Castle, part 1.

I've decided to take on the very-long-term project of building a castle. For those who don't know, I've purchased 12 acres of land, with the express goal of eliminating debt from my life and minimizing my cost of living. That means that I need to divest myself of my current house and replace it with a paid-for house, though not necessarily in that order :-).

When I say "build a castle," I really mean "stick-build a house which looks an awful lot like a castle." I intend to do most of the construction myself, partly to reduce the cost, and partly because I enjoy construction.

There are some interesting features of the land I purchased which make this endeavor something that is not entirely unreasonable:

• It is full of oak, cypress, and pine.
• It has two creeks which converge near its border.
• There is a pond at the highest point on the property.

How do these features help?

Oak and cypress are materials which are fairly expensive.  At the Home Depot, a 1/2"x2"x4' board of red oak is $4.12 right now.  That's 1/3 board feet, so $12.36 per board-foot.  An 8 ft 2x4, on the other hand, is 3-1/2 board-feet, and costs $3.12, so $0.89 per board foot.  That's a 13.86:1 ratio.  A 32-foot long, 8" diameter log is 9650 cubic inches (32*12*8*π), or 67 board feet.  That's about $800.00, or 265 pine 2x4's (!!).  At 16" centers, those 2x4s would cover 353 feet of distance (not including sill plate or top plate.)  That's enough to frame all of the exterior walls on one floor of my current plan.  Having a source of oak is clearly a Good Thing™.

The creeks.  Ahhh, the sweet sweet running water.  That's pure gold, right there.  First, and most importantly, local laws allow me to dam them up, thereby turning them from creeks into a moat.  I'll have to cut a bit on one side of the property to make the moat completely surround the castle, but I'll still have an honest-to-goodness moat.  By having a dam, I can direct the flow through a turbine and get electricity.  I don't think there's enough flow to cover all of my electricity needs, but it ought to be fairly close.

But there's more.  The water in those creeks is cold — very cold.  Where I live, the air is hot — very hot.  Air conditioning with electricity is expensive — very expensive.  However, pumping cold water through a car radiator with a fan blowing over it is cheap — very cheap.  In other words, I'm going to have nearly free air conditioning.

In addition, by building a water still, I can get potable water without drilling a well. The energy costs are much higher, but the up-front costs are much lower. So I can start with a still, and drill a well later. Can I make a still which provides enough water to live on? I don't really know, but I'm going to find out!

The pond is interesting for several reasons.  First, it means that I can stock it with fish and have a free source of meat. Next, it means that I can use pumped-storage electricity: pump water from a low reservoir up to the pond whenever I'm using less electricity than my (solar, wind, hydro) system is producing.  Later, when I need more electricity than my system can produce, I drain the pond and let the water flow through a turbine, thereby meeting my immediate need. On top of that, I would really like to get a kayak or a canoe and just go sit on the water.  I don't really like to fish, so sitting on the water will generally be a "read in solitude" thing.  Yeah, I know I just said I want to stock the pond w/ fish... I like eating fish, not catching fish, especially with a pole, hook, line, and sinker.  There's a reason man invented nets...

Anyway, I'm embarking on this project.  It's going to be dirty, expensive, exhausting, and hopefully very fun.  We shall see.