Buying a house AS-IS

This has been my second time I have bought a house as is. The reason is because I wanted the land it was on. I have bought a house that yes it has 3.16 acres of land and I am planning out my big gardens on this property. I have spent three weeks working on the house and came to a total coast of just under 3,000. 00 on fixing it up. I plan to rent or buy a bobcat and fill some dirt up to make it level to build a two car garage just for my classics. It has been fun and a lot of hard work . Waiting for spring to come so I can pull out my tractors and get planting. I have notice on thing the newer these house are the more work they need to have done to them. My Shop come maybe this summer I will see if I have enough money to build it.
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As an experienced westerner I have great appreciation for your beautiful choice of home. What, may i ask, are your sources of water? Many must haul water miles to make it work. Jim
 
I do have a well. What is interesting is I have a tuff shed that has a water metal water tank in it. They tell me that it is a pressurize water tank for the well. I would like to take that tuff shed out and replace it with a two car Garage that would also have the water tank in there to. You will not see it but it is behind the plywood in the back.
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Do you know how deep your well is?
Also, how many gallons per minute it will produce?

I would guess this information came along when buying the property.
There must be a "Well Driller's Report" available.

Just curious.
 
Beautiful setting. Funny about the other responses. You mentioned the garden and my first thought was where in the heck are you going to get water. Looks like high desert in the picture and not a lot of vegetation. You may have your hands full with that. Maybe not so many deer to eat it though? I bought a 80+ year old farmhouse a year and a half ago "as is" just so I could get the owners off the farm. I work on it a lot, time permitting. It's a nice little place.
 
The trees I found are still very small. This house was put here in 2009. I was thinking of planting a tree that might give me apples.
 
Here in Minnesota it works to make a pit and put that pressure tank in. Hole below the frost line.

Paul
 
Nice house Brent. Good luck on the garage I need one too. We poured a foundation for a garage last fall and the owners are having the building trades class at a local college build it. Its going to be 24' x 46' and 2 story with an apartment above.
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I lived in the NM desert, water is always an issue.

How are you planning to irrigate the garden?

Check your soil pH, will probably have to add sulphur to counteract the gypsum in the soil.
 
Yes I got one report on the well but it is sparse on information. I think it is 80 feet down and not to Shure on the rest of the report. I have had little time to read those 120 pages of bill of sale. The people tell me who live around me that if I need to I can have it dug deeper.
 
What you are saying is correct. Yes I do know how to test my soil base my dad had me do it to all the gardening jobs we did in Riverside Ca. To water the garden can be done tow ways. One watering in trench's or tow my favorite Drip Irrigation. It saves water and you can have more control. If you need to fertilize you simple mix put in to the tank that waters the plants. The other plus is that it cuts down the weeds.
 
My well in Montana was at 500 feet. It also had three tanks. A 1000 gallon gassing out tank to let natural gas fizz out of the water, and two bladder tanks for pressurizing. The tanks each had a pressurizing pump and regulation system. one pressure tank supplied my house, the other supplied my neighbor (for a monthly charge). The water was not drinkable with 1700ppm disolved solids in the form of magnesium and calcium salts. It would kill any plants watered with it. The well agreement included maintenance cost sharing, and clear statement of non compliance with potability. Mine was in a 20 by 10 foot well house with heat. Jim
 
Given a choice I'd rather see mountains outside my window than trees. I like both, but I know how to plant a tree...

I think the place looks great. Improving soil is easier than getting rid of annoying neighbors that are too close. Being from CA he knew the water issues going in and has plan. Great to see it coming together.


Bob (in SD, planted over 300 trees the last few years. Still no mountains in sight)
 
They didn't do radiant but we have done it and is fairly simple. We use the wire mesh as a guide and tie the tubing to it. The tubing has number of feet on it so when laying it out you must keep your runs under 300 ft. The problem with radiant is if you turn temp down it will take quite a while to recover. I have installed tubing in the floor joists of old houses and works real well.
 
You can do a lot with trees if you're in it for the long haul. Fast growing trees to drift snow onto the oaks (or whatever grows in your climate) to provide them more water so they'll be here for generations to come.
 
You got there before me. Not a tree in sight. Thing is out there they
will mostly be pine. If you have a bit of water then aspin. Looks very
nice. I'll move in next month, OK?
 
Brent how far are you from the nearest quick stop or small grocery.. Sure is a nice setting. What about getting more land, is there a chance you could buy another 10 acres or so?
 
The fact that there is no large storage tank there probably means you have a pretty good well. If you have 5 gpm you will be fine. We only have 1 gpm and must be careful but with drip irrigation we get by.
 
After I had to dig mine up twice in 4 years it went into my heated garage. Ixnay on burying tanks.
 
(quoted from post at 07:26:01 02/19/17) The fact that there is no large storage tank there probably means you have a pretty good well. If you have 5 gpm you will be fine. We only have 1 gpm and must be careful but with drip irrigation we get by.

Wow! I didn't think "anyone" had less than our 2 GPM. In extreme NW Minnesota here, so have more water than we know what to do with (high water table). Back to your 1 GPM, have you considered getting a 500 or 1,000 gal. storage tank with its own pump? You could then have a real shower. *lol*

Nice house (in the OP), but I gotta have trees! Planning on building a (roughly) 40' x 60' shop this year, but not going "normal" construction. Going to build with straw bales instead. And using packed soil floor rather than concrete - at least that's the plan for now. Can always add concrete on top at a later time.
 
Brent:

Put up TALL, STRONG fences around your garden areas. I have seen VERY LARGE herds (several hundred) Deer in that area. When I lived in Goldfield, NV , I would travel to Bishop, CA via Montgomery Pass & Benton several times a year. Beautiful area, BUT it's still California - a good place to be FROM!

Doc :>)
 
(quoted from post at 10:04:21 02/20/17)

Back to your 1 GPM, have you considered getting a 500 or 1,000 gal. storage tank with its own pump? You could then have a real shower. *lol*

We have a large storage tank up on the hill above the house. I have it plumbed so we have access to about 250 gallons of water for the times the well pumps out and the pumpsaver kicks in.
Nice house (in the OP), but I gotta have trees! Planning on building a (roughly) 40' x 60' shop this year, but not going "normal" construction. Going to build with straw bales instead. And using packed soil floor rather than concrete - at least that's the plan for now. Can always add concrete on top at a later time.

We had planned to build a strawbale house at one time. I like the compacted floor idea, we have dirt that would work for that I think.
 
kcm.MN:

Mix Cement powder with your soil BEFORE you pack it, then lightly mist it with water after it's packed, it'll set up like concrete. I tried
that on a section of my driveway (experimenting) about 10 years ago and it's still like a concrete slab.

Doc :>)
 
Thanks DW. I've thought about that. However, with the extreme high water problems we have, I'm thinking of trying another idea first; one that will also set up very hard, but will also stop ALL water from passing through. Is a bit of an "out there" idea but it should work. I'll just have to let the floor dry for a couple weeks before enclosing the building....which is fine, as it'll take that long to get the walls up.
 

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