Part 11: Son of a bitch! Radiant floor heating and argon filled super windows.
I see you've returned. That's good because there is so much more to tell, and we're about to get dirty, not that American-flag speedo guy wasn't.
So, here is part 11 (below).
To catch up, here's Part 10: Angry declarations and plan changes.
If you are completely lost, here's Part 1: "How I wound up on this mountain..."
Below is Part 11, moving forward, we are going to get technical, so damn technical.
Where was I? Oh, yes, the building of the house, or at least the start of it.
No matter what any one tells you, plan, plan, and then, plan some more. It's not going to cost what you think it will. It'll cost about 2.5 times more. Maybe, 3 times more.
We had the money for the build, at least we did when the VID 19 snotted all over the world's salad-bar and we all wound up with a bad case of financial depression.
As time went by, in that little rental with the 30 second showers, the sewage problem, and the bad wiring, we discovered that building was no longer as easy as it used to be. Despite having the money to do so.
We were dumb enough to move forward with our shop to home idea. Which as it turns out is only a good idea if you don't have to finance or insure the structure... Oh yeah, and also have the money to do so in the county we live in. Because shit got pricey as fuck.
What we didn't know was that as of the year we built, the energy codes were changed. We needed these things called "energy credits" to make the codes and get our certificate of occupancy. The certificate is basically your right to live in the home you build. Which is pretty messed up when you think about it. It kinda sounds like someone likes keeping track of all those little tax payers. Anyway, as of 2022, the energy credits went up. This was right after we signed a contract for a 40 x 60 pole building- which was going to be our forever home in the mountains. You know, with the bears and mountain lions, those creatures that didn't have phytanyl problems.
Long story short, we knew nothing about these energy credits or the dumbass who signed them into law. Just that both me and my wife know enough to understand that it's not people's houses that create the environmental issues we currently have.
By this point, we had found a contractor who could do what we needed. He could frame the inside of our house and make sure that the shop looked like a home, felt like a home, and would stay warm enough to keep the pipe from freezing.
Then it happened. Jan of 2022 he called us and explained the situation, or I should say, the shit-u-ation. He told us that the only way we could meet the energy credits were to install a radiant floors heating system, to add triple paned windows, and to make sure that the insulation was R-50 or better all around.
We sat on this for a minute and then asked how much it would add to our project. He sighed, because he knew what it meant and then told us. It meant that our build would cost more than a traditional "stick-built" home. The shop, plus a $350,000 inside shell, that was basically a "stick built house was going to cost us over 500K. Incidentally, it also meant that he would not be getting the job. It was bad for the both of us.
Son of a bitch, mother fucker! Politics had shot our dream to shit.
So we went back to the drawing board. An earth-bag home was out. A earth ship home was out. A yurt was un-permittable. A hand built log cabin was uninsurable. We couldn't get a manufactured home or modular up to the build site. And a shop-to-home / barndomenium was a pipe dream.
What did that leave us with?
...a god damned "stick-built". Well shit. We'd been boxed into being average. -shutter-
However the process of getting that together was even more convoluted. It's almost like the proverbial "they", or "them", don't want anyone owning anything unless they have more money than they can count.
So, in early 2022, we started our trip down the path of the "stick-built" home. Back to the drawing board.
Sigh.
Up next, Part 12: You can take that stick and shove it up your...
Cheers!
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