New Construction Project – Outhouse/Toolshed/Woodpile

So my pop, brother and I met after my brother’s graduation ceremony and discussed our upcoming trip to the land. We’re heading out on the 16th and staying until the 20th. We’re going for a few reasons. We want to make sure our boat has made it through the winter, as well as the platform itself. There were a few giant windstorms since we were last there, and even though there are no giant trees near the platform itself, a lot of smaller ones could do some damage. Also, the freezing and thawing of the ground could potentially have moved some of our foundations. To deal with this, we plan on putting some braces across the posts when we go up this time.

We’re also going to build a smaller platform to the east and just a bit north of where the cottage platform is. This platform will house the outhouse, woodpile and tool cabinet. Right now the outhouse is just sitting behind a bunch of trees a way off from the basecamp and we imagine people will eventually want a little more privacy. The new platform will be 16′ by 8′. The roof will overhang all the edges by about 2 feet, so it won’t rain on you, on the tools, or the woodpile.

We’re doing up some drawing for this one, and I’ll be posting those shortly, along with more detailed information on how we’ve improved out methodology since the last platform. Namely, we have a plan before we get there with a pile of wood and no hammer.

Oh, and I called the Coleman Township today for a building permit, which they are mailing out. Should be interesting to see if they’ll actually let us build this slanty shanty. Not that that will stop us, but it’ll be interesting.

Windmill

I mentioned this homemade windmill video before, which is one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen, but it just might work. It wasn’t on youtube, so I put it up so you all can watch. Basically he takes a big plastic pipe, makes it into blades for the windmill and uses an old car alternator as the generator. The guy doing the video also has a really unique accent:

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnB1l1SWcQ8

part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_7yDofugNA

part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idjxc2NMbY8

Toilet?

My pop, brother and I are going up to the land on the 16th of June until the 20th, mainly to see if the foundation is still intact, and to do some hand-on planning and visualizing, and to swim and fish and look at stars and eat food out of cans. We will be building a smaller, less permanent platform and small shack for our toilet. We found a composting toilet, used, on craigslist for 250 bucks, which is a substantial discount from the price of a new one (about two grand.) Even though it was used, the guy who sold it to us cleaned and disinfected before we picked it up.This is the model we purchased: http://www.envirolet.ca/enwatsel.html

Basically, at the beginning of each cottage season you fill the bottom tray with a layer of compost. As you use the toilet, the compost starter turns…whatever you drop onto it…into harmless compost, which you dump out at the beginning of each new season. This unit is good for up to 4 people using the toilet three times a day. Generally we don’t pee into it. Explicit, I know, but someone has to be brave and discuss this most important topic on this vast internets. The unit we have is not powered, and is vented out a long tube that sticks up the back and goes out the roof. The powered version basically has a fan in the vent tube that dries things out faster, and can therefore be used by more people because it composts faster. In any case, the vent tube makes sure the smell doesn’t stick around, which I think is quite nice.

For the enclosure for the toilet, we’re looking at sitting the foundation on concrete piers, which are less stable, but the platform will probably be rather small. HOWEVER, we might get ambitious and turn the platform into a combo wood and storage shed, with a separate shed for the toilet. We’re also talking about the location for this, because if it’s the middle of the night, or a cold morning, you want to be able to get to the toilet with a minimum amount of fuss.

Light inside will also be an issue, but I think we might be able to kill 4 birds with one stone. If we put a few LED lights along the shed (they use even less energy than the compact fluorescent bulbs and are more environmentally friendly) we could conceivably run them off a car battery that’s charged from a small solar panel from Canadian Tire or somewhere similar. A fan for the toilet could also be hooked up to this, and the battery could be hidden in the back of the shed. I’d imagine the floor area would be about 5 feet wide by 12 feet long. And maybe directly behind or beside the cabin, somewhere that could be linked up to the landing at the top of the stairs to the cabin by some decking so that you could get there at night without tripping over rocks and roots.

I’ve been trying to use Google’s SketchUp to show how these things would look, but it’s just too sharp a learning curve. I’m going back to MSPaint.

Floor

When we originally constructed the foundation, we used 12 metposts, which are essentially metal spikes with a bracket for a 4×4 on the top, to hold up the beams to which we attached joists, and then covered with deck boards. We weren’t sure whether the foundation would be used as a floor for a structure and, honestly, we didn’t even know how you’d make a floor for a structure. We basically just used the technique we had used before to build a neighbours deck one summer. Every 8 feet we put a row of three met posts, hung a beam off a 4×4″ pillar and hung joists in between these beams. We also screwed everything in, instead of nailing them, something I think will end up being the right idea, in terms of general creakiness and give in the floor. This is the best picture:

In a normal house, you would just run long joists from wall to wall, putting supports where you can in the basement, or using load bearing walls to support them on the 2nd floor and above.

As it turns out, having deck board under the floor of a cabin is not really the traditional way of doing things. So we were asking ourselves if we should maybe take them off, and build the floor right on top of the joists. When you build a traditional floor, you basically put cross braces between joists in the form of an X or flat pieces of wood the same width as the joist toe nailed into them, called blocks.This is to improve the rigidity of the floor. Our joists don’t run very long, much shorter than traditional housing spans, so that leads me to believe we would have no issue with rigidity without the cross braces or blocks. Then, on top of the joists you screw or nail down 1/2″ tongue and groove plywood in an offset pattern, making sure to leave 2mm of space between each board for expansion.

I’ve had to deliberate on whether or not we should remove the decking, and put in braces of some sort for rigidity, but I am inclined to leave the decking. The decking will give incredible rigidity to the floor, as well as take up part of the total load of the structure. Because we are not on concrete piers or a full concrete foundation, this is important. The only disadvantage is the slight gap between the deck boards and the added height, and this really only affects the walls of the structure.

This affects things because we’ll be putting a 1/2″ plywood on top of 2″ deck board. Walls are made up of plates for the top and bottom, and studs that make up the height. The total height of the wall should be 8 feet, because that’s the height of the plywood sheets that will end up covering the walls. It just makes things super easy when building to not have to cut anything. But if there is also this 1/2 inch plywood and another 2 inches of deck board, the plywood will not cover this.

So, the solution would be to put a board around the sides that will cover this area. But the board will have to be flush with the walls so that the siding covers it as well, ensuring no moisture penetrates.

Right now, I’m feeling like I have to draw this out on paper. I’ll post it once I’ve got it figured out.

Two Books and a Good Store

Two books we’re using right now to help up come up with ideas and understand the construction process at the CMHC Canadian Wood-Frame Housing book, and the Time Life Outdoor Structures book from the Home Improvement series. Our copy is from the 70’s, but it all still applies and the drawings are great.

The CMHC Wood Frame Housing book is a good mix of the technical and the practical. It makes some pretty good suggestions about where you can cut corners and what building codes generally dictate in this frozen wasteland of ours. If you are a women, and live in the United States and are into a sham marriage, please feel free to e-mail me. I kid, but only very slightly. I’ll let you know after this winter.

The book also introduces the housing jargon in a way that allows for you to figure out what the heck they are talking about. Don’t make the mistake of assuming a sill plate and base wall plate are the same, because they’re not. If you did, you might end up with a crooked lintel and your subfloor would be ontop of your overlay instead of under it. I know things now, so don’t mess.

The drawings are OK, but they are a little overly complicated. The book is not designed for the amateur trying to build a small structure, so I use it mostly for figuring out the technical stuff, like what size bolts you need in your sill plate and what is the proper distance between studs. This is not a how-to book, more of a guidelines book. But it is the best selling book on the subject in Canada for a reason, and it’s only 25 bucks.

The Time-Life book is wonderfully amazing and has all kinds of neat tips and tricks and advice that will save you from wrecking things. Par example, you should carry trusses upside down so you don’t pull apart the joints accidentally. Seeing that they are the single most expensive line item on our budget, this would be sad if it happened. Speaking of which, I will post a detailed breakdown of our projected expenses for this building shortly, but it’s looking like it will cost about 7 grand right now.

The illustrations in the Time-Life book are way better than the CMHC book, but this is likely due to the amount of page real-estate they have. The book is just a lot bigger. Sometimes seeing the picture explains everything much better that the text alone could. The project they describe in the TL book is a garage, but the basic structure is the same, a single room structure with a single peak gable roof. That just means one peak, the regular way – sloping down to both sides from the middle. Damn. I wish I had a picture.

We’re looking at Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore for doors and windows on the cheep. I passed by the one just off Royal York and the Gardiner last week and there was tons of great stuff for reasonable prices there. We’ll probably end up using them for all the doors and windows. The windows are big and mostly in great condition, and compared to Home Depot’s prices, they are less than half. More on doors and windows in a separate post, but you can rest assured that we will not be buying new. Except maybe the patio door. More on that later.

Wind and Solar Power and general musings on power and building

Currently we have a tiny gas powered two stroke ultra pollutant generator to power the tools we’re using to build the structure. We will probably continue to use this for the rest of the construction process and in emergencies, but ideally we’d like to be using the sun or the wind to power our cabin. The wind map for our area doesn’t look too great (the MNR has one for all Ontario, check out the links), but there might be enough to power a few light bulbs at night and a refrigerator when we’re up there. There’s always the option of propane powered lamps and refrigerator, but those appliances cost more money.

I watched a video I got off bittorrent on how to build your own windmill for about 500 bucks using an alternator from a car. I had never thought of this before but that’s exactly what an alternator is – a dynamo that recharges batteries with the power of spinning, except in a car it’s the crankshaft that spins it through a belt and not the blades of a windmill. If I wasn’t so focused on saving for things like walls, I’d be all over this.

As for solar, it’s very attractive, but we really don’t want to cut down many trees, so unless it was much higher than the roof, it probably wouldn’t get enough sun during the day. And the cost is high, and it’s not something I’ve seen that you can build yourself. There’s a few companies that seem to be developing out of the box solutions, (which IKEA seems to be working on, how neat is that?) but we’re still a few years away, and the other ones…well, let’s just say that, as the carpenter’s motto is “measure twice, cut once” my motto is “buy twice as much wood.” Just kidding. But I think it’s a little outside my skill set at the moment. Maybe when I’m rich and can have hobbies like saving the planet.

As a side note, my pops had said that he really wants to get to a place of enjoying the land, and not being in construction mode, and for me, this is the part that I’ve really been craving – designing something and building it the best way possible with the resources we have available. I wonder if I’ll just be one of those guys who is constantly building and improving while everyone else is just lounging around enjoying the fruits of my labours. Not that I mind! But the draw to build this windmill, something that I know will take time away from just enjoying, made me think about this. A friend from the Montreal days, Lori Braun, once equated humans and their constant need to build to the beaver. She was renovating her newly purchased house…rather, I was renovating her newly purchased house, but the sentiment said something to me.

Aside from the fact that the land is really to craggy to put a tent on, literally anywhere, without a platform, why the need to build this shack? I mean, shouldn’t we be satisfied with sitting in the muck on a cold day with the rain drizzling all around us and the bugs eating us alive? Isn’t this the natural conclusion of all our back to nature, ultra green, prime-directive “don’t disturb nature” higgledy-piggledy? What is the appropriate middle ground? Should we only be using wood from the land to build the structure even though that would take forever and end up being more expensive and prevent us from just enjoying the land? What makes us any better than the guy down the lake who razes three acres and puts up his McMansion cottage. I don’t think I have a good answer for any of this, but hope that we’re being humble enough not to push the earth, which I plan on enjoying as soon as I’ve built a cabin, windmill, deck, dock and cedar strip dinghy, into a vengeful tailspin of acid rain, global warming and endless Wal-Mart expansions.

Roofing Dilemmas

So, the construction of the walls of the structure is pretty straighforward – sticks attached to other sticks with nails. However, the roof is more complicated. Like the rest of the structure, whatever we decide on will be clad in plywood and covered with something, but the manner in which the roof is constructed can vary considerably depending on how much time and money and help we have.

The two main choices for roof construction are building one ourselves, using a similar construction method to building the floor, or using prefabricated trusses, which increase the strength of the structure, are easier to install, use less lumber, but cost more money.

The first idea was to build the roof ourselves, but it has quickly become apparent from various conversations with the helpful dudes at Home Depot, that there is a huge amount of time involved and it would required a degree of skill that we probably don’t possess. This method would probably cost around 6-800 dollars for the frame, i.e. not including the plywood, tar paper and shingles that make up the roof itself. It would also probably take a week. In this method you basically build a deck, then cut notches into the joists and nail them into the walls. The notches have to be precise angles and could be mis-cut real easy.

Trusses would cost about 1500 dollars, but would take about one day to install and are a lot less likely to be screwed up by neophytes such as us. We would use the standard gable room, which means just one peak right in the middle. They describe the rise of the roof through a factor of twelve inches, so for a tall roof, we would order a rise of 12 to 12, which means a foot of elevation for a foot of length. We would probably go for a rise of 6 to 12, because it will be easier to shingle a roof with less of a rise, and for some reason a really tall roof doesn’t appeal to me for a cabin, aesthetically. I’d like to see if we can get a skylight in there somewhere, but price will dictate this. Maybe ReStore will have one for cheap. We’ll also need to install one of those whirly-gigs called ventilators to suck the hot air out during the summer. This could be insteresting, as it requires more precision than most of the rest of the contruction will likely entail.

I’ve left a message with Diamond Truss Inc. in Toronto for a complete quote, but have yet to hear back from them. I may just take the drawings to Home Depot and get them to do us a quote. In the end, we will probably give the business to the Home Hardware in Temagami, as they were good to us the last time we were up there building. Also, the CMHC Guide to Wood Frame Home Construction says you should try to get your trusses close to the job site, as they can be damaged in transport. They should be carried upside down while moving them, along the longest piece of wood at the bottom, not by the angled pieces that make the peak.

Construction Dates

Tentatively, we’re schedule to build our cabin between the 1st and 15th of September. Have yet to check off with everyone, but looks like that’s the time fram that will work best. Originally we had planned to do it the first two weeks of August, but my sis is getting married and she’s gonna need all the help and support she can get. After it’s done, you’re all invited to share a beer with us there, lounge around the wood stove, check out the stars and watch the sun go down.

Cabin Building Specs and Requirements

This is just to give you an idea of the kind of constraints we’re working with to come up with our cabin. The platform is 16’x26′ and we want to use that entire area for a one room structure. We may add structures to it at a later date, but for now, this is it, so the room has to serve many different functions. Spliting it up would just decrease the functionality of it. It must be a one storey structure and must cost between 5000 and 8000 dollars for all the material, mostly because we probably won’t be able to save more than that in time. Everything else can be considered, but within that price range, we are probably limited to traditional wood frame construction techniques.

Also, we don’t want to be cut off from the outside when we’re in the building. Eventually we’d like to insulate it, but for now, we want to be able to feel like we’re outside or at least see as much of the outside as possible when we’re inside. So, big windows that can open wide with big screens are a must.

Welcome to a blog about people building a small cabin

HI!
This blog is here to detail the contruction of a small cabin in the woods, by a lake by a bunch of men with time on their hands and a hankering for some nature.

About five years ago, I was working at a international corporation that had spectacular pay and excellent benefits and the ability to suck my soul out, turn it into dust and blow that dust into outer space. So, to while away the time, I dreamt of buying a piece of land and building a house or cabin or cottage or even a chalet on it. I had the money, so I started looking where anyone who is looking for the pinacle of respected traditionality in real estate deals would look – eBay!

I found a piece of land there, about 6 hours north of Toronto, that seemed to suit my needs (basically that he financed the deal himself – I had declared bankrupcy a few months earlier due to my other expensive hobby – classic Cadillacs.) So, me an my pops took the drive up to see it, and met Gord Byers, a short stout and very dedicated real estate tycoon of epically minature proportions, and looked at the piece of land he had advertised.

It wasn’t all bad, but it was mostly bad. There was a public beach down the road, close to a big lake, electricity, but it was basically a mosquito bog off the side of the road with a bunch of yahoos on ATV’s buzzing back and forth. We walked around a bit and after being eaten alive, we told Gord that we didn’t think it was for us. He knew, like all good salesmen know, that we were getting away and he’d have to change tactics if he wanted to keep us interested.

So, he tells us about another piece of land he’s got – pristine, up the lake, water access only, no lectricity, no neighbours, faces crown land on a relatively quiet late, and is one of three lots. But the survey hadn’t been done yet, so he couldn’t sell it to us just yet. But with a 1000 dollar deposit, he’d give us first pic when the survey way done. His son agreed to take us up to look at it, so we all got in the boat and took the 20  minute ride up the lake from a public no-fee launch in Latchford, ON.

When we got there, we knew we had something. The three parcels were in a little bay on the east side of the lake, facing south east. Gord couldn’t tell us exactly where the land would be, but we had a fairly good idea – the terrain was mostly the same across the length of the possible area. As we had later found out from some of the geological surveys of the area provided by the Ministry of Natural Resources, the land was on a fault line, which explained the rocky craggy terrain that had an incredibly steep elevation. The parcel ended up being about 400 feet, and the elevation changed 80 meters from the front of the land to the rear. It’s steep. To put it in perspective, there is about 6 feet of elevation from the front of the platform we’ve built for our cabin, to the back. The width is about 16 feet.

So, we made a deal with Gord, gave him 1000 bucks – everyone from the family pitched 200 bones, and we waited. Three years later we got an e-mail saying the survey was done and we could go up and choose which plot we wanted. As none of us had the time to go, Gord suggested a lot, and we accepted. When we got up there later that year, we discovered that he was bang on, and that it was the pick of the litter.

We spent a few days, walking up and down the land. We walked the boundries that had been freshly cut by the surveying team, and we walked back and forth between the lines. We discovered a few areas suitable for building a little cottage, but didn’t make any final decisions. We found a small groves of trees, clusters of one species here and there. We bought a book on how to identify the different trees. We saw a snake. Lots of deer poop. We marked the boundries with stakes spray painted fluorescent orange to make sure we wouldn’t lose them as the foliage grew back. We talked about what we saw and what we imagined seeing. It was very edifying. I used my newly acquired machete a lot. Photos from this trip can be seen here:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26833&id=540544158#/album.php?aid=14151&id=540544158

The little piece of land we’re on is called Jumbo Point.

While there, we had rented a cottage and boat down the lake from a gentleman by the name of Wayne Conroy. He had about 10 cabins, but that was the last year he was able to rent us a place, because the township had mandated that all rental operations had to do water testing, and the cost would have bankrupted him, so he just closed the business. He’s a good guy and has helped us out a bunch with all sort of things.

The following year, after a winter of plan making and remaking, we headed up with a vision for construction. We would build a platform that would eventually hold a cabin. We didn’t know what that cabin would look like – we had discussed all manner of structure, including a traditional Mongolian structure known as a yurt, but hadn’t been able to come to  conclusion and were fine with that.

Before heading up, we’d secured a boat. Pete, my pops, found a 20 foot pontoon boat with just a wooden platform on the top for a deck – perfect for hauling lumber. It came with a trailer and 50 HP motor. The price was right, and he an my brother-in-law Dave headed out to pick it up. However! The trailer was kinda a mutant home-made dealy, and the wheels came apart on the drive home, on a holiday Sunday, making it nearly impossible to find the parts and get back on the road – but they did it – somehow. Hopefully they’ll share that story on this blog at some point, as it was a crazy adventure.

Only somewhat less crazy than the stuff we had to pull to get the boat up there for our first building expedition. My, Pete and Dan, my brother, were set to go for a week to do the contruction of the platform. We had all our tools, clothes, food, tents, sleeping bags, everything all packed up. Except we didn’t have a car that could actually tow the behemoth.

Years before this obsession, I was obsessed with an equally expensive hobby (the other ridiculously expensive hobby that replaced this was filmmaking – go figure) – the collecting and restoration of classic Cadillacs.  My knowledge of the intricate and arcane ways of the Ontario Ministry of Transport led me to a somewhat…involved…solution. We would buy a truck, get a 14 day trip permit which required no safety or smog test, and allows us to use the insurance already on a vehicle that we owned. We tracked down a ’96 GMC 1500 with a trailer hitch, dropped 1000$ dollars on it, with the plan that we would sell it as soon as we got back. We didn’t know that we would make 200 dollars on the sale to a guy who wanted it for a scrap metal collection business he was starting. That was nice surprise.

We took off in the early hours of the morning and took sideroads until we were well out of Toronto. 5 AM to be exact, to avoid detection by the police, as the trailer was still not street legal. We made it up without incident…except that as soon as we got there, it started raining on and off, in torrential downpours, for the next two weeks.

We stopped at the Home Hardware in Temagami and ordered up all our supplies. They delivered them the next day to the public launch in Latchford. We reserved a room in the motel in town because we knew we would be totally bushed by the time night fell (Latchford is about 6 hours from Toronto) We started carting the wood up to the land, and after nearly sinking the boat, we decided on smaller loads, and only two people would go on the boat at a time. It took about a day to get all the material up there, and probably about 75 dollars in gas.

Just to interject – the boat almost capsized because we slowed down too fast and there was too much weight at the front. It didn’t really capsize – with pontoon boats, there is virtually no way to capsize them, but the shape of the front plus the uneven weight turned it into a kind of sea shovel. Lesson learned. We only did it one more time.

The second night, we moved out of the motel and camped at a public campground – no charge. It was wet and there were a billion mosquitos. We absorbed out body weight in DEET those two weeks, let me tell you.By the time we had enough of the platform built to hold a tent, we moved our gear there.

You can see pictures here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26833&id=540544158

It rained so much, we strung a giant tent over the platform so we could keep working. We used a tiny generator we got for 150 dollars at CDN Tire to power our drill and circular saw. Everything else was done manually. We even ate manually off a BBQ we brought with us, and of course, the requisite Coleman stove.

Once, when we were boating back to the land from a trip into town, a terrible storm came in. There was no lightning, so we decided to keep going, but the water was hitting us so hard it felt like driving through a very stingy wall of bees.

The construction method we used was similar to the one used for building a deck. We used MetPosts, basically giant metal spikes with a bracked on the top to hold a 4×4″ piece of lumber, for the legs. There are about 12 of these in total. There were four beams, one on each end, two in the middle, all bolted to 4×4″ coming up out of these MetPosts. Then joists are strung from the ends and brackets support the joists. On top of that went deck boards, which we may now decide to remove in place of plywood flooring boards, using the decking for…a deck…in front of the structure itself.

So that’s it, so far. We’ve started talking about what the structure will look like, and the plan is to build either the first two weeks of August, or September, with me, Pete, Dan and Edward, the design lead on our project and close friend. Stay tuned for more updates!