ATTN. Washington State BYCers!! Quality of life there? I NEED to move!

[DenverDawg]

Tulalip would be nice except for Marysville ;-) That is a nice view house but for that price go to an island like Lopez, Orcas, Camano or mainland Mukilteo (easy to get to Bastyr). Watch out for the Convergence Zone weather near Sedro Wooley as it gets more than crappy there sometimes. Lake Stevens is a nice new area that has some good size lots too.

 

[DenverDawg]

Got any more MLS listings?

 

[Crest Acres Girl]

Still browsing! Husband and I are going to Seattle late October to meet with some real estate agents. Very difficult to find large lot sizes and be near Seattle. We're thinking about settling about an hr away since even in CA we rarely head to downtown... maybe 3-4 times a year.

Our next step is selling everything we dont need to make the move easier.

Been browsing Solar companies out in Seattle, though I wonder how effective solar would be when there an overcast half the time.

Maybe wind power would be our best bet lol. We also thought digging a well may not be a complete necessity since it does rain so much we just need a giant reservoir.

Been considering if we should donate our current chicken/duck flock and restart once we move. I planted hundreds of fruit trees, sucha shame I cant take them with me...

 

[SweetSilver]

You are overestimating the amount of rain here. That's OK, everyone does it. We are famous for rain, and it doesn't occur to folks that we *accumulate* less than a lot of other places. Seattle gets no more on average than New York City-- it's the number of rainy and cloudy days that does it, not the amount.

It only rains 35-50 inches in the Puget Sound area, depending on where you live (in the rain shadow of the Olympic mountains or not), and most of that is Oct-February, especially November (more as you push up against the mountains). We get negligible rain in summer, and when it does rain, well, it's a good time to turn on the sprinklers! June has been cool and wet these last 2 years, but you can expect an inch of rain or less June through September.

We have 6000 gallon cisterns connected to a small roof. To keep up with our household water use, we would need to get a larger catchment--house size, but it needs to be metal because it is connected with our drinking water. Our system would need to be much, much larger to cover our small garden usage, plus house usage without turning on the well. Nope, can't do without the well, but we are a family of 4.

Two neighbors on our road with good solar exposure (zero trees) still have to run a generator in the winter. However, they still love the self-sufficiency of it. They do have a small wind generator to back it up. We chose to hook up to power because we have less of a solar site and we would have had to cut down every tree to the south of us, plus still using generator power.

Urban areas, you can hook up to the grid. It doesn't help when the power goes out (the power company can't have you generating power when they need to work on the lines) and in the winter you would be paying utilities. Seattle has had a program recently to defray some of the cost of installation for this type of system.

 

[DenverDawg]

An hour away along I-90 opens a lot of options - North Bend, Snoqualmie, Issaquah, Hobart, Sammamish, even Redmond, Woodinville maybe Snohomish. Burien and surrounds might have some options What is your definition of "large lot size"?

It really is the grey skies so I highly recommend a view home if you can pull it off. Long, large views make the weather fascinating from inside a cozy house.

 

[SweetSilver]

Maybe wind power would be our best bet lol. We also thought digging a well may not be a complete necessity since it does rain so much we just need a giant reservoir.

One more comment amount this.... if you are looking in and around the Seattle area, you will have incredible difficulty doing anything outside the books, building-wise, and that includes wells.

And often view lots come with *the* most obnoxious neighbors imaginable. Certainly if you want to practically guarantee that you will move to the most likely place to find intrusive laws and neighbors and covenants, then purchase a view lot anywhere near Seattle.

While I agree about the grey skies and a bit of view, with what you have shared about the reason you are relocating in the first place, you are choosing the very places that will plunk you right in the midst of exactly what you are escaping from.