# Moving into my first home!



## gabedelgado (Feb 23, 2013)

In a month I'll be moving into my first home that is being built not too far from the city. 
As the excitement builds I realize that I'll finally have the room to do much of what I alI always saw fit for preparedness. However I do not know where to start as I have no experience in collecting rain water, gardening or most other forms of preparedness besides storing food supply, first aid.

Id love some advice as to what you guys think should be my first tasks. 

I have two Pitbulls, so I plan to build a dog run in the bag yard and a dog waste composter, as it is more environmentally friendly as bagging it up.
I'm curious if collected rain water can be used for dog bathing and drinking for the pups?

Any small projects with solar?
Good uses for attics?

Thanks for any and all advice!

Greetings from Texas!


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

Excellent! 

Give us a bit more to go on. How close are the neighbors? Size of land and home? Out buildings? 

Dad started building the family home in 1959. Rain collection has been our sole source of water ever since. Unless you live next to a steel mill or something your rain is distilled water with very little else. The air the rain falls through is the same air you breathe. The dust from the roof will collect in the cistern and will need to be cleaned out every five or ten years. Keep the chicken coop off the roof and you can use the rain you catch any way you wish.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

I would think that the rain water you collect won't be clean enough for your dogs to drink but it should be fine to bathe them in.


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## CrackbottomLouis (May 20, 2012)

Congratulations!!! A first home is very exciting. I would take some time to settle in. Maybe plan some raised beds or figure out where to put a small garden. Are you on a well or city water? Population density of surrounding area? Storage space? Basic answers to questions like that will help us give you advice.


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## TheLazyL (Jun 5, 2012)

BillS said:


> I would think that the rain water you collect won't be clean enough for your dogs to drink but it should be fine to bathe them in.


Dogs and cats have been drinking from mud puddles for thousands of years and unfortunately (referring to the cats) are still here.


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## Flight1630 (Jan 4, 2017)

TheLazyL said:


> Dogs and cats have been drinking from mud puddles for thousands of years and unfortunately (referring to the cats) are still here.


And what's wrong with cats lol they keep the mice population down.

And as far as far as the barrel rain water goes dogs and cats have been drinking toilet water ever since they were invented. So rain water is probably better for them anywaya.


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## gabedelgado (Feb 23, 2013)

CrackbottomLouis said:


> Congratulations!!! A first home is very exciting. I would take some time to settle in. Maybe plan some raised beds or figure out where to put a small garden. Are you on a well or city water? Population density of surrounding area? Storage space? Basic answers to questions like that will help us give you advice.


Thank you!
We are on city water, population in the area is growing rapidly looking At 15K by now!

Well I'll have an attic, and a spare room for the dogs perhaps, with a freed up closet space.

I did have the fence extended to give us more room, looking at a possibility of a small garden, I just don't know what would easily thrive in Texas in a small area?


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## gabedelgado (Feb 23, 2013)

TheLazyL said:


> Dogs and cats have been drinking from mud puddles for thousands of years and unfortunately (referring to the cats) are still here.


Lol. At the least I'll look to bathe them.


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## gabedelgado (Feb 23, 2013)

Caribou said:


> Excellent!
> 
> Give us a bit more to go on. How close are the neighbors? Size of land and home? Out buildings?
> 
> Dad started building the family home in 1959. Rain collection has been our sole source of water ever since. Unless you live next to a steel mill or something your rain is distilled water with very little else. The air the rain falls through is the same air you breathe. The dust from the roof will collect in the cistern and will need to be cleaned out every five or ten years. Keep the chicken coop off the roof and you can use the rain you catch any way you wish.


Neighbors are fairly close! It's a new development, being a new home it's got a pretty decent sized yard. 
Our backyard looks out to undeveloped land which is nice, but could technically be a safety concern.
1900 sq ft home. 3 bedrooms and a study. 2 car garage, hoping to have enough space for quite a bit of storage there too!


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## TheLazyL (Jun 5, 2012)

Flight1630 said:


> And what's wrong with cats lol they keep the mice population down...


Stay outside where God intended them to be then there would be nothing wrong with cats


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## Caribou (Aug 18, 2012)

Attics are a poor choice for most storage as they tend to be extremely hot in the summer. Any food, plastic, and even cloth will have an extremely shortened useful life when stored in an attic. Do you have a basement or crawl space?

A fence will help keep your dogs in and the neighbors dogs and and eyes out. If the houses are close or you have a significant wild fire threat then a wall of stone, cinderblock, brick, or other noncombustible material. It is common for neighbors to agree to split the cost of a mutually agreed upon fence. This provides privacy and security for both.


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## Meerkat (May 31, 2011)

If you have at least 6 hours of sun you can grow almost anything in containers.

IMO, potatoes and beans are two of the most important foods for survival we can grow. Both do well in containers. 

Make sure your pits are in a secured fence. We lay down cheap cattle fencing on the ground about 2' to 3' inside to stop the digging out. If the dogs get out somebody will shoot them 'especially in Tx'. 
:wave:


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## terri9630 (Jun 2, 2016)

Meerkat said:


> If you have at least 6 hours of sun you can grow almost anything in containers.
> 
> IMO, potatoes and beans are two of the most important foods for survival we can grow. Both do well in containers.
> 
> ...


Why especially in TX? I know plenty of people in lots of states that would shoot a stray if it's in the "wrong" place.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

TheLazyL said:


> Dogs and cats have been drinking from mud puddles for thousands of years and unfortunately (referring to the cats) are still here.


To be precise, dogs will drink unclean water but cats won't. That's why so many cats get to the shelter dehydrated.


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## BillS (May 30, 2011)

Just kind of a general financial note for people buying their first home:

You have to be careful not to stretch so much to buy the house that you don't have money for repairs when you need them. Furnaces fail. Roof leak. In our case, the bathtub developed a crack in it. I think it cost us a $5000 to have the old one taken out and another bathtub and shower unit put in.

We also had to replace both toilets. One was leaking water into the bathroom floor so we had to replace part of that too. We also had water shutoffs installed beneath each bathroom sink. I can't remember what all that cost us but it could have been $2000.


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## Saffer (Aug 3, 2012)

> I'm curious if collected rain water can be used for dog bathing and drinking for the pups?


I collect rain water from my cement tiled roof into three 5000 liter (1000 gal) tanks. Each tank gets a weekly dose of one tablespoon HTH. The tanks are plumbed straight into the house via a pressure pump and a set of filters, the finest one 1 micron. For drinking water I have an additional reverse osmosis filter. Been doing this for five years now, never had a problem. Obviously this happens only during the rainy season, for about 6 months a year I have to use city water.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

First project should be to make sure your pits can't escape & no kids can get to your pits. I'm not interested in a debate about how fabulous they are. In all likelihood your homeowners insurance excludes any damage they may do from coverage so they're a huge liability if not properly secured.

Second is water storage if you don't have a well & a no electrical way of getting water from it. Two gallons of water per person per day. Start with enough to last 2 weeks & work from there. Some of that can be from a rainwater catchment system but your water storage doesn't have to be fancy or expensive. Two liter coke bottles work just fine & are cheap & plentiful.

Third, some basic food storage. Store what you eat but start with the cheaper meals to get a foundation. If you don't eat foods with a long shelf life, then start trying some recipes. Billions of people have eaten beans & rice as a foundation in their diet, it's not that you don't like them, you just need to find the right preparation & seasoning.

Fourth, start a garden. It may not be that fruitful in the beginning, but you'll be learning & building your soil. Choose only 5 different veggies at first. Try this link http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/archives/parsons/earthkind/ekgarden14.html. There's a better page but I can't seem to find it. Make friends with a local gardener, see what varieties they grow & what ammendments they add to their soil. Now is the time to test your soil. Contact your county extension agent for testing & free information.


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