Let me tell you a funny story. When we decided to build our home, I knew we wanted a little bit of land. Nothing crazy, just an acre or two. What I didn’t realize is that even with that amount of land (at least out here), some utilities were done differently. 

For instance, we do home heating with propane, and we don’t have sewage. Say what? Don’t worry, it’s not like we have an outhouse or anything. But we do have a septic tank which comes with its own rule book and know-how. Switching to septic-safe toilet paper, being very diligent with teaching the kids what to, and not throw into the toilet, and such is just one of the interesting parts of living in the country.

Another option we had to decide when building was which avenue to take when it came to power and running our utilities. We had gas utilities at our last house but it was run from the city. Here we don’t have gas lines but instead we can use propane that is stored on our property. 

Thankfully our builder made the process easy. The cost of the propane tank was included with the home, and they buried it for us.

Now two years in there are several things I’ve enjoyed about having our own propane tank 

1. I love that propane can be used for not just our appliances like our stove, water heater and fireplace, but also our furnace works as home heating with propane. I have dreams of extending our patio someday and maybe adding an outdoor kitchen with a grill and we could connect the line there. 

2. We have a regular provider that comes to top our tank off when we need it. And our propane energy needs are taken care of until we need refills. We didn’t realize how easy this process would be.

3. We are also trying to be energy-efficient where we can. Using propane appliances in our home can help reduce our carbon footprint. And it produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions than electricity.

Eventually we’d love to not have to use any electricity power from our city, collect rainwater for our garden and lawn and get as close to “off the grid” as possible. Maybe I’ve been watching too much survivalist television, but… Baby steps! And using propane is helping us get there.

Two years in and we are still loving our home. Now that it’s paid off we’re looking forward to putting even more love into it. We just gave Ty’s room a jungle makeover and added a garden in the backyard. I’m hoping to make our outdoor living space even more fun and work on designing the girls’ room next along with my office. We also have plans to brighten up some spaces with paint, removing the standard carpet flooring and upgrading to hard floors.

Some days I still can’t believe we live here. Our own little dream home on our own slice of heaven.

Tags: home building, propane