Commercial Electric Power

[Eugene]

Commercial Electric Power for shop on acreage.

Crunched the numbers again. Basic price just to have electricity to the shop is between $18 and $19 a month. Then there would be a minor charge for electricity used.

Using $18 a month times 12, divided by the current price of gasoline, I could purchase 100 gallons of gasoline. Which would operate the shop for around 600 to 700 hours.

Don't power the shop for any where near 600 hours a year, perhaps 50 to 100 hours a year. Need the 4 KW and 8 KW generator sets to power the house and son's house during power outages. And the shop based 10 KW, when powered up, to operate the welders and plasma cutter.

Neighbor who runs cattle on the acreage asked me to reinstall the well to water cattle. Problem is, when the drought hits and the ponds dry up, I still have the only year around spring fed water hole and pond to water cattle within a few miles. So don't need to rebuild the well. The water table, even in sever drought, is about 12" below the surface on the lower portion of the acreage.

Son is will lose his current employment in 9 to 12 months. Son had talked about selling his current house and building one on the acreage. This has a number of energy saving possibilities, using the year around spring for geothermal heating and cooling.

Any way, just thinking.

[outdoors4evr]

Usually when looking for a job, it is wise to be very location flexible. Building on family property pretty much limits employment opportunities to a 100 mile radius. Also, once the investment is made on the property, there is no good way to recoup those funds. The property (and house) can't really ever be sold outside of the family without damaging relationships.

Regarding the power, perhaps the son's house could be built near the shop and the shop power could be provided from the house. As for Geothermal, there is a large up-front investment and a long term payoff. There are great calculators online for the break-even. Generally, the break-even occurs quicker in a larger house. You also do not need the spring for the geothermal. A loop field is considered a longer lasting system. Sadly, the tax incentives for Geothermal were not extended into 2017.

[Eugene]

Talked to son today. He is studying the pay out package from the firm, investigating all his options. Sending out resumes. There are a number of local job opening that he should qualified for. Same pay range.

We discussed a potential job offer in St Louis, Mo. at $15- more per hour than he is currently making. Sounds good, until you figure in the additional state and federal taxes and apartment rent.

As far as putting a house/residentce type on the acreage, I'm not for it at this time. Reasoning, The acreage is fully paid for and appreciating at around .03% per year. Acreage is about 2 1/2 miles from Missouri State Technical college, which is growing and on the east side of Linn, Mo. Linn, Mo. is also growing, easterly.

Any way, think we will just wait and see.