Salvaged wood.

    The rain stopped so today we went over to my daughters property . One end of her trailer was cut off because it was to far gone. Me and my son saved a lot of the wall studs saving us about 80$ and used them there. Today we cut loose and cleaned up 14  2 X8X14 that made up the floor on the scraped end. Tomorrow we will carry them to my son's place to use in the kitchen floor.

     It only took about 3 hours to remove and clean them to reuse. Now it was 2 of us working but at 16$ each x 14 it save's us 224$ so on 6 man hours we made / saved over 35$ an hour. I don't know if we will get the floor joist in tomorrow but they will be on site.

    I like to do savings to work hours . If you made 8.50 an hour and brought home 7.25 our saving = 30 hour at work pay. So we saved/ made 5 times pay . I look at life different.

Busy weekend.

      Sorry I disappeared the last 4 days but while  the weather was nice I took advantage. Friday and Saturday  I did the BBQ and had a fair amount of sale's for the end of January . I finished up  early afternoon Saturday and went to Lowe's for the trailers electrical and the outside sheathing. Long story short is I got it wired and it all works. Today we started at 9 and got the front of it sheathed with OSB and the windows cut out. I had hoped to have more of it sheathed but it was a slow start till we got  it worked out. My son was played out when we got home, he is limping pretty bad. Guess tomorrow I will work alone on the end walls, when my son gets to this point it takes a couple of days for him to recoup.  We are not use to 4 days straight of hard work . I would take tomorrow off but  I have other business to take care of Wednesday and Thursday so I will rest then, sort of. If the rain holds off till tomorrow late afternoon I will have some pictures of the place, this has made a big change.

I'm frugal,Not cheap,a Treehugger, enviromentalist and what the hell is a carbon footprint?

      Some people may have noticed I recycle, reuse and repurpose old junk . I repair what I can and even rebuild what appears to be to far gone. I invest a lot of time and effort into changing what I have into a new functional item.

    Many may think doing this is environmentally friendly and ecologically  responsible. It may be but it isn't why I do it. Some may think it leaves a smaller carbon foot print.  Ok on this I don't know where to begin . My actions are not based on a belief in saving the planet (mother nature will shake her ass and we all will die one day). It is based on accomplishing  what I need to do within a budget I can afford.                                                                            My son's place is going to be 1500$ and it works out to 1.20 invested per square foot . Its a 1200 sq. Foot house and with land its 3200$ and will have a 10 year plus new life. My daughter property cost 4600 and is going to cost 2500 to 3000 in rehab on 700 foot home or 4 $ a foot for a total of 7,500. Her place is going to be good for 15 to 20 years of new life.

   This wasn't done to save the structures from the dump It was because build cost range from 35 to ???? infinite on new. Even my vending trailer is going to come in at 1/10th new cost. We managed to acquire the properties at low cost and do low cost renovation's to make them work. This is what  , Frugal means.    Sparing or economical ,simple and plain and costing little

     Now while all of my project have been environmentally friendly that was not the intent. I do think we are to quick to teardown old sound structures to build new lower quality one's in their place and most houses and businesses are built to only last the term of their mortgage.

    Our great grand parents lived a frugal lifestyle because it was all they knew. We have as a society  forgotten what a frugal lifestyle makes possible .

OK some PIc,s of what i have been working on.

      Went and finished the roof at my daughter place today. This picture was taken this morning when we got there.

   As you see I had only 6 sheets to get in place but they were hard to screw in once I run out of room for me to stand.

 I was having to stand on top of an 8 foot ladder and still will need a few more screws put in by a skinner person.
    as you can see this place is rough. The crackheads did  number on the walls chasing a couple of dollars in scrap copper wire. The inner walls have 10 places they ripped around plugs and 2 ceiling panels .

  Here is what the outside looks like all the exterior metal striped except for that little on the top far end. We got that loose this afternoon.

   The open stud area is what we spent a week on . The A hole's had looped a chain around a fireplace and the central air and heat unit and yanked it out through the walls. The roof was collapsed to 4 foot floor to ceiling on the left hand corner. We used a floor jack and sledge hammered the studs in from the right to left . One ooops and the place would have been a total loss. We put the studs on 24 inch centers and all were cut using a 1500 watt inverter powering the skill saw.

   This pic shows about a fourth of the front yard and the 20+ feet we cut off the left end of the mobile home. The place is still trashy even after 4 pickup loads of hauled garbage plus the tore down end of the trailer. I didn't show it but I have a burn pile that's 15 foot round and piled 6 foot high to burn one day.

   These are all I took today. You see the back porch, there is front deck on the ground under the trash that I will put back for the front door later. Tomorrow the place will be wrapped with felt ,tyvek is way to much . I have to have the electrical run before the outer walls go on so I am just drying the place in for now.

Click on pics for a good view.

Roof on Dryed in.

    This is where it was Monday night .

   This is where I got it to by Wednesday night .

 

Racing sundown .

   This time of year the sun sets a little earlier every day.  I finished the roof before lunch . Glad to be done and off those ladders my ankles are killing me . The climbing turning and stretching to attach the metal took a toll on my legs and ankles . My son kept saying your getting old dad . His feet won't let him on a ladder for 10 minutes  I lasted 6 hour on the ladder yesterday and today.

    After the roof was done I took a break ,yea I'm old remember . Laid the floor in place and got it screwed in ,no more give ready for linoleum . Above the windows I cut and fitted  wood to cover the hole and paint it for a sign. Wanted to  post a few pictures but the sun won and was to far down. Will post them tomorrow .

   This project is going to be put on hold for a couple of weeks till I have more money. I had set aside 300$ for this building phase and I spent  336$ but I got the floor done which wasn't part of this push. I will piddle with running the electrical I have salvaged parts and wire on hand. Next push will be metal walls and Linoleum .

New roof and salvaged flooring.

     Today I went and got the metal roofing. We went into the office and a young lady asked what we needed ,I told her my order and asked when could I pick it up she said tomorrow, a man standing at the counter said pull out back he had what I ordered on the machine. I paid took my receipt and when I pulled out back he had already  formed and cut my 14 sheets.  He signed the ticket as filled, as I drove off I saw the name on the ticket was the one on the building. Nice to see an owner who runs his company from a production floor.

    In addition to the roof a buddy of mine told me he had 6 sheets of 3/4 inch plywood  and a dozen 1x6  boards for 50$ if I wanted them. The plywood was going to be 28$ a sheet so this saves another 120$. His new girl friend and him have been cleaning out her rental houses and storage buildings. It is amazing what people, myself included have stored that an be used or recycled . Will post some more pictures Wednesday after I finish the roof.

Sweat equity and reuse saves money.

     We have all heard recycling saves money and is good for the environment . That isn't why I built this trailer the way I did . I AM CHEAP not in a bad way but if I can make something work at a lower cost I will.  This build evolved from material from other projects that I have done and saved .
   
     The frame is from a camper I got 8 years ago for storage.

  It wasn't this nice but for 250$ it served for cheap storage.
Then I re roofed my shed/garage and saved the old tin.

   Last year I disassembled the storage camper and sold the aluminum for around 160$ . This freed up the new camper its parking place and left me with a flat frame for a new vending trailer.

    The weather got hot at this point so it was last week before I got back to work and framed it.

    

 

 

 

 

 

At this point I have spent 270$ Monday I will order the roof metal it should be about 90$.

It will be dried in for 360$ cost less the 160$ in scrap money.200$

 

Vending BBQ Kitchen is framed pics.

     I felt 80% today and did a little work . My wife allowed me to work  4 hours an hour at a time with breaks of at least an hour between. She says she is to lazy to break in a new man if I stroke out. SHE LOVES ME . Before I started I snapped pictures of what I did yesterday.
  
    This is what it looked like yesterday morning.

 

 

       By the end of the day we had it to this stage.

     Not bad for a days work but still a ways to go . With my wife watching the clock I was afraid it would take a while to finish the frame . Seem I work better with supervision because I got it to this point in 4 hours work and 8 hours of breaks.

   Got it framed and the serving windows in, the door will be in the back tail end of the trailer. I should be able to have it blacked in and the sheet metal on by Wednesday . Here is a picture of the metal .

   The piece on the tongue is oxidized on the other side like the one leaned against the side. I hope it will look good enough till I can get the log siding.

A couple of pics of my sons camperstead in the snow.

      I snapped these pictures when I delivered the heater and my son back to his place.

    The snow was a wet heavy  and as the picture shows the poach wasn't built for a load. Every thing we used was scrap or found .
 
 The camper I bought 5 years ago from a man that was headed to the scrap yard to see if they would buy it as is. I gave 200$ for it and spent 2 more on floors and walls. It is a 1976 Layton .And if you notice he now has 2 15 watt panels and a 10 watt at 40 watts he is at more than enough power. A friend checked on him today and he said heater was working good and power on every thing was at 98% or full ( we have had clouds for 3 out of the 4 days he has been there).

  

His wants exceed his means.

      For the last 3 months my son has been living back here at my house .He got into some trouble with the friends he was staying with and had to run home to keep from getting his butt stomped. He told a female friend her husband was cheating and the girlfriend was pregnant. It was not my sons place to interfere he got a split lip and the windows knocked out of his camper for it. They threatened to do more so I stepped in, brought him home and let it be known it needed to be ended at that .
     My temperament is well known in the area so it cooled down to just dirty looks on the road if we passed .All this took place just before thanksgiving so I let him stay through the holidays. Over the last 3 months we moved the camper cleared a 1/4 acre fixed the windows, dug a septic hole ,fixed the stove, built a porch and metal roofed over his camper. Now most of this was low cost less than a 100$ the porch and roof was sheet metal I had given to me, the wood was from a friends shop of old packing crates.
    Now I didn't mind giving my time and parted with the scrap with only a little reluctance BUT then he asked for my 12 volt pump and 3. 15 watt solar panels my 12volt DVD player ,radio, lanterns and Mr. buddy heater.
      Ok I understand it would make life in the woods more comfortable . I DONT CARE !!!!! I worked saved and bought this stuff yes I have it stored and multiple's of most of it. He has always thought daddy survival stuff was a joke something he made fun of when I wasn't around .
      Now he is my only idiot son so I did help him. 1 15 watt panel my small DVD player a 9 volt transistor radio ,3 solar yard lights and 2 dollar tree lanterns .His water is gravity fed and for heat he can use the stove oven with bricks in it. He moved back up there yesterday will go check on him Thursday . Wednesday the low is going to be 24 will be a gut check for him .
      If he acted better I would do more. Till he matures this is more than he deserves , his wants exceed his means. I feel he has his needs met his wants are his own affair !!!

Great weather for getting ready for winter.

     It has been great sleeping weather around here.Lows at night 60 the days have been low 80s and no rain.Would be nice to just enjoy and relax but winter is coming.The flower beds have been cleaned the grass got its final cut (i like it a little tall for winter) took 2 loads to the scrap yard(made 64$ most went to buy hamburger that's on sale)burnt a bunch of dead branches.Have had to play catch up on a lot of chores and maintenance and still have a lot to do.MY wife said i don't need to do everything at once.I am 51 i know better than to speak without thinking but I did.
 "If not now WHEN ? If not me WHO ? What'ca watching after the price is right?"
    Yep my DUMB AZZ had to through that last line in there.The rest of the day it felt like Winter was here at my house.So i am glad i have got a lot done and have a lot more to finish. I don't think I'm going to be getting something for at least a week or more.
     We are suppose to go to the lake Monday and camp but who knows.If she starts loading it Sunday its on if not we stay here.

A look at Big Red my baby.

     OK I have been doing BBQ for 10 years on and off.For the last 3 years it has been all i have done.When I started it was a whim i had a convince store 5 miles from any restaurants so on Friday and Saturday i sold BBQ at the store.Me and my son used drum smokers mounted on an old pop up camper trailer.Back then i was a busy man had a lot of irons in the fire.BBQ became my sons he was making good money for a 14 year old kid then he hit that "that's good enough "stage.Basically he ran it into the ground twice.
      That is a back ground of our start.About 6 years a go i was playing on Ebay just looking and i ran across a Big Red smoker it was in Andalusia AL about 160 miles away.Starting bid was 400$ so i bid a max bid of 450$ Long story short i got it for 405$.It was a 6 hour round trip.The man that i got it from said it cost him 1200$ in 2005.The company that built it is really a fab shop for construction steel they build smokers and trailers when work is slow so they keep their welders and layout men busy

     This is what it looked like when i got it it was a 200 gallon propane tank upright smoker with 3 racks and room to smoke 16 boston butts.Three rounds of wood will last 8 hours when smoking but i needed it to do more for holidays and i wanted to do ribs so i got a second 200 gallon tank and it now looks like this.

    This is BIG RED the front grill can hold 24 pork butts and 12 slabs of ribs.The upright will do 12 butts and 4 racks of ribs.Now i smoke everything in the upright because it gives a deeper smoke the front holds it at temp and adds light smoke.
    Now to cook great Q takes time I cook for 10 hour with gas then smoke it 4 to 6 hours.Anyone can make good smoked meat all it takes is time and a box to hold smoke.I started with barrel smoker made out of a barrel with expanded metal rack on old tent pole rods.A wooden box will work. GOT MEAT START SMOKING!!!!
    The original BBQ trailer has morphed with time it now looks like this.If my son straightens up i may give him a 4th chance

survivalism trash talk

     Last post was to make you think about what risks trash could put you and your prep's in.The disposal of packaging is as important as disposal of human waste. Everyone situation is different but you do need to have a plan so that no one knows where it came from.
   Cans need to be crushed or cut and flattened.
   Cartons and bags need to be broke down
    Bottles need to be reused or shattered and bagged
   A spot needs to be set aside for burying what cant be reused

  At present i burn most of our trash.After SHTF i will sort and bury it.Last week i came in from burning the trash my wife asked me what i was cooking? She said it smelled good,I asked what did she think it smelled like she said fry ed chicken.I then informed her it was 2 bags of garbage.It was grease she had put in one bag from chicken wings.The smell of burning trash can carry a long way just like a wood fire.
   This is just one of those things we take for granted trash is bagged and then disappears.You better have a plan,for sanitation and secrecy.

Survivalism Trash Talk Part 1

     Yesterday i was in the back burning the trash.We use a 55 gallon burn drum to dispose of the garbage here at home.Rural pickup runs almost 20$ a month around here i go 2 the dump every 6 to 8 weeks and empty the burn barrels for 8$.Every time i go to burn i fish out the cans that was in the trash from before.In regular times we have a lot of cans.To cut down on the bulk i crush them and throw them in a bag till its time for the dump.Burnt tin cans are easier to crush than just emptied.As i was doing this chore i looked around and wondered if the SHTF how many more cans there would be!

     Now most peppers have a large number of can goods in there food storage.I have read a lot of blogs on food storage but i have never seen any one write about the trash.Have you thought about it?Look at your food storage how many cans will you have to open per day to feed your family?Do you have any idea what your going to do with the cans,have you ever tried to crush a # 10 can ?I have its not easy.Would it be safe where you live to burn your garbage in a SHTF situation?Do you have room to store your waste boxes cans,bottles and other packaging.Will putting bags on the street and risk someone knowing you have food or store them in the corner of your property and risk your families lives?

   

A few pictures

   This was how it looked before i started.

This is stripped and the lean to sheets in place

    Here it is with the new scrap metal on.All that's left is to cool seal it and make it pretty.It has rained twice and so far no leaks but it still needs to be sealed.The fun part will be draging stuff out burning hauling to the dump and scrapyard what has been shoved in it over 28 years.

Made progress on the roof

    Got the lean to roof on and the garage roof stripped.Not a bad days work for a lazy fat man.

This is the old leaky roof and the lean to that was made out of 20 scrap pieces of tin.

    Here is the lean to made with 6 sheets 18 ft long.If you look at the wood on the garage it is over 80 years old and only had 1 board  rotted.It holds my 260 pound butt!Next is to put felt down then the Tin.

    The whole garage is sheathed walls and roof with 1 and 1/2 inch ruff cut pine can still see the blade marks on the planks.

P.S. Smoking is still at only 2 cigs most days its getting easier.

Here is a pic of a scrap built BBQ stand i built.

   This is built on an old pop up trailer frame.It was my son,s BBQ stand till he developed HEAD UP RECTUM  sickness.

    After i put the new metal on the garage and get it cleaned out I should be able to sheath and roof a 12x12 storage shed with what i pull off.It beats scraping it.

  

Here is those 21 footer,s i have to cut down for the garage and lean to.

Work is harder than it once was!

      Well got to tearing that metal off the pole barn today.I had already saved 10 12ft sheets that were not on the roof.Went over at 7 am while it was cool to start on the roof.Boy did i get a surprise.Was expecting to have to pull down 30 12footers No that would have been too easy, the roof was 15 24 foot sheets of 14 Ga roof metal.No one was around to help and i am to stupid to give up! I crow bared 10 of those monsters free had to flip them so about 40lb of leaves and dirt could fall off each one.I  had to drag them off the runners to the ground.I bet they weighted 120lb or more to make it worst i had to drag them 200 ft to my fence then lift an end over the fence to my yard.MY arms and legs felt like jelly after the first 5 sheets.It was almost 11 by then i was ready for lunch my shirt was soaked hands shaking legs barley made it in the house.I knew my sugar had to be below 50 i grabbed 2 Cinnamon rolls a buddy bar 2 ham sandwiches a regular coke and 2 bottles of water before i felt better.My wife looked at me and just shook her head,I think i heard the term stubborn jackass more than once by her before my head cleared.I piddled until 530 then got the other 5 into the yard.I still have 5 sheets to get down and into the yard that will be done in the morning.
      I don't remember work being this hard! I  loaded trucks from 95 to 99 i loved to take young guys in to floor load trailers with 4 or 500 cases.Back then hard work was fun.Now its a lot harder than it once was!!!!

A few pics

A lot of junk piled in the front and it looks worst inside.

this is the lean to on the side.

A shot of the roof that will be replaced.

Here is the salvaged metal from the old barn. It is dirty and rusty but will clean up and be painted.This is 14ga high V industrial grade. Spent most the day next door cutting the bushes and branches off my fence and garage. The garage sits dead on the property line to the inch.So while i have no neighbor's I'm trimming everything back a few feet on that side.The old metal roof will be tore off  i think i have a use for it but i better wait a while before i ask the wife.I was given 4 rolls of insulation R25 and 20 sheets of 4x8 foam sheeting with the pull off metal i may make a nice tractor shed and brewing room.