Living Off Grid in LA - Safety Third 85 

My parents have a creek running through their land and Will is totally right. There are lots of rules around what you are allowed to do. Cannot reroute it, dump in it, make dam, generator, etc. You can however build a bridge over it or swim in it (in Washinton state, it may be different in California). Also, in regard to demolition: There existed an abandoned elementary school in my neighborhood for my entire childhood, which was never demolished and rebuilt into something else because it was extremely expensive to destroy because of special permits and the specific location. Then some warehouse company bought it, and within 6 months somebody mysteriously decided to commit arson in the middle of the night and burnt the whole place to the ground. They are now developing it into a warehouse, and IMO the arson was very likely committed by the company trying to develop the land. No one was caught or charged for the arson. Kevin, that dome idea exists in the Seattle aquarium, you should check it out! This episode was a banger guys, keep it up! :)

33:39 best bear story I ever heard was of this 11yo Alaskan kid who was poking around a garbage dump and poked what he thought was a bag but it turned out to be a huge bear. The kid heard if could hug the bear it’s hard for them to get to you. He was wearing a very bulky winter coat so while the bear was frantically clawing at his coat he stabbed the bear with a hunting knife he was wearing and successfully killed it. All by himself alone. He said it forever changed his entire outlook on life. He didn’t tell anyone till years later. He said he had Insane confidence and perspective the rest of his life because of the incident.

Pallets depend on the store. Walmart for example has a system where the pallets are returned to the warehouse and reused so you would be stealing pallets from Walmart but harbor freight for example just puts them out and hope that people take them.

It's not stealing pallets, it's urban lumberjacking!

If you do a zoom episode with Colin Furze to talk about secret tunnels you could have Nigel on the episode 🤯

As an urban planner this hurt me and reminded me why we need to simplify our regulations, but also why it's hard to do so. Just want to say its complicated if you have questions call up the planning and zoning and building departments they're there to help.

When I lived in texas, my cousin bought a small old metal warehouse wanting to live there, but due to zoning and how you get permits, he decided to 'renovate' the warehouse and built two 'offices'. He was allowed to have sinks, a fridge, and a shower, but the shower had to be a chemical shower, so he did the drain and shower for inspection and then enclosed it after the structure was finished. After the 'offices' were complete, he got another permit to re-side the metal building, so he basically built a new building with proper permitting, but becasue they were separated 'renovations' the code compliance was way less strict and the only thing he had to actually get from the city was final inspection for the 'offices' and the only design change was that there had to be inwardly facing windows because every room needed two methods of egress.

All that tunnel chat and no mention of topdog Collin Furze??

I bought land earlier this year and I've been dealing with the exact same problems learning about all the rules and permits required to do literally anything with the land that I own. This episode hit home so bad and I'm fuming thinking about it

Please bring the special guest Nigel back.

I think you should bring nile (mr) green again but honestly nile red would be also cool.

Kevin I have had the same idea but instead you find a quarry pit and make a glass roof that is sealed about 10 ft below the ground level the entire size of the pit and fill that with water. Then you can build below it and have full sunlight and cooling with the water. Bonus points if you build a waterfall into a pond inside that you pump back up to the surface for a nice water feature.

all this permit talk is making me anxious for the future.

It amazes me that with alle this tunnel talk, colin furzes name did not got dropped once.

When you talk about running for mayor / city council, there’s actually a king of the hill episode where Hank runs for city council to allow for high flow toilets

Definitely need the Furze on to explain his tunnels

This is literally the most dream RU-vid combination ever - also speakeasy is a ridiculously underrated song

Nigel and Alex do need to meet

Funny enough, we have a gold mine in Alaska. The claims anyways. You actually have air rights with property as well as mineral rights. So how they build skyscrapers and stuff is they buy the air rights for the buildings around and use them for the one building. And my dad was a homesteader and land developer in Alaska. Every piece of property he sold he kept the mineral rights. So like if there's gravel on it, they had to talk to him to move it. He ran gravel pits mostly. When you homestead you actually get up to 150 acres. And in the interior of Alaska I believe they still do homesteading. It's just hella remote. Also I'm a carpenter/handyman in LA, I could totally help Alex build whatever he wants on his land. You don't need a permit for a ceiling fan. It's more like structural and plumbing things

This is the most adult conversation that has ever happened on Safety Third lol.

If only you guys knew somebody who knows chemistry to ask all these questions of

The weight of the water would hold it down. Buoyancy only works if water can get under the structure

the SHEER convolution of government, law, and its complete inaccessibility is a CRIME.

The dome question is dependent on whether you want your lair pressurised or not. Unpressurised you want the plexi panels of the underwater dome to be put from the outside, as there is no gas pressure acting on them from the inside, that isn't also acting on the water above. This asumes you have literally some kind of "tube" leading up and outside, with just air flowing freely. It is prob the best option for a lair you just want hidden somewhat. The pressurised option becomes a must at a certain depth, because then you need the air pressure to counteract like you know, thousands of litres of water xD

“The kids were going at it like seagulls” 🤣🤣

1:16:41 the dome would have water pressure on all sides. The water wouldn't "know" if air was in there or cement or jello. 1:18:54 my brother in law did this based on pool rules in his city and he became mayor. Within a few months, his city was filled with peaceful protests, in 2020, in the pacific northwest. He quit.

"So it was oldschool?" "Yeah it was cool" Cracked me up

The house of my parents had shredd newspapers as insulation in the walls some pieces were large enough to read and most were from 1936

I've never worked at walmart but the place I have worked at that used pallets would store them outside before sending them back to the warehouse to be reused.

My stepdad could only get an office permit for the development of one of the sheds on his farm, so he built the kitchen and beds all on wheels to make sure the space could always be converted back to an office.

1:27:00 pallets left outside of grocery stores are free. I worked at couple grocery stores as a facilities person. Pallets that are good are put directly from the store into the trucks. Pallets left outside are there to be destroyed... but we pray that people come by and make them dissappear

3:50 General Sam also uses a face-tracking camera which does more or less the same thing

Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh good, they're making me miss Cameraman John.

should note, if you go deep enough underwater. The water will just compress or dissolve into the water. So I'll guess the pressure would be acting on it on all sides keeping the glass in place on the sides simply with friction.

Whitaker Wright’s Lea Park estate in Godalming, England has an underwater smoking/ball room with a facetted glass dome. It was constructed in one of several artificial lakes on the estate.

"20 minute episodes" best quote

Have electroboom on the podcast

In Texas, if you own the mineral rights to your property, you own anything and everything under you to the very core of the earth. This is true in most places. As for airspace, you generally own between the first 500 and 1000 feet above your roof, but this is not a hard limit and can be argued for more or less depending on the land and how it's to be used.

Great video!

I would've never guessed this collab

1:02:10 I’ve seen those belt driven multi ceiling fans in a McMinimans restaurant. I instantly wanted them also

The guest was competely lost when u guys first started talking about the underwater fort. I was right alongside you guys really questioning whether the forces would be pushing the glass out or inwards.

There are lots of places to gold pan legally in the US, in CO and CA! I used to drive out and pan when living in SF!

very special indeed

You should greenscreen Nigel in. Just get a green speedsuit and stuff it and put it in a chair and overlay it with Nigel

another guest! nice!

Here for the spaghetti stay for the sauce

Mini series of Alex's shed misadventures!

As a truck driver while there are still people that do meth but not as much as we use to cuz it was used cuz we drove like 16 to 20 hours a day but now that we are regulated to at most 11 hours a day we don't need it to much any more but weed is huge out here

@25:10 the dutch youtube channel named here is called :"spuiten en slikken" they arent recording new episodes but they have tried a lot, very educational, i would guess most of them have subtitles for the ones interested

Oh god the don't make meth section reminded me of working with John McAfee so much. I laughed my ass off so much its just like the type of crap he use to talk about at the bar.

You should talk to ColinFurze about digging a tunnel 😅 he also can tell you, what health care and education are like here in Europe 😅 We don't need to decide between education and building a tunnel... But I think you still need some permit for the tunnel...

Another fun fact about California, the "state full of environmentalists", nowhere in the state does the government recommend drinking tap water. This has led to private businesses selling a basic human right as the only option for most people.

I worked as an intern at an Architectural Firm and - when I was there, they had a whole shitload of up-cycled shit. Like a re-surfaced bowling lane for a big ass table. Anyway, wanted to point out that their insulation was just shredded denim. Just, jeans that were literally shredded to pulp!

Get yourself a composting toilet. I tried one at an airbnb in the middle of nowhere and it was cool.

You can disconnect from the grid, it’s not even expensive but if you want to go back it’s 10’s of thousands to reconnect

A lot of old Finnish houses use sawdust and newspapers as insulation.

there are definitely grizzlies in montana everyone who lives here knows of someone who had one on their doorstep

the air would push up on the dome while the water would push in on the sides

do you guys ever visit universities? I go to Milwaukee school of engineering and i know it would be so fun to have you guys do a talk here we also have some structural engineers that could tell you about building tunnels haha

A joke about Nigel not being here.

A couple things: I'm an engineer for a power utility.... pretty much everything Will said is accurate lol. Also, at an old job I had, we got in trouble for destroying the shitty pallets. Apparently, the shipping company actually owns them and they can be worth a couple hundred depending on what style so you are typically expected to return them to the shipping company. This probably varies from place to place but as far as I understand it, you definitely can't take pallets from behind stores...legally that is

Back door scientist

I enjoy the ceiling fan talk for some odd reason

Yup crazy

I think this episode made me believe that Will and Kevin are actually adults

Colin Furze and JerryRigEverything are making bunkers if you need inspiration

Just move to the middle of nowhere Nebraska. You can do whatever you want!

When will you go to England and record an episode of the podcast inside Colin Furze's house tunnel?

Oh i missed Alex

Did William move to Florida or did Kevin move to California? How are they able to record together? And where does Alan live?

You actually do own your airspace up to a certain point, which is why you can't just fly drones around on other people's property

Another great episode. When are you going to have me on? Haha I'm just playing around. Anyways I hope you guys have a great day.

Oh that nose spray is the GOOD SHIT

Hey I'm a gold planner in Colorado! It's all about mineral rights.

27:53 I spit my tea out that was hilarious about perscribing meth

Great episode, but please turn up the volume or something. It is pretty low in volume.

_"Meth is what keeps the world going, man."_ lmfao

I built a "tiny house" no permit shed, and the rules here are a bathroom, a kitchen, and a sleeping area is a "house". I wanted initially to "live" in there while my house was being renovated. Nope. Weirdly, I am in the only place in canada where a real tiny house is actually legal, but it still has to be a properly permitted building to code. The ones on trailers do not count. They want 200-800sqft. By those rules, my actual main house is a "tiny house" though. They may have missed the point :)

I enjoyed the part with Nigel! (edit: just to be clear I actually liked the whole episode.)

There was that car exploding at the US/Canada border... Nigel probably had something to do with that.

at least where I am, you don't have to use power, but you do have to pay the service fees regardless, unless it's a never developed plot, then you just don't hook up power and that's legal.

1:11:24 - This already exists... it's known as the "Underwater Ballroom"

now i acnt wait for the episode where u guys are sitting in the weeds on alexs property

many places will not allow people to live there if it is not connected to the grid. they will condemn the house

20:34 There's a weird audio thing

You guys should have Nile red as a special guest

Faa controls all airspace in the US. If you did jump a dirt bike it would be completely legal. IANAL however.

just make a bell diver tipe beat dome and put it in the poel/lake

23:59 haha saaaaame

You prob can't make tunnels. You can, however, landscape. And maybe there is a difference between "temporary" and "permanent" stuff.

Meth may have been pretty prevailent in the past in trucking. but we are so over controlled its not to common now. now cattle haulers and farm hands may still like them toothpicks.

missed pun - "Methter Beast"

It’s a volley gun not a four barrel sawed off shotgun lol

Will figured it out: there are things that are legal for everyone and other things that are legal for wealthy people. I'm sure that's fine...

Like Seagulls they were.

Tejados de uralita

Never seen Nile and alex in the same room before... hmmm

Badger.