Living in Camper Update

Day 67 - with all the activity on the house going on, I thought I would take a minute to post an update on how the actual living part is going. We have now been in the campers for 9 weeks and 3 days.

Campers - Tori and Tina's camper is holding up great. We have had minor problems but nothing big. As far as I am aware the only thing that has broken is one of the clasps on a cabinet. These campers are NOT durable and we are trying to be very carful. The other camper for Rod and I is not the same. Like I have posted before, it was ragged out. Last night was another water leak. Luckily it happened while we were still awake. It is only a small part on the back of the toliet and will be cheap and easy to fix.

Clothes - Mom is still washing our clothes. Rod has the washing machine almost hooked up in the container but until it warms up some I will not be able to use it. I will not have a dryer so I will be using a clothes line. Remember this paragraph when you read about the mud below.... Mom says that she can't believe how much mud and dirt we bring with our clothes. The volume of clothes is taking her back to the old days of when me and Mike were young.

Showers - Rod bought a "camping" instant hot water heater. It was inexpensive and is propane. The picture on the box shows someone washing a horse. (So I guess if it doesn't work for the campers - Willow and Kaylee are getting baths :-) However, with 3 broken ribs Rod has not been able to even attempt to put it on. He will have to do some climbing under the campers and he just can't do that yet. He hopes he might be able to work on it this weekend. The girls and I are still taking showers at my parents daily and Rod is making do with the 5 gallon hot water heater. Tina did take a bath last night. The hot water heater only put about 1 inch of water in the tub. But like the Beverly Hillbillies, I was boiling water on the stove and kept adding more water to it. By the end she had about 6 inches of hot water and was happy. The water is still sulpher but lucky for me - I am the one in the family that can't smell.

Animals - They are all doing Ok. Dolly and Molly are still not friends and Molly has been hurt but will recover. This morning Dolly was all the way up on the road. Totally not sure what she was thinking. The dogs got more chickens last week so Tina's egg business is going to be hurting. The goats are made at us because we fixed the horse barn and they can't get out any longer.

Mud - Tennessee has been extremely wet this year. One of my biggest complaints has nothing to do with a camper. It is the mud. It is driving me crazy. We sweep daily and there is still mud. I guess if we were already in the new house I would be yelling at everyone when I caught them walking in without taking their shoes off when it is wet.

Rod - works like a dog. I really don't know how we would be able to do this without both of us being willing to work all day at our jobs and then willing to come home and work here. There is something all the time. Since he has had broken ribs he has still (with our help) built the horse barn wall, fixed a water leak, worked on the 4 wheel drive part of Tori's new truck, worked on the original tarp that caused his fall, pulled the trailer to get more hay for the horses, dug out the ground at the barn to help with drainage, ran the box blade down the driveway to try to help fill in the holes, exchange propane tanks several times, helped Tori build a cat house, etc. This is just the list I can remember while sitting her in these few minutes.

Normalicy - We have adjusted and now the campers feel "normal". In a quote from Tori " It is sad to say that this feels totally normal and it is living in a camper". Home truly is where you heart is. We are fortunate enough that we are living here in order to build a home that we all want. We are all still together, healthy, and happy.

So with today being New Years Eve and the last day of 2009 - I can say that we have had a very eventful year. One year ago today we really didn't have plans to sell the house, that at the time, we all loved. But like always, when Rod and I want something we hang onto each other and jump. The kids will miss the pool at the old house but they have gained horses, goats, etc. I'm sure 2010 will be a great year. I'm looking forward to watching our house go up, moving in, (not looking forward to decorating as that is not my cup of tea and is challenging for me) and just having a wonderful family.

Day 15 - working on slab

Well since Monday, I have had to work late. So we have not been here to see any progress in the daylight for 2 days. Tonight it is raining and we can see that trucks have been up and down the driveway. So Rod got a lantern to go see what is happening. They have removed all the braces from the inside of the shell and cleaned up any debris. Also, I'm not sure how many gravel trucks came in today, but we have a huge pile of gravel! This will be used under the slab. Tomorrow I will be working from the camper and will take some pictures and try to catch the builder to know what is happening next.

Building Blocks - The ICF block

This is a Polysteel ICF block. It has 2.5" of insulation on each side with fit together channels on the sides. They have a metal grid molded into them every 6" that work like metal studs. You can fasten any exterior or interior directly onto the blocks with screws. There are strips of sheet metal welded to each grid that act like metal studs. These blocks have a 6" center that gets filled with concrete. This means you end up with 11" walls before the drywall or brick are installed. You can order them in 4", 8" and 10" also. The contractor told us they poured 36 yards of concrete in the 1st story walls on Monday.

Day 13 - "pour" day - 1st floor

It truly is amazing. Today is the 13th day since they started construction. Within the 13 days we have had 2 weekends and a holiday so that is actually 5 1/2 days out of the 13 where no work was done.






Our foreman over the exterior, Jeff, is out of town until after the first of the new year. He said that Tim, the general contractor, would be out on Monday to pour the concrete. He really didn't know if Tim would be able to do it or if they wouldn't do any work until next week. So we were really excited to hear the guys out here working at about 6:30 this morning.

Tori called at about 1:00 p.m. to tell me the concrete pumper truck was here. Tim had come over to talk to her and told her there would be 4 concrete trucks coming today and it would take them until about 4:00 to complete it. When I got home from work they were just finishing up. They used the huge arm of the pumper truck and literally "filled up" the walls.

5 Workers and 1 Pig

According to Tim, the general contractor, pour day is a long day for the workers. The guy who has been overseeing our project is out of town. So the owner of the company was up working on pouring the concrete today. He said he has a tradition of bringing lunch to the workers on pour day. Well, these workers have never had a pour day with a pig. Dolly went to everyone of them trying to get left overs. They were even trying to shoo her away and it was not working. Tori just had to snap a picture of it all and I just had to post it :-)

Christmas Morning

Santa still managed to find us in the campers. We had taken most of the presents to Mom and Dad's house because we just didn't have room to store them. But we saved some to open over here. Everyone had a couple of presents and of course the stockings were filled.

Tori and Tina's favorite present were bitless bridles for the horses.

1st story ICF blocks are up

It only took the crew about 10-12 hours to assemble the 1st story blocs including the window and door openings.

Day 8 - ICF walls on the first floor

They put rebar in the footers to connect the walls to. Now they stack the blocks on top of the footer. It only took them 1 day to get this far with the blocks and window openings. This company uses vinyl (window bucks) around the window openings. No wood to rot.

Day 7 - Poured the footers

The footers were inspected and poured. We are out of town and did not get to see it. It is feeling like things are beginning to move. Finally.

Day 6 - Footers

We had a good bit of rain last Friday and Saturday morning. Things dried up and they dug the footers first thing Monday.

Day 3 - Digging with the big equipment

On Day 2 they were digging with a little bobcat. They realized the needed some bigger equipment. So today they brought out a backhoe. The backhoe moved a lot of dirt quick! The entire basement is dug out. Then the superindendent got down into the hole and painted all the lines for the footer. On Monday they plan to come back out and hopefully dig the holes for the footer and pour them.

Day 2 - Digging

They delivered more ICF blocks, re-bar and ICF installation equipment. They used a bobcat and started the excavation for the basement.
I also spoke with the electrician Sal who let us borrow the electrical temporary equipment. He said a good estimate for all electrical supplies and labor is around $3 per square foot. This would not include ceiling fans. I still have a couple of months (probably) before I have to begin wiring.

Day 1 - Construction Begins

Today is the true Day # 1 of construction. Jeff is the worker from our builder that has been out. He has delivered the items needed to brace the ICF's.

Closing

All steps seem to be huge steps. Last night was no exception. Our loan agent brought the paperwork over for us to sign. He said it was the first time he had closed a loan in a camper :-) We signed all the paperwork and are now ready for them to start building!!!

About the loan we got - We had to roll the remaining balance of our land into the loan. However, because we had equity in the land we were not required to have any additional money at closing. The type of loan is a construction loan that will automatically convert to a conventional 15 year mortgage. The APR during the construction phase is 4.14% which saves us some money because our previous land loan was at 7.5%. Our closing cost to close the loan were $4,800 but we will not have any additional closing costs when we convert it to a traditional mortgage. So all will be well if we stay within the budget. From how it was explained to me last night, if it costs less than that to build they will give us the remaining at the end of the consturction phase and then we can turn around and pay it on principal. The amortization and loan amount will not change now regardless of what it costs to build. Of course if it goes over that means we would need money out of pocket to pay for any overruns.

As I am typing this early in the morning.... The dogs are barking and what do I see? More ICF blocks being delivered. A backhoe is going to be delivered tomorrow!!! I am just so excited and can't wait.

Joy, the pig, and the pain

Wow what a roller coaster 2 days can be....





First the Joy. I got home from work on Tuesday to see that the ICF blocks had been delivered!! Oh we can so feel like they will start soon. The bank has been out to take the pictures for the appraisal and we are close to closing on our loan.

Then Wednesday comes and I hear the dogs barking. This is not the bark of someone on the land, this is the bark that they are tattling on one of the other animals. So I look out the window to see Dolly tearing the plastic up that is holding the ICF blocks together. The wind had knocked over one of the bundles and she was taking the plastic back to her bed for extra bedding because of the cold. She had pulled several of the blocks across the yard. I had a fit! When I went looking, I noticed she had taken a bite out of a couple of them. So I thought what else.....

Now the PAIN - The wind had been blowing extremely hard today. The tarp that is on my and Rod's camper had been blown off as well as some of the Christmas decorations. Rod was on the ladder trying to secure the tarp back down. What goes up must also come back down.... Unfortunately this time, the trip down was not like expected. The ladder came out from under him and broke his fall. In the process there are 3 broke ribs. He is in a lot of pain but will recover. We are lucky it was not worse.

Redneck Insulation

So Rod has run power and water to the container in order to hook up my washing machine. Not sure when it will happen, but Mom is probably tired of all of our laundry. So he is working hard to make it where I can wash clothes over here (nope, there will not be a dryer...) Anyway, the water pipe comes up out of the ground and will go into a hole he drilled into the shipping container. He needed some insulation. Tori calls me to tell me that we had hit a new low.. Rod was using horse manure as an insulator on the pipes. Guess that is true redneck insulation.

Cold Weather

The cold weather has arrived. We have had a couple of nights that we have reached the freezing point and last night it got down into the low 20's. (22 at 7:30 this morning)

To try to keep the pipes from freezing and to help with the heat, Rod worked all day yesterday on putting up some underpinning under the campers. Zac and Tori helped and it was an all day job. The dogs will not be happy because they were sleeping under the campers.

On the way up the hill Rod lost some wood. Tori and Zac stopped and picked up a few pieces.














Rod had to use the hoe to get the ground as level as he could


Tori and Zac were screwing the boards on


And when Tori was not helping on the underpinning she was digging a trench from the campers to the container. This was only a few inches deep so that Rod can run the electrical. The plumbing was already run 24" deep.

Normal Life

Living in the campers does not stop normal life. The two weeks have been that way. Tori had all 4 of her impacted wisdom teeth cut out. That was a week on the couch and the camper felt really small during those days. Then we had our first holiday in the Camper - Thanksgiving. We went to breakfast at Rod's grandparents like always. Dinner was at Mom and Dads. Between breakfast and dinner we went to my grandparent's house. This would be the last time I would see my granddaddy alive. He was alert and talked to all of us. After a battle with cancer on Saturday morning he passed away.

Living in the campers has not changed Tori being an overachiever either. For science class she volunteered to bring in a treat for everyone. Well she couldn't just bake cookies - we had to make the periodic table from cookies. All of these were baked and decorated in the camper. I only burned the first batch. Cooking with gas is still a learning experience.

Camping for Christmas

We do not have room for the old 7' artificial tree in the campers, so we decided to do an outside Christmas tree this year. It took the kids about 45 minutes to pick the tree. We went to Dollar General and bought some "outdoor quality" lights and decorations.

This tree is almost 12' tall in the ground. This will be our biggest tree ever.

Blissfully Quiet

When you spend $300 for a used generator, it is not the quietest that they make. It actually is quite loud. Rod had put it as far as possible from the campers and he also put up some wood to block the noise. However, starting today..... we have ELECTRICITY all the way to the campers!!! Blissfully Quiet! (of course now the dogs will be able to hear everything at night and will bark 4 times more)

Power Trip

We made it to the 1930s. We have electricity! Really, we have always had power, but we had to listen to the generator for 12 hours a day. It was not that bad. We only had a couple of hour outage when the generator did not work. Metal fatigue caused the pull cord housing to break off. It was nothing larger washers could not fix. Now to run the wire 300+ feet to the "twin trailers". It will have to wait until after Thanksgiving. Thank you to Sal for letting us borrow the temporary and the inspector Mr. Baird for inspecting it the day we called him. It cost $27 for me to pull the electrical permit.

Well House

It is late November and I needed to get a temporary well house built. The pump is submersed 190' down. There is a 52 gallon pressure tank, pressure switch and cut-off valves that are exposed until the house is built. I will move everything into the mechanical room of the house when completed, but I have to protect it from freezing over the winter. I built a 4'x3'x3.5' box and will use 3/4" styrofoam insulation on the sides. I will also put it under the roof. I also made a metal roof for it. This should keep it from freezing. I also painted it flat black for added solar heating.

Ditch Witch

This weekend Rod's priority was to get the water line from the well to the campers buried underground. He rented the ditch witch on Friday afternoon and had it all weekend. On Saturday morning he was up early to get started on it... It took over an hour to get it started. After getting it started, he was fairly successful at creating a trench until he had to quit. He had some help for part of the day and some of my friends helped as well. When he quit on Saturday he felt really good about how far he had made it. Sunday was going to be easy to finish.

Sunday came and once again he could not get it started. After over an hour trying, Tina trying, Zac trying... no go. It never started. So now we will have to rent another one next weekend. bummer.

Busy Week

Living in campers is certainly a challenge. This week was not an exception. On Sunday and Monday the generator died in the middle of the night and we had to go outside in the night to start. Monday was the plumbing leak (which Rod thought he fixed but it is still leaking). Tuesday after I got home from work I tried to start the generator. Because of metal fatigue, the part holding the pull cord together broke. So I couldn't start the generator. Rod was able to repait it when he got home. Wednesday morning we realized we were out of propane (which means NO heat). We had all the propane tanks filled on Wednesday - (5) 20 gallon tanks, (2) 30 gallon tanks, and (1) 100 gallon tank for $187. Guess we will see how long that will last. The lows are getting into the low/mid 30's at nights. As for the generator - Rod hooked up our 2nd one that didn't run and has both tanks feeding the 1 engine. He also bought a fuel filter for it. Since he did all this work on Tuesday we are not having any more brown outs and it has run all night.

Covered and smothered

Waffle house joke. We put a roof on the deck this weekend. Since the deck for the campers is a temporary, I tried building it without making any cuts. I put everything together with screws. I will be able to take it all back apart and re-use the wood.

Plumbing Problems

Well, I guess no matter where you live, the time will come that you have to repair a sink. That time was tonight for Rod. This morning when I came over to wake the girls up, there was water in the floor in the bathroom. So Camping World here Rod comes! Luckily, as repairs go.. this was an "easy" one and it only cost $3. We also bought the RV/Marine toilet tissue. I am sure most camper owners would not believe we had been using regular toilet paper for the first 3 weeks.

Generator Problems

The generator has been "stumbling" sometimes. It seems to be random and some tanks it will not do it at all. When it does this stumbling it almost always doesn't actually die. Rod has been saying he is going to get a fuel filter for it. However, last night was the first time since we have been running on the generator that something happened to cause it to not run all night. Not sure what time it died but when the alarm went off at 5:00 a.m. it was chilly in the camper. Luckily the low last night was only 48 so it didn't get too cold. This is Rod's new top priority!

Electricity (Almost)

CEMC said there was a 10 day waiting queue once we paid them for the electrical hook-up. We paid them on Tuesday and today (Thursday) they drilled the holes for all 5 poles and stood 3 of them up. This is great! We have been living here without utility power since October 26th. We run about 4 gallons of gas through the generator on days Brandy does not work from home.

Electricity

Rod had called CEMC, our electric company, and told them we were staying on the land. Their normal process is to not run electricity until there is concrete footers poured. Luckily, the guy at CEMC was understanding. Since we alreay had the well, building permit, horse barn, etc. he was willing to go ahead and run the electricity. He said the queue is about 10 days wait. We have to drop 6 trees before they will setup the poles. So, today to start our 10 day waiting period, I had to go pay them $4,315.

New Address

After getting the driveway permit approved and pulling the building permit the next step was to get an address. In order to get an address you have to notify the 911 commission and they are the ones who come out and decide on your address. I happen to be at the campers this afternoon when he showed up. He was an older man who has been around these parts for a good while. So he talked my ear off. He also had to know exactly where the front door was going to be. After he left it only took about an hour until the building department called me with the official address. Now as soon as we put a mailbox up (all the way at the road) we will be able to recieve mail other than at the P.O. Box I setup.

The deck is done.

Now to put a roof on it.

Now it is a double-wide!

We built a temporary 8X8' deck between the 2 campers on Saturday. Now we can walk between them without any steps. I will end up making it a covered deck soon. It cost around $240. I think I am pretty good at backing a trailer, but it took me 30 tries to get the campers lined up square with the deck.

Tori helped and did 90% of the deck screws for me after I had everything fastened down.

$8,844.40

Taxes - WOW. This week started off with all of Tina's chickens on the loose. We have spent every morning before work and school tracking down and catching chickens. The dogs have gotten 5 of them and 15 have been recovered. There are still a few more missing. The week ended with Rod coming back from his trip to find camper #1 was out of propane (which means out of heat). Not too big of a deal because we were staying with my parents. Today I went to apply for out building permit. Our county has development tax of $3,750, a residential construction tax of .60 per square foot (all under roof including porches) and an adequate facilities tax of $1.00 per square foot. The grand total for the building permit was $8,844.40. However, we now officially have the permit to build!

Driveway Permit

I called on Tuesday to ask the county building department what I need to pull the building permit. The first step is the driveway permit. I called the highway department to request the permit. After giving the map/parcel information on the land they took my phone number and said they would get back with me. Today they called and said that it was approved. From here they will notify the building department and now I can go pay my fees and pull the permit.

The Roof

The builders have talked us out of doing a metal roof. We have not seen an actual quote for it yet, but they all 3 claim it will cost 3 times as much. A metal roof would look good on our home design, but a brown colored shingle will look just as good. Fire protection would be the only real reason to go with a metal/tin roof at this point if you can replace a shingle roof 3 times for the cost of a metal one. I will just have to NOT catch the woods on fire.

Week without Rod

This week Rod is out of town. I am not sure about staying in the campers alone with the kids yet. So I have decided to go stay with my parents until he gets back on Friday. This means spacious rooms, lots of hot water, and home cooked meals. I also took this opportunity to use a insect fogger in the campers to try to get the ants under control. After I picked the kids up from school today we went to the campers and took all the food and clothes out, set off the bug bombs and left. Tomorrow morning when we feed all the animals I will open the windows and let it all air out. I hope that this combined with the cool weather will finally get rid of them for good. Then I might be able to cook :-)

TV

We have not had any TV since Sunday when we moved over here. We paid the satellite guy to move our satellite last weekend but hooking up the TV has not been a priority - places to sleep, water, electricity were the priorities. Tonight after all the problems, Rod took the time to hook up a TV.

More water than we want

Well this afternoon started out a little rough.

1. The kids and I were locked out of their camper until Rod got home
2. The awnings were blown around with the wind today.
3. I started the generator and it ran out of gas in about 10 minutes.
4. But by far the worst was the extra water in our camper... yes it is leaking from the rain. We have 2 buckets in the bathroom and one over our bed. Looks like Rod and I will be sleeping on the couch in Tori and Tina's camper tonight.

One thing I am absolutely certain of, life will not be boring over here.

Continuous Water

One ongoing issue is the fact that we do not have electricity for the well pump without Rod moving the generator to the other side of the yard. The well is over near where the house will be built and we are about 300 feet away. Last night he ran electric cable from the pump to the generator. He will eventually rent a trencher and bury the line but for now it is across the ground. However, now as long as the generator is running we have continuous water. Now if we can just figure out the hot water situation we will be in business.

Tonight we spent time trying to organize our clothes in the new camper that we got 2 days ago. There is less space in this one for Rod and I to share. I packed up about 1/2 of my clothes but Rod seems to have brought more than anyone. I'm sure after a few weeks we will go through the clothes again and decide what we can do without and what we really need.

Last night was also the first time since Sunday that we all actually slept in a true bed. The kids went to bed on time and I was asleep by 10:30.

Thought I would post a picture of the new camper and also one of the beautiful leaves. I will be glad when we get all the necessities in order so we can enjoy how stunningly beautiful it is up here. I will be so excited when the house is finished and I can sit on the deck and enjoy all this.