Translate

Thursday, November 1, 2012

I go about things the wrong way...


We've certainly had our ups and down lately in regards to the Tiny Casita project. We’ve had to rethink and re-plan but I think now, we’re in a good place.

In regards to taking our Astro Van and leaving it in Mexico. No can do. The MX government has been cracking down on illegal cars and has been known to take your car if you don’t have a proper permit. We can cross in our vehicle and get a legal permit for up to 6 months. After that it’s illegal unless you nationalize the vehicle. Well, we love our Astro Van but economically, it didn’t make sense to nationalize ($1900).

With that in mind, we reluctantly sold the Mighty Astro. Our hope now is that we can either buy a bigger tow vehicle here or our second, and more likely option would be buy a vehicle already in Mexico.

We also learned a few things about water and septic’s in Mexico. Seems we were going about things the hard way. We’re still interested in getting our well finished, but until then I can buy a tank, along with everything else we need, from Home Depot in Puerto Vallarta and for an extra $40, they’ll deliver everything to our lot. We’ll then have a water truck come and fill the tank. Simple!

As far as septic goes I have two choices. Buy a tank, burry it and arrange to have it pumped out now and then. Or the second and more likely choice, buy a small bio digester. 

Up until a few days ago I had now idea what a bio digester was. Our neighbor in Mexico suggested it as he is using one at his place. So for around $500 I can buy a bio digester tank, and the needed PVC tubing and with the help of a couple guys, we should have a self maintain septic that is also good for the environment buy reducing the amount of methane gas release into the environment. Price below is in MX pecos.
























Long story short: We’ll be flying down in a couple weeks, renting a car, going to Home Depot, buying what we need, having it delivered and then spend a couple weeks working and enjoying. We’re still not sure what we’ll end up doing with the Tiny Casita. Mexico hopefully, maybe we’ll look for a small rustic lot here in Colorado, maybe we’ll decide to sell it. For now, it’s all about getting the land in Mexico to a place that we can start comfortably using it. Whew! Feeling better!

2 comments:

Dan said...

Hi Greg,

Just curious why you're not going the Humanure route for your waste? It's way more simple, no smell...etc.

Anyway, love watching your progress. We're in AZ, planning to go off grid. You can follow our progress at gridrid.com.

Cheers!
Dan

Greg said...

Hey Dan,

My wife and I are fine doing the Humanure thing. In fact the Tiny Casita is currently set-up with a ""Loveable Loo". However, we want to be in a situation where we can make our place available to friends and family (and maybe even for rent) and some have already expressed that they would not be comfortable dealing with Humanure. Plus, the bio-digester is a pretty inexpensive alternative so why not? Looks like where your property is in AZ would be really tough digging a hole though :) Have you figured out yet how to keep your place cool in the summer? That's def one of our biggest challenges down in MX.

Love your blog! Will for sure be following.

Cheers,

Greg