Lifestyle change, Montana...

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Nobody
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Re: Lifestyle change, Montana...

Post by Nobody »

Do you have any pictures? I have a hard time understanding why anyone would have a problem with what you are doing. Now if I was down wind of a poorly setup composting toilet I might have an issue, but that the type of issue that can be resolved.
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H8PVMNT
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Re: Lifestyle change, Montana...

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Well as it turns out the inner gossip circle in our fair community had been spreading around that we allready had our house mostly up and had some sort of sketchy drain system that dumped out refuse back into the creek. Also the access we have been using skirts what is called "the park", a kind of loosely defined community park where everyone from the last generation had their first beer. Nobody but out ot towners and fishermen use it now. We do have a legal easement to cross this area, but when some gravel for a bike path project got dumped there everyone started thinking we were building an improved hi-grade road. This got everyone all stired up and the county planning office got about a half dozen calls from concerned citizens regarding all the terrible things were were doing.

The local "commercial club" was having a covert meeting to discuss our evil doings. I was informed of this by the county commisioner and one of the officers of the club who is sympathetic and I ended up going to the meeting. No one said anything untill the end when the officer asked on of the guys if he wanted to bring it up. He turned red, fumbled for words and looked at the floor. Long story short I was able to dispell all the rumors and explain exactly what we had done and what we were doing so now everyone knows the truth and can spread the right rumors.

We are developing a new access where out property touches the highway, we just have to install a big culvert, which the county will help us with at a reduced cost...

Now, we don't need any permits for our project at all in this county out of city limits, but due to all the calls claiming we were poluting the creek and building roads the sanatarian was obligated to come out and inspect our site. He was pretty hostile untill he saw that we hadn't done any of the things people were saying. Then it was allright. He is an old SCCA guy who I knew from the local coffee shop anyway which also helped out alot.

Montana DEQ sees no difference between grey water and black water (sewage), and they don't understand proper composting toilet technology, so the sanitarian who wouldn't have been envoled at all were it not for our wonderful community flapping their mouths would require us to have a conventional septic system on top of what we had planed. The good news is our place has soil types that makes it a perfect sand filter and we can use a typical, standard septic system without having to spend an arm and a leg, however, we are now required to hire an engineer to confirm all this because the sanitarian wants to cover his butt with documentation due to our proximity to the creek.

So we hit a bit of a financial wall for now, but we will be finishing up our foundation and putting up walls over the next few months. Then we will need to wait untill we get our current home sold in order to afford the culvert, septic system, drill a well, solar, etc.

The important thing is that we don't go into debt on this thing, then it will be a success.

Phone is in though and is only costing us $55. :)
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H8PVMNT
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Re: Lifestyle change, Montana...

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Finally got the saw mill up and running again and started milling timbers. We need to mill about 300 feet of 6x8 and a bunch of floor joists, then we can put up our allready milled walls.
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Re: Lifestyle change, Montana...

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A picture! Now you're talking. :cool:
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H8PVMNT
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Re: Lifestyle change, Montana...

Post by H8PVMNT »

So I was posting an engine swap thread over on Marlin Crawler Forum this year and it kind of turned into a house project thread...

http://board.marlincrawler.com/index.php?board=16.0

Here are a couple of teaser pics. We moved in.

036.JPG
038.JPG
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Re: Lifestyle change, Montana...

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In an interesting turn of events I got the job as the appraiser for the whole county for department of revenue dealing with property values for property taxes. Oddly enough that seemed to quite the folks that were giving us a hard time. Can't imagine why...

Over the last year we got the house up and are living in it. I did score a good deal on a $2500 composting toilet that I got from a guy who had picked it up with an unfinished cabin he bought. He sold it for $600. Turns out we can use it legally after all!
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Re: Lifestyle change, Montana...

Post by Nobody »

You stole my thunder, I was going to make a wise crack about an indoor toilet. Looks like a nice spread. Congrats on the job.

I'm actually a bit jealous. Sometimes I just want to liquidate and join you! Parts of Eastern Wa are very similar to there. I'd really like to pick up some recreational property there some year.
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