We've moved onto our land!

We purchased 2 acres of land last January and we are so pleased to have moved onto it this September.

What an exciting and busy fall we have had. This past August we moved out of our rental trailer and up the hill onto our property. Since then we have been in high gear getting our homestead underway. Fortunately we have had many friends and family members here to help us get the job done.

You might remember that last December we drilled a well on our property and then this past spring we had our septic system installed. Even with these two major components of our utilities infrastructure already in place there was a heck of a lot to be done to get the water running and the toilet flushing at our new homestead. Even so, we were able to move onto our land and into our small travel trailer in September.

Installing the Submersible Well Pump

To get our water running we first needed to install a fresh water well pump. After much research we selected a small submersible pump that is easily powered by our solar system. Patrick was able to wire the submersible pump into the power system and then seal the connection with heavy duty shrink tubing.

We very glad to have help lowering the pump 140 ft down into the well. Once the well pump was in place we purchased and installed a 1600 gallon water tank for our fresh water storage. Click here to read our new article on installing our solar powered well pump and homestead water system.

Hooking up Homestead Utilities

Water

Next we dug a maze of trenches across our property in order to run the lines for our homestead utilities. We used flexible PEX tubing for our water lines instead of copper or PVC. One of the major advantages of using PEX is that its connections are created through a crimping system rather than with a toxic glue. Our water lines are buried 24 inches under the surface, which is well below the freeze line. Once we installed several farm faucets around the property, we were able to begin using our own fresh water!

Solar Power System

Though we already had a functioning solar power system we had to fully dismantle it in order to move it up the hill. In addition, we expanded our system by three solar panels to accommodate the calculated power needs of our homestead. We built a small shed to house the charge controller, inverter and batteries, as well as the controller for the well pump. We wired our Tri-metric meter into our travel trailer so that we can monitor our power storage and usage at all times.

Septic

With water and power online we began the installation of our septic lines. Patrick designed a network of pipes to connect and drain our waste lines into the septic system. After trenching and grading the slopes we constructed the system with 3 inch and 4 inch ABS pipe. Once we installed a small bathroom next to the utility shed we moved our trailer onto the property.

Phone & Internet

The last major step in our move was getting our phone and Internet service set up. Though we installed the cable for our phone line last year we still had to coordinate with phone company to get the line activated. For access to the web we installed a WildBlue satellite Internet system. With the phone and Internet installed we are totally moved onto our land!