope.

Meanwhile, we hoisted to the attic the remaining boxes and few pieces of furniture we had taken to the duplex.

Giving the Wall a Big Lift

A lot of barndominiums frame the residential side without a roof other than the metal building, leaving the upper part a storage loft, and that is originally how we built ours. We built the barndominium with the idea that the upper part over the residential side could be finished out someday, or that the kitchen and living room space could be completely removed by a future owner who wanted to turn it back into barn and keep the rest as an office or guest room.

We have been using the upper loft as storage, but when garage doors are open on each end, even a slight wind can topple a stack of boxes up there and a few things too close to the edge have blown down to the floor below. So when Hubby rented the lift to put up his tower and antennas on Saturday, he decided to use it the next day to build an upper wall between the residential and work sides. Hopefully, it will also keep mud daubers and barn swallows out too.

For this, he brought the lift into the barn. Not a lot of spare room, but it fit.

He also installed two LED bay lights over the work bay. If you'll notice the bright light over the garage door in the above photo, you see that the bay light has been mounted on the wall over the door. But when the door is open, it blocks all the light. But until now, we couldn't get it any higher.

During a break, the resident inspector checked out the machine.

Framed and sided with foam board insulation.

Earlier, Hubby built a closet in the loft, now attic. For now, this will be for Christmas decorations and things we don't want covered in dust, but don't have anywhere to put them yet. I managed to grab this photo before he put the end piece on.

Published Mar. 15, 2018

The Big, Heavy Walls are Up

Still no power, so things are moving exceedingly slow.  We can use one piece of equipment at a time on our generator, but not the table saw.  As Hubby put it, the table saw will knock it down and stomp all the life out of it.  So we continue building slowly.

Last Saturday, his brother came out to help again, and they got the long wall up.  It is a six inch wall with one big header and a smaller one, so it was really heavy.  I helped lift a little but mainly I held it steady while they did all the hard work.  Later, when they put up all the ceiling joists, I held things and took the air hammer from one to the other.

Courtesy of Lonnie

Next we were ready to build the walls in front of the roll up doors.  The walls are set two feet inside the doors so they can be closed to protect the glass from weather and vandalism.  On Sunday, we were beat, but Hubby and I managed to build and stand one window wall where the kitchen will be.  We also began blocking the ceiling joists that he and his brother put up Saturday.

According to our Oncor rep, we should have power by Tuesday.  Finally.

Published Apr. 4, 2017

Electricity Update and Window Walls

No power by Tuesday.  Big surprise - NOT!

Some of our new neighbors had been encouraging us to call the Oncor rep who used to have this territory.  Because Hubby is also a salesman,  he knows what a hassle it is to try to learn a new territory while customers from the old territory still want you to help them.  So he didn't want to do that to this guy, Jason.

However, on Wednesday, I had reached my limit.  Tuesday had been hot and humid, so of course Tuesday night was hot and humid, which meant the air conditioner ran more and the generator ran out of gas around 5:30a.m, right after Hubby left for work.  So my choices were to get dressed, find a flashlight, and go refill it, or sweat for another hour until there was enough light to see it.  Since the trailer is inside the barn where there is no breeze at all and with a propane heater and refrigerator, it gets warm and stuffy fast.  So I got up.

A few hours later I started calling the neighbors to see who had Jason's number.  Then I looked up the check to see when we paid Oncor to start this whole process.  Novemeber 28, 2016.  Twenty one weeks and two days.  Ridiculous.  When I finally talked to Jason, he was very concerned that it has been so long and promised to look into it.  When I talked to him the next day, he said the order had been turned in on April 21, four days after the last guy said we would have power.  Jason said it could take up to ten days once the order was turned in, but he had sent a request up the ladder to expedite because we are living here without power.  He said worst case, we should have power by May 5, but maybe sooner.  So on we go.

North wall, almost finished framing.  Then need bracing.

Windows and doors should be in next week.  The driveway should be finished next week, and the septic, which was supposed to be installed April 29, should be installed next week.

Completing the Ham Radio Tower and Putting up Antennas

On Saturday, Hubby rented a bucket lift and his best friend came to help put everything up.  If you read the previous post, you know there is a base section of the tower six feet into the ground buried in concrete.  After it cured, Hubby put the next tower section on with the tractor.  But he couldn't do more without a lift.  But after that, the weather wouldn't cooperate until this weekend.

First they put on the top tower section.  I wish the tractor wasn't in the way, but maybe they were using it.

Then the 2 meter 440 vertical antenna.

Next, the 2 meter beam.

And last, the triband beam antenna is on the way up.

It was a nice day on the ground.  A little windy up there, said Hubby.  Threading the antenna beams around the tower requires concentration.

Done!  All that was left was zip-tying wire all the way down.

Just after sunrise the next morning.