GOVERNMENT!

What to expect from small minds in a small town

Well, this posting is a bit late, but I wanted to take a moment to show what you may be up against. I live in a small town in Ohio. I also live in a part of town where my lot is zoned industrial! Behind me is an active railroad track, and a former one that was converted to a walking path after I moved in.

It seems a city councilman was walking there and took exception with my "box". To be clear, I not only have the "box" detailed here, but I also have a 40' unit that I plan to also work on in the near future. Currently I am just using it for storage until I decide how I wish to proceed. The only improvements I have made to the 40' is a coat of paint the same color as my current unit.

Below I present the city council meeting minutes that pertain to what has been said. I do this so you may have some idea what you may come up against should you decide to "try this in your own home". I have put the main part of this section of the minutes in bold font. My comments (not presented to council as I was not even aware of this until it made the local shopping paper) will be in bold italic font. So here it is in its entirety:

Workshop 

a. Discussion of Accessory Structures City Manager Boggs advised one of our Council Members pointed out that they felt at one time the zoning regulations stated that there could only be one accessory building and requested it be brought for discussion. He indicated the current language for an accessory use were included in your packet and he advised he felt it was plural in nature and he didn’t see anywhere (in the regulations) where it states only one accessory building permitted. Boggs advised an accessory use is described as many different things including garages, sheds, tennis courts, swimming pools, etc. He advised he wasn’t sure what they (Council) would want to do, if anything, to regulate them (accessory structures). Boggs advised he believes the concern was over how many sheds should be allowed on private property. He advised he didn’t know if Council wanted to discuss it further or have it brought up at a future meeting. 

Council Member Lynn Beaumont advised if you drive around town and you look at the condition of a lot of the residential properties and the abandoned properties he felt this was the least of our problems. He advised there are a number of abandoned properties and dilapidated properties and he has talked about this a number of times with (City Manager) and he felt at some point they have to do something. Beaumont advised he didn’t know if this was the start or whether we devise a program, but over the years that he has served on Council this is what most of the calls he receives are about the dilapidated properties in town. He advised it is just awful right now. Beaumont advised but, someone who has 2 structures on their property and their property is otherwise in good shape he’d have a hard time going after them when we have junk everywhere and junk is a nice word. He suggested others to just drive around and look. 

Mayor William Robertson advised some houses that were previously some pretty nice houses have fallen into pretty bad disrepair. Beaumont advised right. He advised we have people living in their cars. Beaumont advised it is ridiculous. He advised he doesn’t have a problem with this (topic) if it is our ordinance then we should enforce it, but there are some serious issues that we really got to deal with when it comes to properties and it was just a matter of putting it in place. Beaumont advised Rick (Hanlon) worked really hard on the Property Maintenance Code and we don’t do anything about it. He advised that is not a criticism of Larry (Boggs) as he understands it is a personnel issue and it is implementation of our policy. Beaumont advised there are a lot of issues and if we start here then that is fine, but he would have a hard time lowering the boom on somebody that may be technically in violation of this ordinance when we’ve got people that own properties that are uninhabitable.

Robertson advised the list of things included (as accessory uses) are a garden, a swimming pool and a garage etc. 

Council Member Darrell Carey advised he felt as long as they (accessory structures) are maintained well he doesn’t have an issue and doesn’t care how many they have. He advised they own the property and they should be able to put buildings on it. 

Council Member Dave Williams advised the issue he has is that while walking along the trail he saw a particular residence that had a shipping container on their property converted into a living unit. He advised there was electricity run to it and an air conditioning unit. Williams advised there are public safety concerns if (any of the safety services) were called out to this location if it would be the main residence by the road or would they be (dispatched) to a shipping container. He advised if it were in the middle of the night and trying to find addresses and he felt there was a certain public safety aspect for our safety services. Williams inquired if this is a taxable habitat on top of the main residence.

So, they are concerned for my "safety". Its funny how often this excuse is used to justify government meddling in our lives. You may also see from the rest of this that this individual knows absolutely nothing about it, its purpose, whats inside, NOTHING other than it has an electric cord going to it, windows and an "air conditioner". The REAL reason however for his "concern" is made evident at the end....MONEY! This last statement makes plain what the main resistance is to affordable housing. Not only did I not pay "tribute" to the building department and banks, but they cannot TAX it. Remember, the more expensive the "dwelling" (NOT implying this is a "dwelling") the more tax money the government gets. Think about this the next time you look at the lack of affordable housing!

Beaumont advised it is amazing what you see from the trail that you don’t see from Sterling Avenue.

Robertson advised he believed that was illegal to have a second residence on the property. 

Boggs advised he sent the police department out to check on that and they didn’t see what you (Williams) saw, but they (PD) better double check it. 

They sent the POLICE to check it out! I should note that not ONE SINGLE TIME was I contacted in all of this. Also note that none of my neighbors has complained in any way. All of this was started by someone who came down from on high, and didnt like what they saw!

Carey advised he felt that was an entirely different type of issue than sheds, swimming pools and gardens. Robertson advised if someone put up a garage and moved into it then… 

Beaumont advised he didn’t feel it was fair to people who really try to make their properties nice. He advised there are people trying to make their property’s look nice and then others who (it appeared) they just don’t care. Beaumont advised he doesn’t think it is fair to the people who care. 

Williams inquired if they were looking to be more definitive with the rules. 

Boggs advised he was asked to bring it in front of Council. He advised at this point he wouldn’t know what to change it to. 

Boggs advised he felt the concern was how many sheds and he hasn’t done any research with neighboring cities on this particular issue. He advised he didn’t know if the answer was for structures with a roof to allow a maximum square footage total per lot. Boggs advised when he started working on the other workshop item and was doing some preliminary studies on streets looking at GIS mapping data, there were a lot of properties with more than one shed. He advised to go back and try to enforce it (to allow only one shed) would be a nightmare. Boggs advised it might be better to attack it on the property maintenance (end of it). He advised he could do more research and see if neighboring cities have anything different and bring it back at a future meeting. 

Just a side note here. What this means is that they look for you and what you are doing via areal photographs. Be aware that if you put something up, no matter where it is, it WILL be found and questioned.

Robertson inquired if there was any desire among Council to have Larry (Boggs) look at it further. He advised it sounded to him like they were okay with the way it is (currently). 

No additional comments were made.  

Water (experience and lessons)

Lessons from living with my "water system"

"how NOT to do it"

If you have read through this blog, you will see that a large portion of it was devoted to "water". You will also see that I had a lot of "bright ideas" and plans. 

I have now had some time to actually live with it. Some things worked well, others not so well, others turned out downright ugly. About the only part of the system I have not been disappointed with is the tank and tank filling system. My only desire there is to come up with some other location for the tank. It takes up quite a bit of room in such a small space. What I will likely do is somehow integrate the filters with the tank by either mounting them on top or around the tank.

Issue 1

The fist big issue I had with the system, was the pump. It was a 2 gallon/minute 12 volt diaphragm pump. This was necessary for the pressure it can reach to be able to push water through the "reverse osmosis" filter. I had it turned down to produce 70 PSI through the filters.

Pump failure (AKA Use an expansion tank at the pump outlet!)

The pump I had chosen lasted about 4 months. The biggest reason for this is that I did not put an expansion tank at the outlet of the pump. What this meant was that the pump was constantly cycling on and off as the water flowed through the RO system. It also pulsated on the output side very badly. In the end it was simply too hard on the pump and it burnt out prematurely.

Another issue in regards to the expansion tank is with the water heater. I did not install the tankless water heater in here. Instead I had bought a motorhome to use while I was gone for work and installed it there. In this way I am able to give a review of the performance of that. 

First off, the motorhome also used a pump of about the same type and capacity. What I found is when I was on "pump water" (without an expansion tank), the water heater would constantly cycle on and off. It was unusable. The reason for this was the intense fluctuation of water flow and pressure from the pump.

When water was sourced from the camground, the water heater worked as well as, if not better, than expected. It was perfectly acceptable for everything from doing dishes to showering. I would HIGHLY recommend it for a container or cabin as far as the water heater itself! I am hoping to get another one in the near future and try it as a source of heat for a hydronic heating ("hot water") system for the entire "box".

Solving all problems

I believe that if I had added an expansion tank at the pump outlet, this would have solved all my problems. The expansion tank would very much dampen the output from the pump. What this means in this situation is that the pump would have lasted much longer (as it would have run less and more smoothly and had a more consistent pressure at the outlet) and the water heater could be used on pumped water (because of the lack of fluctuation in pressure and volume). In summary, I cannot stress enough the need of an expansion tank at the outlet of the pump!

Have a backup pump (and plan) ready!

Here I am speaking of the need for at least a hand pump. For a while I reverted back to the 5 gallon water container with a hand pump. This I had from before I put the tank in. As I tried to decide my next move, I still needed drinking water. With the 5 gallon water container (the type used on a water cooler), I at least could refill it from a clean water source for drinking water.

The picture is representative of what I am talking about. These are available on ebay quite cheap. They also snap on to the top of the jug.

Until I get a final solution to the whole setup, I have set the hand tank and pump aside and simply installed this pump inline with the filters

This is a $6.99 "Harbor Freight Special". All I can say "good" about it is that "its a pump". It has some slight leakage at the pump shaft and it produces very little pressure. It is also easy to "blow the hoses out" if too much pressure is applied. Because of this, I am currently only operating on the normal filters and the UV light "disinfector". I had to remove the RO filter from the system as this would not produce nearly enough pressure to push water through that filter. Basically, right now, the main water system is only good for a clean drink of water :-( 

Where do we go from here?

Well, four big modifications I plan to make to the system.

• Somehow combine the tank, pump and filter system to save space. This will also have the added advantage of making the entire system "portable".
• Add an expansion tank at the outlet of the pump or pumps so the pump does not have to work so hard.
• Add a hand pump inline with the electric pump for backup. Right now the whole thing is simply "rigged" together to get drinking water. If I have a hand pump permanently installed on the inlet side of the electric pump, I will not have to make any modifications to the system if the electric pump should fail (you can "push" or "pull" water through a diaphragm pump without modification).
• Add valves to bypass the RO filter when using a hand pump. As it is now, I had to physically change the tubing to bypass the RO filter for use with the hand pump. A couple valves and some tubing would be better so I can simply change the valve settings and flow water around it if using the hand pump.

Well thats the summary of where the water system stands. I hope somebody can learn from my mistakes!