How to Draw a Sewer and Waste Plan
Ane affair I've realized through my entire journey is that not only do you have to build a house, just in that location is quite a bit that goes into setting up the land itself. These things include access, infrastructure, security and utilities. Each of these categories can be tricky and expensive in their own right, but very necessary for living.
General Considerations
You'll notice that I take a field at the border of the belongings where I have 2 entrances/exits to my gravel pad. This allows me to bring in the house, unhitch it and then accept a identify to exit with the truck. Information technology also allows me to gain admission to my storage trailer if I desire to motility it or take it off the property. It's important to consider before yous bring your house to the property:
- How will you enter the belongings?
- How will you exit the property once the house is placed?
- How will you leave with the firm if you need to move?
- Are the curves too tight to brand with such a large trailer/business firm?
- What direction do yous desire your front door (back of trailer) to face?
Another affair to consider is parking for your car and visitor's cars. I also like to be able to pull right upwards near the door for move-in solar day or for bringing in groceries.
I would also advise placing your tiny house in a place with deciduous trees then your firm is shaded in the summer and open to the sun in the winter. Before moving the house to my location, I made sure to become effectually and inspect all the surrounding trees to see if whatever needed to be removed because they posed a danger because of rot. I discovered ane tree that was prepare to fall any 24-hour interval, so I cutting it down before the house was e'er there.
Tools For Planning
At that place a few go to tools I have for when I'm laying out driveways, locations of h2o lines, trees that demand to be cut, and other planning activities. It's important to become practiced measurements and then you tin program how much cloth you'll need for things like gravel driveways, concrete for pads you're going to cascade and distances for water lines.
Measuring Wheel
Avoid the Kenson make, I've plant that they don't concur up. And when you're planning your land, make certain you know where the property lines are and that most places require at least a xv foot setback from any belongings line. I always figure what information technology is and double it just in example I'm off in my property line.
Flags For Marking
Now that you accept an idea where you want to put things, mark them out with these little flags. It will give you a improve sense of infinite. It also lets y'all sympathise where things are going to exist in relation to other things like storage, driveways, patio infinite and parking areas.
You can go these marking flag for inexpensive here.
Waterproof Notepad To Take Notes
I always take notes when I'm doing this so later on I can refer back to them when I draw things upward back at home. Inevitably you will take forgotten to check something so having dimensions written out volition permit for figuring out stuff after I've left. My go to notebook is a Rite In The Pelting Notebook which is an amazing trivial note pad that doesn't matter if information technology's moisture. They're tough and super helpful.
Whatever you use, make sure yous write stuff downwardly because so many numbers will be going through your head.
Access
The outset step to getting the land to the point where you can live on it is simply beingness able to access it. This comes in the course of roads, driveways, turnarounds and parking pads. Earlier you even call back about laying down the road, you must first clear the way, remove trees, level the dirt and brand your path to your new home. You have a couple of options: gravel, cement, and asphalt. Gravel is the nigh economical. I wouldn't suggest just dirt, because y'all are bringing in a very heavy house, it's probable to get stuck, and information technology gets muddy in the pelting.
Here is a video of the installation of my road, turnaround and parking pad. Note I had a much easier time because there used to exist an former dirt road in this location, and so it was merely a matter of cleaning it up and leveling it out. The whole process took well-nigh six hours of difficult piece of work.
Infrastructure
Laying the lines, pipes and other cardinal connections is a pretty tricky part considering it often requires either backbreaking work or heavy equipment. When y'all're running pipes and lines over any distance you run across problems of drop in voltage and pressure; so you need to accept care to size things appropriately and it will dictate where y'all tin can actually place your domicile. When I first looked at the state, I had wanted to place my house about 300 feet away from its electric current location. That meant I'd have to run a #3 wire to compensate for the voltage drib every bit I ran the line to the closest solar exposure, which would have cost an additional $700 in just wire!
For water I am connected to the city water. The meter and installation cost me $ii,200 (city sets price), but that is only from the water main to the closest edge of your holding. You then need to connect it from there to your house, which will cost me an additional $800: $500 for materials, $300 for ditch witch rental, me doing all the labor.
For showers I have a 32″x32″ shower stall in my firm, but likewise will be building a larger outdoor shower which I plan to utilise almost of the year, except in the cold months. Both will feed into the grey water arrangement, but I love outdoor showers and it affords a bit more room in the shower. My indoor shower is workable, but a piddling cramped. I have designed my plumbing system so that I have a hot h2o line that feeds out to my outdoor shower, only it has a ball valve on the within of the house so I tin can plow it off to forestall freezing during the winter.
Another aspect of infrastructure is how you are going to handle your waste streams. For me this breaks down into five categories:
- Trash
- Recyclables
- Compostables
- Grey water
- Composting toilet waste
For trash and recyclables I take barrels from the city which are picked upwardly at the end of my driveway one time a week. For compostable materials such every bit food scraps (no meats, fats, or citrus) I handle those with a cerise wriggler worm bin which I keep in an outdoor bin. I prefer vermicomposting over regular composting considering it's much more than of an active process, it's super easy and if I forget about it, information technology will continue on without me. It as well breaks things downwards much faster. In the warmer months it can handle a few pounds a week, going from scraps to dirt in about iv-6 weeks without me turning.
For grey water I am going to build a small reed bed that takes the already pretty clean h2o, removes any solids, and cleans it up, then feeds into some irrigation pipes that snake through the copse. It'southward important to note that I've spent virtually 6 months finding biodegradable alternatives to all my detergents (shampoo, hand lather, dish detergent, etc.) so the water coming out of this system is pretty good to begin with.
My composting toilet waste is the most hard to handle because my urban center doesn't allow for humanure composting systems. I am also leasing land and so I don't think its right to do a humanure composting system on the land itself. If I was, I'd follow the procedure laid out in the Humanure Handbook. And then what I'm doing to meet local lawmaking and respect the country possessor is bagging the waste every few weeks into a biodegradable "plastic" handbag and then sending it forth with the city trash; at that point its essentially like a diaper, but the plastic volition break downward in a landfill quickly. There are other options out there for this too and I considered them, but for me this method works.
Security
I get this question a lot from people and it seems very odd to me, but in terms of security I have a few lines of defense. First off, you need to realize that about criminals are those of opportunity. They don't want to piece of work hard or spend a lot of time stealing a tiny business firm. The other affair is I do live in a big city, merely the land I live on is tucked away deep in back roads and at the back of 26 wooded acres. The likelihood of someone finding it is pretty small unless they knew to look there. With that in listen my tiny firm weighs 6,500 lbs, which means that merely a limited number of trucks out there can actually tow the house; fifty-fifty with a good truck information technology isn't easy.
Next I removed the wheels from the trailer because you lot need to get them off the ground (tire shock) and if I just jacked them up, the house would be really loftier off the ground. So by removing them, I could lower my business firm about 1.5 feet lower than with the tires. This makes information technology a lot easier to arrive and out of my house. The tires are chained up out of sight. Next I have a agronomics mode fence gate at the entrance to my driveway, which I will later put on a automatic opener arm with a lock; right now its but chain locked when I'grand not there. 
In that location are a few other things I do to keep things rubber, but at some betoken you take to realize that you can't prevent everything bad that COULD happen and you demand to go on with your life.
Utilities
For power I plan to use solar, which I'll be installing a 1.67 Kw arrangement this autumn/winter. The panels and equipment will exist mounted on skids on the footing because I'm just leasing the state, I tin't have anything permanent. For a organisation this size you tin't fit it on the roof, plus I want to be able to access the panels to easily clean them. The inverter will exist a four,000 watt unit, with a big bombardment bank. The system will cost about $15,000 if I install it all myself.
In my house my stove and tankless hot h2o heater volition be powered by propane. The fridge, my 15 LED puck lights, laptop, cell phone, and big computer screen (to serve as well as a Boob tube) are all electricity powered. The air conditioner/heater will be a mini-split heat-pump unit that tin can handle both, will run on electricity.
For Internet I will be hooked upwardly to standard high speed cablevision Internet. I volition too accept my cell phone which has Internet. I considered getting a wireless mobile hotspot, but they all take a information cap of about 5-10 gigs, which if you spotter ii-3 movies on Netflix you'll blow through that limit in near iv hours and be screwed the rest of the calendar month. Information technology'southward worth noting that the wireless cards that merits "unlimited" are non actually unlimited. If y'all read the fine print they all accept a data cap. For Verizon, "unlimited" is 10 gigs.
I will not have a traditional Goggle box or cablevision. I get all my Tv set shows and movies from online and in general I don't watch a lot anyway. For laundry I accept a laundromat a few minutes down the road, but for me I hate doing laundry. Then my splurge item is that I apply a service that comes to my home and picks it upwards, does the laundry and brings information technology back.
Bulk Storage
Earlier I become into this section, I know some of yous are thinking, "extra storage! That's not tiny living!" That'southward fine if you retrieve that, but it isn't practical for me and I'1000 designing this for me. The betoken of this journey isn't to be tiny, it's to design a life that lets you reach your ain goals. That's what I'yard doing and I think it's a disservice to yourself if you lot artificially constrain yourself by whatever preconceived notions.
As I pared down my possessions I realized that there were some things that could fit in my tiny business firm, but I didn't desire to. Things similar tools, camping gear, bikes, large packs of consumables (toilet paper, paper towels, etc). It chop-chop became clear to me that even though I could fit everything in my tiny business firm, I shouldn't. This left me trying to effigy out what I should exercise. I knew that whatever I chose had to have a one time upfront price, because I didn't desire to do a rental storage unit of measurement or the similar. I besides wanted it to exist relatively protected from water and bugs.
Some people suggested storage under the tiny house or little plastic sheds/cabinets. Since I am leasing, I couldn't build something permanent, so I needed to notice a storage solution that I could move and take with me. Initially I thought almost one of those sheds you see in your big box hardware store parking lots, but they were either as well cheaply made or also expensive. I instead decided on an enclosed trailer which was about the same cost every bit one of those sheds. This give me the flexibility of existence able to motion it, simply also being a great storage space.
Outdoor Spaces
Part of tiny house living is making the conclusion to not stay locked upward in your little house. Information technology instead forces you to get out more than. Part of this is having great outdoor spaces. For me that means a fire pit with some comfy Adirondack chairs, places to walk around, a grill, and a garden.
Depending on your climate, outdoor living might look unlike, merely about half the yr here is very comfy to be outside. Outdoor spaces are key to having parties, guests and just leisure time. Don't simply design the perfect indoor space, pattern the perfect outdoor space for you besides!
Visibility
In general I think it's important to have your tiny house placed where no i tin can easily see it from the road. Legal or not, it'due south not prudent to concenter a lot of attending. Brand certain the house can't be seen during all seasons. If you movement in during the bound, and so during fall you might be able to meet the house from the route considering the leaves are gone.
Solar Exposure
I talked about this in an earlier section, but thought it deserved its own section besides. In terms of solar you want to consider how your house is positioned for solar gain during the seasons. You also want to consider how close you are to a great solar exposure opening if you lot want to do solar panels. Annihilation beyond 50 feet betwixt your house and your solar panel placement is going to effect in a big plenty voltage drop that information technology will need to exist addressed.
Proximity To Things
This section is more near how close the country is to other things. Your country needs to exist in a location that is close enough for you to get on with living and all the things that come with that. This includes a reasonable distance to commute to work, to become out to dinner or lunch, to become to the gym, library, and other like services. I would too consider where your friends and family are. How shut do y'all want to be to them?
For me I am 30 minutes from family unit, 15 to friends, the city center, as well as the "hot spots" that I similar to hang out and dine. I work from home or wherever I have my laptop and an Internet connection. I oftentimes plan out my calendar week to what I'grand doing so cull coffee shops near where I'm already going. I too have access to a co-working space, which I can concur meetings at and work from if I just want to get out of the house.
Your Turn!
- What other consideration should you make?
- How do your plans differ?
Source: https://thetinylife.com/setting-up-your-land-for-a-tiny-house-2/
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