Additionally, my sister has hired a guy to clear 2 acres across the street for her house. Gotta clear it enough to do a PERC test for septic. I'll get photos as the work progresses.

Her plan at the moment is a walk in basement into the side of a hill. The basement will be flanked by 8ft wide storage areas that are covered by a concrete porch. So we've got to dig into the hill 10ft deep.

At this moment the plan is ICF walls EVERYWHERE... in my house the outside of the basement is 8" concrete blocks. But ICF straight blocks replace 6 CMU blocks. Once you pay $2.50 a block and pay a guy $2.50 to lay it, 6 x $5.00 is $30... and ICF is $25.

The main floor of the house may end up being from SuperFloorUSA. It's a steel joist system that will hold the concrete floor and not need shoring during the pour. I've mentioned several times before that my house costs $350 a year to heat and cool. With the additional thermal mass of a concrete floor in her house, she may end up with even less energy needed.

More about sis.... We are looking at building a pole shed like the one I recently built that will cover two shipping containers, likely 40ft wide and 50ft long. That way she can open the doors of the 40ft shipping container and still have a roof over it. They'll either run power to that pole shed or we'll do a temporary solar setup, haven't decided yet. She and her husband will move their camper up here to live on site while building.

Rural South Carolina hardware store.

Often when we calculate the payback time on a solar system, we look back at our bills. We need to look at the future cost avoidance. How much will power rates rise in the future?

Bobby the Bobcat is around....

Here's a handy corner umbrella holder. You should always have umbrellas available in case of tyrannical reign.

Welll.... we have to cut about an inch off the end of the metal siding and I got about 3/4 through my first cut of the day and the sheet metal nibbler died. I managed to complete the cut with sheet metal shears and got exactly ONE sheet up. Damn it... So I can go to horrible freight and buy their nibbler and a battery for $220 or wait til thursday for a 120v one to ship here. Guess we're waiting til next weekend to start again.

Additionally, my sister came up today to look at the work the man has done clearing 2 acres for her. We shot grade on the hill and found a place to locate the house that provides a 9ft elevation change from one end to the other.... we were hoping for 10ft, but 9 is close enough. Now she knows where septic can go and we start the SC DHEC perc test process.

EDIT: additional note... South Carolina *only* requires a septic to live on a property.