Septic System

Cochise County has adopted some rather stringent new requirements for septic systems, based
upon a soil analysis instead of the old perculation tests. Even though there will only be three
full-time residents of our home, we have enough bathrooms and fixtures to require a pretty
extensive drain field for the septic tank per the new criteria. You're looking at three runs of
vented plastic shroud three feet across (a half cylinder configuration) ... each run being 95 feet
long, for a total of 285 feet. I'm going to have to drink a lot more beer to ever make use of it all.

Construction Model

We built a model of our house using vinyl faced foam poster board available at most craft shops. It cuts easily with a razor blade, and we used transparent tape to assemble the pieces. The scale is the same as the construction plans for the house ... 1/4 inch to the foot. It was easy to trace the drawing onto the poster board for the layout and cut to shape. This view looks toward the main entry.

Future House

My wife and I are pursuing a long-time goal of building our own house. We plan to do as much of the work as possible by ourselves, including digging foundation trenches and putting up the walls and roof. We have several friends who want to keep track of our progress so we decided to set up this web site for that purpose. It's also possible that others who want to someday build their own home may learn from whatever mistakes we make.National Forest in the Huachuca Mountains, about two miles north of the Mexican border near Sierra Vista, Arizona. It is located at the tip of the white line in the picture above (which looks west-southwest from about one mile away). The elevation is 5200 feet above sea level and the lot is populated with scrub oak trees and various other high desert plants.

We purchased our four acre lot in 1997. It lies on a rocky hillside adjacent to the Coronado National Forest in the Huachuca Mountains, about two miles north of the Mexican border near Sierra Vista, Arizona. It is located at the tip of the white line in the picture above (which looks west-southwest from about one mile away). The elevation is 5200 feet above sea level and the lot is populated with scrub oak trees and various other high desert plants.

The view is quite nice in all directions ... the Huachuca Mountains to the west and the San Pedro River valley to the east. Here's the view southeast into Mexico from what will one day be the dining room: