TalkBaja.com » Baja Mexico Forums » Building your Baja dream home

Originally Posted by Marty Cortez

Where were the kiters/sailboarders? That lineup looks pretty happening.

I don't know much about kiteboarding, but for some reason they don't like the wind here. Probably because the point and bluffs cause the wind to do all kinds of crazy things.

Originally Posted by ELINVESTIG8R

Wow, All I can say is I sincerely wish you and Oladulce all the happiness and tranquility you can stand for the rest of your lives.

Gracias

Legz and BG...lots of pictures are being taken. I was getting a little (ok a lot) behind on electrical so I hired an electrician to help out today. Turns out he really knows his stuff and works fast. I felt like a big rock in a fast moving stream next to him!

So will you be changing your on-line name to BigRock in the near future?

Force yourself to adapt!! It's called retirement & it does have some rewards....you get to be jefe!! Undoubtedly Mother Nature's way of telling you to stop dragging your feet on becoming a surf bum & a construction photo journalist!

Legz is on to something and maybe you need to sit down with Mike Humfreville's book, In the Shadow of the Volcano. Its is a great book about life in Baja and learning to slow down and truly appreciate the wonder of daily life down here on this magical stretch of peninsula. It took me awhile to really figure it out and I am probably still only half way through the process.

Building our house down here has certainly taught me a lot more patience for sure...

I love the one that says, The hardest thing about doing nothing is its hard to tell if you have finished.

Originally Posted by J.P.

I love the one that says, The hardest thing about doing nothing is its hard to tell if you have finished.

I like that a lot. It reminds me that the reward is in the journey and not the destination.
Another one that I use as my mantra is that laziness is the key to efficiency......which helps me get back to the more serious work of not accomplishing anything.......other than enriching my life with experience and shared moments.

Hopefully I'll be able to figure out how to relax, but for now I enjoy keeping busy:



The crew went home for the weekend, so I did manage to take a few naps

Walls are going up fast, pretty soon it may begin to look like something:

Wow - really looking great Woo! So are you going to share a copy of your floorplan???

Doncha love it when a plan comes together?!

You got an awful lotta those orange hoses....for a solar place!

Originally Posted by longlegsinlapaz

You got an awful lotta those orange hoses....for a solar place!

Actually there's more wires with solar because there are more switches. Where, in an on-grid house, one switch might turn on 4 or 5 lights, we have them grouped into two switches of two lights. The microwave will have a switch, oven, TV, computer, modem as all these appliances draw power even when they're not on (my microwave draws 30 watts a day...doing nothing!). So to avoid having Hot jumper wires running all over the place, cramming the switch boxes, we opted for more smaller individual circuits.

All our outdoor lighting will be 12volt. Which also = more wires. There's a lot of great high output, low draw 12 volt LED outdoor lighting now. Rather than powering a 120 - 12 volt converter 24/7, we opted to have a separate 12v sub-panel for the outdoor lighting and will power the outdoor and landscape lights directly off the batteries. All the big wires are already in place from building the casita, so we might as well take advantage of it.

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

Wow - really looking great Woo! So are you going to share a copy of your floorplan???

I'll see if I can figure out how to make a .jpg of them.

Any questions why I'd never wanna live off-grid?? You either have a stronger pioneer spirit than I do....all the extra effort & knowledge to live life comfortably via solar) or you don't have enough true pioneer spirit ....buying candles in bulk (or making your own!), bathing & laundry in the ocean, building a fenced pasture for the herd to provide milk & meat, a hen house, cooking over a campfire, digging a root cellar to store your spuds & keep your cervesa cold!

I'll have to get back to ya when I figure out which!

Originally Posted by longlegsinlapaz

Any questions why I'd never wanna live off-grid?? You either have a stronger pioneer spirit than I do....all the extra effort & knowledge to live life comfortably via solar) or you don't have enough true pioneer spirit ....buying candles in bulk (or making your own!), bathing & laundry in the ocean, building a fenced pasture for the herd to provide milk & meat, a hen house, cooking over a campfire, digging a root cellar to store your spuds & keep your cervesa cold!

I'll have to get back to ya when I figure out which!

Extra effort and knowledge is much more preferable, before retiring we spent several years researching solar and living off grid in general. I do know, and have met several people who live the latter (without the pasture or root cellar) and enjoy it, but I don't think I could do it.

Setting up off-grid living requires some extra money and work, no question there. However once you are up and running the house is really not any different than one connected to a power grid. Your lifestyle may change a bit as you will grow (very) conscious of your power generation / consumption but it does have a couple of very nice benefits:

1. With a good psw inverter (converting the battery DC to AC) you will have a much more stable power feed which will extend the life of your sensitive electronics like computers, etc.

2. Our power never goes out - haven't had to reset the microwave clock since we first bought and installed it.

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

Setting up off-grid living requires some extra money and work, no question there. However once you are up and running the house is really not any different than one connected to a power grid. Your lifestyle may change a bit as you will grow (very) conscious of your power generation / consumption but it does have a couple of very nice benefits:

1. With a good psw inverter (converting the battery DC to AC) you will have a much more stable power feed which will extend the life of your sensitive electronics like computers, etc.

2. Our power never goes out - haven't had to reset the microwave clock since we first bought and installed it.

#2 Alone would make it GREATTTTTTTTT

After all the stories I hear about the local power, I would do solar even if I could "hook up". Like BG says, other than being a bit more conscious about leaving unused lights on, and buying more efficient lights and appliances, it's really not that much different.

Without attempting to hijack Wooo's thread TOO much....there's a huge difference in cost for those of you who have the wherewithal to install & maintain a solar system yourself. I do appreciate the never having to pay for electricity part....but after having gotten presupuestos from THREE local solar providers in the La Paz area just to heat my pool for year-round use....all THREE were between $20-21K USD equivalent. While longevity does run in my family, I decided not to bother asking what the cost would be to go total solar! It's questionable whether or not I have enough years left in me to recoup the cost of electricity based on my current fairly conservative usage habits.

Unfortunately, BG's travel & living expenses would have exceeded the solar materials cost! Besides, I'm not sure there ARE any all-inclusive 5-star accommodations in La Paz !

BG, either you don't change back & forth between standard & DST, or you only use your microwave clock for a nightlight!

Originally Posted by BajaGringo

Wow - really looking great Woo! So are you going to share a copy of your floorplan???

Thanks BG, it's pretty exciting to see it finally coming together. Here's the floor plan and some renderings:


Downstairs:



Upstairs:



I also made a model of the house in Google Sketchup, the house will probably be done before I complete the computer model, but here's a few renderings:

What it looks like today:



Here's a computer version of the same side:



Here's a computer rendering of the front:



Incomplete rendering of the kitchen/living room:

Originally Posted by longlegsinlapaz

Without attempting to hijack Wooo's thread TOO much....there's a huge difference in cost for those of you who have the wherewithal to install & maintain a solar system yourself. I do appreciate the never having to pay for electricity part....but after having gotten presupuestos from THREE local solar providers in the La Paz area just to heat my pool for year-round use....all THREE were between $20-21K USD equivalent. While longevity does run in my family, I decided not to bother asking what the cost would be to go total solar! It's questionable whether or not I have enough years left in me to recoup the cost of electricity based on my current fairly conservative usage habits.

Unfortunately, BG's travel & living expenses would have exceeded the solar materials cost! Besides, I'm not sure there ARE any all-inclusive 5-star accommodations in La Paz !

BG, either you don't change back & forth between standard & DST, or you only use your microwave clock for a nightlight!

The cost of solar is definitely significant, especially if you hire someone to do it for you. BG and I both saved a significant amount of $$ by designing and installing our own systems.