On the cheap...

Maybe I should just periodically make an updated post about all the cheap or free stuff that we've found! Our home design does change periodically because of the nature of our building methods: if it's cheap or free, we'll take it. It makes us especially happy if it has already been used.

Here are a few of our recent finds:

Used shower pan. $20 from Habitat for Humanity

Ikea sink. Bought new on clearance for $20

Used doors. Free for hauling away from Building Community's last build site

Wood. So much wood (this is only one of five, plus some thinner pieces).
This, too was free for hauling off from Building Community's last build site.

Small tiles. Left over from our first house
(but we recently found them in the bottom of a box, so I'm counting this as a recent find)

Large tiles. $10 for a box of 13

Not pictured but recently purchased: Two gallons of grey porch paint for the interior USB (Ha! I meant OSB) floor at $6/gallon (I'll show you pictures of what I did with it after I'm done.)

That's all for now! I want to take a minute to say a special thanks to Building Community. This is an awesome non-profit organization that renovates inner-city structures and does special build projects for other organizations. When we were at their build site, they were finishing up a cute, colorful garden shed for a community garden in Oak Cliff. You can see the shed in the first few pictures on their website. It's the one with the multicolored plastic tiles and slanted roof. The materials that we took from them were basically scraps from other building projects that needed to be moved off the build site. And we are grateful for every bit of it! 

On the level...

It doesn't look like much of a change.

You might not be able to see the change if we just took a picture of the side of Box 1.

But you can FEEL the change!

So what is it that we did?

Box 1 has been leveled! I can now drop a can of food or a bottle of shampoo without having it roll right out the end of the box! The new sense of equilibrium is astounding - getting out of bed and finding my balance will no longer be an issue. Oh, the simple pleasures in life!

Before: Front view (you really can't tell that it's tilty here, but believe me, it is...)

You can kinda tell here that the box tilts to the front and to one side.

After: Front/side view (It's not fancy, but it works for us!)

Blowin' in the wind: The making of a wind turbine

The answer is indeed blowing in the wind. So what was the question?

The question was: "How can we provide electricity to Box 1 while staying within our budget and off the grid?"

Wind power! BA has been hard at work researching construction methods and needed components for a home-made wind turbine. It's not done yet, but here are some pictures of what we've done so far.

This is a fan motor. It will be the motor that runs the turbine, and it will be attached to a flywheel.
BA got it free at a scrapyard and rewired it himself. 

This is the PVC pipe that will become the blades for the turbine.

This is BA cutting out the turbine blades from the PVC pipe, using a circular saw.

These are the blades. You can't tell from the pic, but there are three of them.
They are slightly curved with notches on the ends.

We'll be doing more work on the windmill over the weekend, so check back for "Blowin' in the wind Part II." If this concept works well to provide electricity for Box 1, we'll repeat the process on the future structures of BaHa Ranch. Alternatives would include buying a manufactured windmill or windmill kit, or using solar power on a larger scale than what we are already using.

We got most of the information on how to do this from How To Build A Wind Turbine, so if you want to try this too, check them out!