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June 24, 2024 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams

29:21

FAST infrastructure advice for rural land: Power, water, irrigation and more

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	Here's a question I got from one of our listeners who was just moving to a rural area.
	They had just acquired some land and they said they had a little pond on their place and they were asking me, What would you do first?
	What would you acquire first?
	What would you set up first in terms of infrastructure?
	So I decided to answer them in this format because I think a lot of this information can be very useful to many of you, even if you haven't just purchased a piece of land recently.
	There may be things here that can help you with wherever you are right now, even in a neighborhood, if not a rural area.
	Of course, I would say a rural area is the best choice at the moment, if that's possible.
	The farther away from a city that you can be, probably the better off you are.
	Although in red states like Florida or Missouri or Oklahoma, what have you, or Texas, you're better protected anyway just because it's a red state.
	Whereas in a blue state, even if you're in a rural area, you could still face a lot of problems because of the state government.
	But that's not what this podcast is about.
	So here's what I would do first if I just acquired a piece of rural land.
	First of all, I would get an RV that I could live in temporarily on the land while managing the infrastructure projects.
	The second thing I would do is bring in electrical infrastructure, if possible, unless you plan to go off-grid all the time, which is very difficult.
	But, you know, bring in the services.
	And that would include, well, electricity most importantly.
	Whether you can get water or not is largely irrelevant if you plan to do rainwater catchment, which is what I would recommend.
	So the first building I would construct would be a barn.
	I would build a wide-open barn, pretty large, almost as large as you can make it, and then park your RV inside it.
	So that you're protected from the elements in that case.
	And then I would use the roof as rainwater catchment.
	I would put some pretty oversized rainwater tanks on the property with a good quality pump that can provide water pressure to all of the residential use on the property.
	If you do that, then you don't need city water.
	And frankly, you'd be better off without city water.
	And a rainwater catchment is going to be better than a well.
	You could drill a well as a backup, but often the well permitting process is very complicated and there are long wait times and drilling a well can be very, very expensive.
	Personally, if you've got enough rainfall in your area, and you don't need that much if you have big rain tanks, by the way, You can get by on even 40 inches a year if you've got big enough rain tanks.
	Maybe even less than that in some areas, but I would put the money into a barn and rain tanks because then the barn, there are a couple things you can do with that.
	You could create a temporary living area inside the barn or go with what's called a barn dominium for half the barn.
	So build it big, have half of it to be like a giant garage, like agricultural use, and you're going to want to get a small tractor, which I'll talk about here in a second.
	You would park the tractor there.
	And the other half of the barn could be a barn dominium, where you have pretty basic living arrangements.
	And I'm not someone who has to live in luxury or anything.
	I don't know about you.
	Some people really have to have a modern looking home.
	That's not me.
	I'm far happier living out on the land and just pretty basic sleeping conditions.
	And as long as I have running water and a shower and a kitchen, you know, basic things like that, that's more important to me, but it's up to you.
	You can spend a small amount on a barn dominium or a large amount.
	But you'll want to use spray foam insulation on the inside of the barn walls in the Barn Dominium area where you're living.
	And you may use spray foam insulation on the roof or the ceiling underneath the roof.
	And then you would build inside of that and you could put up drywall and what have you.
	Just make sure that you're engineering this barn correctly for all the weight that you're going to put in it.
	And for some areas, that might mean that you have to have, like, concrete pillars in the ground underneath the barn, the structural barn posts, and make sure you have the proper size I-beam and everything else.
	I mean, get it engineered properly.
	You don't want to just build a cheap-ass barn and then spend 200 grand on a barn dominium inside of it and find out that the barn's moving or the foundation isn't really working for you or what have you.
	Then I would get a tractor, a relatively small tractor, of around anywhere from 25 to 45 horsepower.
	And sometimes these are called hobby farm tractors.
	I would buy a Kubota brand tractor if I had to do it all over again.
	Because I have John Deere tractors, but I've learned to like the Kubota tractors better.
	One of my friends has a Kubota tractor, and it's way better.
	And it starts.
	What do you know?
	And then I would buy a Winco PTO generator of 15 kilowatts, single phase, that connects to the back of your tractor.
	And you'll generate...
	One kilowatt of power for every two horsepower of your tractor.
	So if you have, let's say, a 20 horsepower tractor, which would be a pretty small tractor, well, you could still generate 10 kilowatts of power, which is more than enough to power your barn dominium and your water pumps and everything else that you need.
	And it would really conserve on fuel, by the way.
	But if you buy a 40 horsepower tractor, It could produce up to 20 kilowatts, although this Windco generator is a 15 kilowatt generator, so your max is going to be 15.
	The extra capacity of the tractor engine would just not be used.
	The tractor would only have to burn as much fuel as necessary to overcome the resistance on the generator.
	And resistance is made by drawing current off the generator.
	So the more appliances you use, the more resistance there is, the more diesel you burn.
	But if you're not using much electricity, you're not going to use much in the way of diesel.
	But the point of having a tractor with a PTO generator is that, of course, the tractor, which you should get with a bucket, has its own uses all around the farm.
	You can do some light digging with it.
	You can move things around like dirt or water in some cases.
	You can move landscaping materials and things like that.
	So a small tractor with a bucket has a lot of uses, and also you can put a tiller on the back of it.
	You can do small-scale farming with it as well.
	Lots of uses.
	And you can also get a set of add-on forks for a tractor bucket.
	So you have basically a forklift on the front of your tractor.
	And that way, if you're going into town and you're picking up something on a pallet that's in the back of your pickup truck, You can get in there with your tractor forks and you can lift it off the bed of your pickup truck.
	And if you're good, you can do it without damaging your truck.
	So that's a skill set right there.
	Not the easiest thing in the world to do that with a tractor.
	It's much easier to do it with a forklift or a skid steer, but it can be done with a tractor in a pinch.
	The next thing you want to do is get yourself a diesel fuel tank.
	Minimum 250 gallons, much better to have something like 500 gallons of diesel, which is a pretty hefty tank.
	You probably won't be able to lift that tank with your small tractor, so you may either want to get a smaller tank or a bigger tractor so you can lift that tank.
	Now, when the tank is full, Of diesel, you know, it could weigh 6,000 pounds or something like that, so just keep that in mind.
	You'll probably want to position it where you want to keep it before you call the diesel supply company to come out and fill it up with diesel.
	But make sure you get a good quality diesel storage tank.
	Usually they're double-walled, UL-listed.
	They should have an emergency vent valve on them, both an emergency vent valve for the inner tank and the outer tank, because if they're double-walled, they're basically one tank inside another tank, which is the best way to go.
	And then do good maintenance on those.
	Keep them well-painted and try to prevent corrosion and rust.
	And you'll have a good long life on those.
	Now, with this setup, then, you're going to want to make sure you have a diesel truck.
	Why?
	Well, because, you know, of course, the government's going to be rationing fuel at the gas stations, just like they're going to be rationing food at the grocery stores.
	Well, if you have 500 gallons of diesel at your farm...
	Then they can't block you.
	And you can put diesel in your truck or you can put diesel in your tractor.
	Now, do remember that typically for agricultural use, you're going to be buying red dye diesel that goes into your tractor.
	Red dye diesel is cheaper diesel because it doesn't have federal highway taxes paid on it.
	The non-red dye diesel, which is called clear diesel, is the kind of diesel that normally you would put in your road vehicle because, well, you've paid federal taxes on that diesel, and it's a lot more expensive.
	It kind of depends on where you live, actually, because there are state taxes on some of that, too.
	But in a collapse scenario, I don't think anybody gives a crap about red dye versus non-red dye, so I say While society is functioning, yeah, I'm going to obey the federal law and I'm using clear diesel in my truck.
	But if everything goes to crap, I'm just going to use the red dye diesel.
	I don't care.
	Come write me a ticket if you even have any functioning government.
	So I'll use what I have.
	Now, the great news about having all this stored diesel on hand is that, of course, you can use it for multiple purposes.
	So you can use it to plant food, grow food, harvest food.
	You can buy a water pump that goes on your tractor and you can use it to move water.
	You can also, of course, use it to generate electricity with your WinCo generator.
	And you can use it in your vehicle to drive around.
	In addition, diesel is a great barter item.
	So you're storing something that will have very high value.
	Now, in terms of pumps, the brand that I recommend is called Phil Wright.
	F-I-L-L dash R-I-T-E. Phil Wright.
	Sounds like the name of a singer.
	Maybe he opens for Phil Collins.
	I don't know, but Mr.
	Wright.
	You're quite a singer.
	No, Phil Wright is the brand.
	And there's a manual version of their pump that I strongly recommend you get as a backup, and it's called a piston pump.
	So you pump this piston up and down, up and down, and each stroke that you do up and down moves, I think, one-tenth of a gallon, which is quite a lot.
	So 10 strokes gives you a gallon.
	I've used that.
	It's the best manual diesel transfer system that I've found.
	I've tried rotary pumps, and rotary pumps suck compared to this PhilRite piston pump.
	And I used this in the winter to transfer diesel to my diesel space heaters when we had a cold spell in Texas.
	You can also get an electric PhilRite diesel pump or fuel transfer pump.
	And the electric one, I recommend a 12-volt pump.
	And then get yourself a lithium-ion 12-volt battery.
	And connect it up to that battery and then get a little solar panel, like a 10 watt solar panel on that to keep that battery charged.
	And now you have a way to transfer like 15 gallons a minute is the size I recommend.
	Look for 15 GPMs.
	And that makes fuel transfers really, really rapid.
	Now you may wonder why I'm not saying to store gasoline or use gasoline.
	Gasoline is dangerous.
	High explosive stuff.
	The vapors can ignite.
	I don't mess with gasoline.
	I store diesel because it mostly does not want to burn.
	Very hard to burn diesel.
	Even in a diesel engine, it's hard to burn it.
	So diesel is the safest fuel to store.
	Much safer than propane, much safer than gasoline.
	Next thing I would do is I would drop an electric well pump into the pond.
	And I would build kind of like a simple cage around it to keep all the fish out of the pump and all the algae or whatever else, all the grime.
	And then I would run an inch and a quarter diameter PEX pipe out of the pond into a water distribution center in the barn.
	And from there, I would then have one inch PEX pipe going out of something like a manifold there to the different places where you want to grow crops like fruit trees or gardens or what have you.
	And this way you would be watering Your trees and crops with pond water, which is fish water, which is really nutrient rich, by the way.
	And since it's actually surface water that came from rainfall, the pH is usually just right for plants.
	It's usually slightly acidic, which is what most plants like.
	And depending on your pond, you might have a pH like 6.5 or something like that, which is, you know, right in the middle for a lot of plants.
	Well water tends to be much more alkaline and difficult and you don't want to use your rain water for irrigation because you'll run out of that water very quickly.
	And the reason I suggest using PEX pipe, not PVC, is because today the PEX pipe tools are readily available to allow you to do your own plumbing very inexpensively, and PEX will expand and contract even when it freezes without shattering.
	And the brand I recommend is called UPONOR, U-P-O-N-O-R, or UPONOR, I guess.
	And UPONOR Upener has a brand new line of push-fit connectors that are 1-inch PEX connectors.
	Kind of like what you may be familiar with, the SharkBite brand of push-to-fit connectors.
	Well, Upener has a whole line of push-to-fit connectors with PEX that are super easy to use.
	I mean, you don't have to be a plumber.
	You don't have to be an expert.
	And these push-fit connectors, you don't have to have special tools.
	Now, I do have a Youpner tool, which is called an expansion fitting tool made by Milwaukee.
	That is something that I would get.
	If I had to do it all over again, I would start off buying Milwaukee tools, 18-volt cordless tools.
	I would get a PEX expansion tool and the fittings that go with it.
	And then, of course, you know, a drill and a sawzall and all the other basic tools that you're going to need, a grinder, things like that.
	I would just get all Milwaukee.
	And just keep it all in that same line and pretty much anything you need you can get it from the Milwaukee tool line and use all the same batteries and those will also have barter value as well.
	And then from there I would run those pond water lines, you know, to the gardens or whatever you want to grow so you have a way to grow food using surface water.
	It may be worth your while to expand your pond, if that's possible, or to do some birming in order to create more opportunities for runoff to be collected in your pond.
	You can collect a lot of water with relatively little investment using permaculture principles, so consider that.
	Next thing you might wonder is what about off-grid power?
	Sadly, if I had to do it all over again, I would not do solar.
	I would not do wind.
	If I wanted to go off-grid right now, I would also not do batteries at the moment because, well, there are some pretty good Powerwall battery options available that are lithium-ion, but personally, I'm looking for something that's Much bigger.
	I'm looking for more like a flow battery solution.
	And I haven't found one yet that I recommend.
	It seems to be not very mature in that space.
	But I think like an iron redox flow battery or a vanadium flow battery chemistry would be really ideal for a fixed site.
	Because the liquid vats of your flow material, which serve as the anode and cathode of the battery, these are quite large.
	Not suitable for being mobile.
	Or on a vehicle or anything like that.
	But very suitable for a fixed location.
	I think that battery technology is coming along quite nicely.
	It doesn't use lead.
	So if you have a spill, it's not toxic.
	All you're doing is spilling just iron and seawater, basically.
	Or some vanadium, which is not such a big deal.
	I don't like lead-acid batteries because they have all the acid and the lead.
	So, you know, it's like both of them are bad.
	So I try to avoid those as much as possible.
	The other thing that I would do if I were starting over is for your electrical grid that feeds your barn dominium or really all your electrical needs on your farm there, I would have a central location that has a transfer switch with a plug-in that is kind of standardized so that you can plug in different sources of energy Such as a generator,
	because you're going to want to plug in the cable from your WinCo generator, let's say.
	And so you're going to need probably a custom-made cable for that, because I don't know what the plug is coming out of the back of the WinCo, but it's going to be some kind of plug that you're going to have to convert into some other kind of standard plug, and so you'll need the help of an electrician to get that right.
	And I recently asked my own audience about that, because I was plugging in a generator Into a transfer switch, and it had an Anderson connector on it.
	And the generator company had wired the Anderson connector backwards.
	Fortunately, I caught that because I was checking it out with a voltmeter.
	I was like, this doesn't look right, you know?
	And sure enough, it wasn't.
	And thank God I never made that thing live.
	If I had flipped the breaker, man...
	Some explosions, as they say.
	But I caught that, and so I reversed it, I double-checked it with a voltmeter, and then I had several of my listeners actually got back to me and helped me confirm that, and then sure enough, that was correct, and then got that in place.
	But get competent help on things like electricity.
	Don't try to just wing it on power, because that stuff can kill you, you know, if you do it wrong, or you can start fires and such.
	So I think, in many cases, it's a good idea to adhere to code, In some cases, if the code is insanely stupid, then maybe not.
	But for electricity, I tend to say, get a professional who is licensed, who knows what they're doing, and who can give you good advice.
	And that's why I reach out to experts on that, even though for the most part, I do know what I'm doing.
	But even then, I don't want to risk everything if I've made a mistake, right?
	Oh, one more thing to mention in wrapping this up.
	This is a big deal.
	If I were to start over...
	I would orient the barn, sort of the front of the barn or the barn dominium, I would have it facing due south.
	That is, if I'm in North America.
	If you're south of the equator, like Australia, I would have it facing due north.
	And this is important if you plan to grow food and if you plan to live in harmony with the cycles of the sun and the seasons.
	A lot of people will tend to orient their homes based on fence lines or road orientation.
	So they'll have a road in front and then they'll have a driveway and they want it perpendicular so it's 90 degrees.
	And then the driveway will go to the house and then they'll orient the house so that it's kind of facing the road or parallel to the road.
	That's like the worst reason to orient a house.
	What's the road got to do with anything?
	What matters is the sun and the arc of the sun and the change in the pattern of the sun during the seasons.
	This is what matters most.
	So I would face everything due south, and then I would plan accordingly, and that way you know which plants to choose based on which plants use more sunlight versus which ones want to be in the shade, which ones like the north side best that stays...
	The ice lasts longer in the winter and it stays more wet, whereas the southern side tends to dry out more quickly because there's more sunlight, things like that.
	So that's what I would do.
	And then one last bit of advice is if you build a pond...
	You're typically going to be building a very large dam, a retention dam.
	Just remember that that dam can also serve as a backstop for a pistol range from the other side.
	So if you have an opportunity to put in a dam in a way that also creates a pistol range, Then you're just shooting into the back of the dam.
	And don't worry, your 9mm rounds are not going to poke a hole in the dam.
	But you may want to plan to put a lot of extra soil there so that one day you can scoop out all that soil because it's going to be filled with lead because that's probably what's in your bullets and you don't want endless lead sitting around or running off from the back of your dam.
	So do think about the environmental consequences and the downstream consequences.
	Anyway, that's just some advice.
	Use what works for you.
	And I'll continue this in an upcoming course that I'm recording for all kinds of practical solutions for off-grid living.
	In the meantime, you can take advantage of all the discounts and deals that I've put together for our audience, typically using discount code Ranger with a very limited set of selected partners and providers.
	You can find that list at rangerdeals.com.
	rangerdeals.com, just like it sounds.
	Thank you for listening.
	I'm Mike Adams, the Health Ranger.
	Take care.
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