Progress on the Tiny House, Sort Of

Things are finally starting to move forward out at my property again.  Some of you may recall that I put around $10k into the old mobile home in 2015 so that my nephew and I could live within the school bus boundaries for our preferred school district. 

This is how it looked before:

This is after (before the other furniture and cabinets.

This was my mom making curtains.

Then, I let a guy rent the place at the recommendation of the dog rescue.  He had 2 dogs and 2 cats and needed a place asap.  That was ok but he smoked and cleaning was not high on his priority list.  He moved into the 2 bedroom rental house that I bought and then moved to Brazil last year.  In the meantime, my nephew decided that he wasn't ready for college and returned to Arizona.  I felt he needed to learn some responsibility so he is currently renting the mobile home from me for a small sum plus electricity monthly and buying his own food.  I had hoped this would encourage him to get a job.  He did have a seasonal job for the past few months but that's over now.  He is learning how to budget his money, conserve food and water and live minimally, so at least he is learning something. 

Yesterday I took the afternoon off and met the electrician out at the property, finally, since he had to reschedule 3 times.  He was fantastic.  He changed the RV outlet into a dryer outlet, moved the dryer into the back room, listened to my plans for the barn-shed tiny house, looked over all of the electrical power available, figured out how we won't have to dig under the mobile home (yay!) and told me what I need to do and what to buy before he can come out again and bring power to the barn-shed.  I am so happy and now I have a lot to do if I want to get it done before summer.  The plan is to steal the power from the greenhouse/hot tub pump.  That's 70 amps.  I need to rent a trencher and dig an 18" deep trench from the greenhouse to the barn-shed, about 45'.  I hope it is easier than it sounds.  I can also pay someone to do it but I don't know how much that would be.  My nephew and I will attempt it first.  Then I will buy PVC to use as conduit and exchange my indoor power box for an outdoor box.  I bought the wrong one but I still have the receipt.  He also said he would wire the inside which is awesome because although I could learn how to do it myself from a book and Youtube, it is even better to learn from a professional, especially when electricity is concerned.

This is my preliminary sketch of the electricity needed:

And here is the picture of what I am talking about.  #2 is the mobile home where the dryer was installed.  #3 is the barn-shed tiny house which I am trying to get electricity to.  #1 is a storage shed.  #4 is the 3,000 gallon water tank.

And, my nephew mentioned that he is almost out of water.  He started out with a little less than 3,500 gallons last April and has been stretching it by not showering, doing laundry, or doing dishes.  Hmmm... that's not good.  He buys drinking water from the store so that isn't included.  I told him he would have to pay for the water delivery when he ran out.  That's $150.  But, there are a ton of chores he can help me with out there so he can work it off starting with helping me pick up another water tank with his pickup truck (which used to be mine).  My main water tank is 3,000 gallons and the water truck delivers 3,500 gallons which I have to pay for whether I have room for it or not so I am going to buy another 500 gallon tank so that I can get all of the water.  That is a chore for a Saturday but not this Saturday since it will be rainy and cold.  The next Saturday will be back up in the 70's so I will plan for that.