20' ish x 32' ish Cabin - Kansas

[ryanlane55]

Hello everyone.  Been lurking on here awhile reading, learning, figuring on how I want to do my build.

Bought a few acres on the river for hunting access, and fishing that had a cabin on it that I had planned to renovate.  The cabin was in pretty rough shape so I decided to just take it down and start new and build what I want to.  This is going to be the start of my build thread so I will post pictures as progress continues. 

What i am now:

I have the old cabin down, and I had around 50 yards of soil brought in to help with drainage and get water moving around the cabin.  I am going pier and beam with the cabin.  I have the piers laid out and will have the auger out there in the next week or two.  I am going to use 24" Bigfoot and 10" tubes.  The tubes will be above grade by 18" +/-.  I had planned on using the 3 2x12 for the beams......(3 rows of 5 piers).  But yesterday came across some I-beams that I think I can get ahold of for cheap, cheap. 

So here is my thoughts:  please chime in on whether you think this will work or not.  Assuming the beams are adequate of course which I need to figure out what they are.  But lets assume they are sufficient.  I was thinking of pouring an embed on the top of the tubes when I poured them.  This embed would be 6"x6" plate steel, with embeds.  I could then take the I-beams and set them on the piers and weld the beams to the embed.  I-beams would be a lot easier to keep things straight obviously then setting pier anchors in perfectly to allow for the 3 2x12's. 

So question 1:  thoughts on the I-beam and embed assembly for the beams?

Question #2 - I would need to drill and bolt a sill on top of the I-beam and then run the floor joists on top?  I would hurricane clip each joist to the sill that is bolted to the top of the beams.  Thoughts?  Sound okay to you all?

Thanks for everything and look forward to the build and input from you all through out it.  I will get some pics up soon of the old cabin, and the demoed spot.

[SrDesigner]

Beam size would be good to know. There are references online that can help you figure out the point loading for various sizes of W members.

Yours is the first post that I've seen that resembles my plans. I am starting my construction in the spring. I have already placed a shipping container and stocked it with bigfoot forms and various construction tools. I have a seasonal stream and during the runoff I collected 300 gallons of water in poly barrels, to use for mixing concrete for piers. I found 3-25' W8x13 beams. I'm planning to weld 4x4x1/4 tube steel to 6x6x1/2 plate embeds (this will allow for less care in leveling piers).

I'm going to top the W beams with pressure treated 2x4's using structural self-tapping screws and the build above will be per normal framing methods.

There are a few details that I will start sharing on this forum, once I have some progress photos. I will be following your posts closely. Thanks for the inspiration.

[Don_P]

Yes it'll work, a well braced pier and beam. weld rebar to the bottom of the embedded plates that extends down well into the piers. When the flanges of the W sections are welded to that plate you are creating a moment resisting connection. I ordered W18x60 per engineering for a long span yesterday, the guys are forming 42" square piers currently.

[ryanlane55]

Thanks for the replies.  I am still working on trying to get that guy to sell those beams.  Not looking as likely as it was last week, but fingers crossed.  If I cannot use the beams, I will be going with 3 2x12's with 3/4" sandwiched in there twice to get me to the 6" and use the PB66 Simpson anchor.

I really want to do something atop of the pier to help minimize the moment arm on the connection.  I figured I could use a small 1/4" steel angle of sorts that would lag into the beam, and then epoxy into the top of the beam..  Two of these per pier per side of beam on the pier.  This should help with the moment connection and not not leave just the PB66 to resist the moment arm.  I will also brace the piers themselves similar to others I have seen on here.  Should be doing some auger work early next week and I will start posting some pictures.

[cholland]

I made a built up 2x8 center beam on mine.
The PB66 connectors are 5.5".  So you only need 2 pieces of 1/2" ply.
Instead of sandwiched between the 2xs, I just made 1/2 ply gussets at the piers.

[ryanlane55]

Well got some progress now.  Not going the steel beam route.  Guy wanted a fortune for them.  So.........over the long Thanksgiving weekend I got the holes dug, footings poured, rebar cages set, tubes set, gravel backfill, and spread some dirt around them.  Also got the tubes marked where they need to be cut off at but the 30 mph north wind and 20 degrees had me saying mercy.  Shouldn't take an hour to cut them off now they are marked.  I cheated and rented a Transit and Laser Level......marked 4 corners of tubes and connected the dots.  For $30 I couldn't afford not to rent it and go that route.  Also, a buddy of mine runs a rental store close to my home town and he brought out the 24" auger.  That baby moves some dirt.  This silty dirt didn't take long to put holes in to.  Here are some pics.  Next weekend I will be cutting the tubes and bar, pouring the tubes, and setting the pb66 Simpson Anchors.

2' round piers, 12" thick, 4 pieces of #3 rebar aligned like "tic tac toe" at the bottom of the footing, then 3 pieces of #3 rebar vertical with a 8" bottom leg bent into the footing.  10" sonotubes.  Footings are 4'-5' below finish grade, approx.

I have a great time this past weekend.  Great weather and got a lot of work done.  All the tubes are within 1/2" of being in line at the long axis.  It is out of square a couple inches due to the rebar cages not allowing for the tubes to be exactly where they needed to be, but I will make that up in the floor joists. 

Note:  This place had a cabin on it originally but it was in bad bad shape.  You will see septic waste and water line maybe in a few of the pics.  I am going to tie back into those once these piers are done. 

[ryanlane55]

I went with three rows because once you calc up the dead and live loads and then add in the weight of the concrete footing and pier, the psf is about 1400-1500 psf.  That soil is the silty bad stuff, so everything I researched says that soil will only bear 2000 psf. and I wanted to be on the safe side.  I had to go 15 piers with 2' diameter footing.  The 20x30 plans I bought from here do not have the middle row.  Because I have the middle, I could probably get away with 2x8 or 2x10 floor joists over my beams.  Not sure if it matters but I will be overhanging my beam by 6" - 8".

[ryanlane55]

Also, BTW.........Not sure what I was thinking but I bought 24" bigfoots, and the auger was 24".  At as deep as I went there was no way i was going to get them down there and be in line with each other.............I bought these from the supplier it called out for my state (Kansas) and had them shipped to me.  Because i can't send them back..............I will make somebody a smoking deal on here for them.  I paid $25 a piece. 

[warbird]

how smoking of a deal are we talking here?
i also am in ks (wichita) where are you at roughly

[ryanlane55]

The forms are just east of Manhattan.  I could ship to you. 

I have 15, but plan to use one for pouring the tubes.  I should be able to clean it up enough that it would still work to be used as a footing.

I'll sell for $250 obo and I pay for shipping.

Thanks

[ryanlane55]

Well got some more work this past weekend.  Weather held out for us, and then the rain came last night so got the foundation completed just in time. 

Everything came together pretty well.......the main problem I was having was the pb66 Simpson Anchors being just heavy enough that they sunk into the concrete to give me problems.  I wanted it to be relatively wet concrete so the "anchor" portion of the hardware had a good seal around it.  If I would of poured a dryer slump concrete I was worried about air pockets in the tubes and also trying to push the anchors down into the dry concrete making for not as good a bond on the anchor.  Maybe I should of done that, but I would rather deal with shimming etc, then have pockets of space in the tubes, or a bond anchor bond the concrete.  I am just saying this for those in the future......the anchors are pretty heavy/stout and will sink into a wet concrete.  FYI.  Also I am posting some pics of the original cabin that I removed.  Doesn't look like too bad of shape from the outside, but it was in very bad shape structurally. 

Hopefully this weekend I can get started on my floor.  Going 3 2x12's and then 2x10's on top of that.  The overall width with be 22' rough, and 32' rough.  The 2x10's will overhang the beams by 6" +/- each side. 

Tubes cut to length


Anchors Set in Concrete

[ryanlane55]

Have some fine grading to do now but overall I got a good fall away from where the cabin will sit.  I will put down 6 mill poly and then gravel as well.

Also you can see the septic and well lines are roughed in...........

Not sure what approach I am taking yet on keeping them from freezing.  I may encapsulate them both in PVC and pour foam in them, along with heat tape that I can plug in come winter and unplug once temperatures return higher.  Something I am also talking about doing is putting some sort of pressure release valve outside which will drain the entire system of well water as needed.  The septic line shouldn't freeze, but the traps I may just do some antifreeze as necessary.  Still working on those details.

[ryanlane55]

The old cabin that got demoed......

[ryanlane55]

Got a couple questions on floor details and how to connect/attach/etc and what some of you did or feel are best practices.

You can see my construction is much like what others have done but I have a few questions on connections.  This pic is of the beam ends.  I planned to block the end of the beams, and then put a rim board at the ends of the beams.  Should say Rim @ Beams, not Rim @ Piers.  Fastener/Connector recommendations?  I put question marks where I assume I should probably have some sort of connector, or is just nailing fine?



For the joists I plan to use the Simpson H1 Clip like shown here:  http://www.google.com/shopping/product/1?lsf=seller:8740,store:14146498969549977141&prds=pid:208767791698397282,oid:208767791698397282&hl=en&ei=446PVOOKI4mpogSkiIDoDw&cm_mmc=shopping-_-googleads-_-pla-_-100375256&ci_sku=100375256&ci_gpa=pla&ci_src=17588969&gclid=CjwKEAiAqrqkBRCep-rKnt_r_lkSJAArVUBc63Cdawo-NlLk_wZ_hRf28jUVmkwLytn2yqI9HhCkMhoC7Ubw_wcB

My main concern is at the short side (pier end side) as you can see in my drawing I am going to have the rim joist bearing on just the beam rim, hopefully that makes sense???  Is that okay?  Or should I just block between them and not worry about the beam rim board? 

More questions to come as I progress......thanks

[Don_P]

Code prohibits wet setting anchors. If the mix is too stiff then the anchor doesn't become embedded and if the mud is wet enough to stab into the aggregate is also pushed away from the anchor leaving it just embedded in cream.

Have you thought about using joist hangers and setting the joists inside the girders, this solves another lateral support issue.

[ryanlane55]

I read and read lots of posts here and saw others wet setting but didn't see any mention of what you stated. I will do plenty of lateral bracing to hopefully help with whatever problems I created in wet setting the anchors.
So many things I am not aware of I guess.
I am not sure I can do the joists inside because of it being out of square some. 

[busted knuckles]

No wet setting of anchors, what metheod is recommended? Are the anchors not designed to be installed that way?

[Don_P]

This was the first time I had seen a post describing how the anchor should be set, so I piped up with some clarification. On inspected jobs all steel is hanging in the forms with correct coverage spacing, the prep is inspected and then the concrete is placed. What that is trying to do is have consistent concrete and aggregate surrounding the steel. When you wet stab something into fresh concrete it pushes the aggregate away and then you puddle cream over the anchor. Where I've had it happen is these are the anchor bolts that you can crank right back out of the concrete while trying to bolt down a sill, the uplift is shot.

[ryanlane55]

I understand what you are saying.................with that...............other than the lateral bracing from column to column as you can see on page 4 here  http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=8038.msg103145#msg103145 how would you recommend to help with the uplift.  I will us the H1 clips at the floor joists to the beam, and then possibly some other twisted straps that attach to the beam and then the joists hopefully adding more reinforcement..........but whatelse is there I should/could do?

Thanks

[Don_P]

I'm sure you'll be fine, my comment was in response to your note to those in the future and was expanding it to best practice for those following along in the future. If you're concerned, tieing from one of your brace to pier connections up to the girder would restrain uplift across that point. I suspect with pier and beam lateral is the control.

[ryanlane55]

Well made some major progress over last couple weeks.  Have some friends that have a small construction business that were slow so they pitched in a lot of this work. 

Here the beams are set in place but not attached.  A little bit of shimming was necessary but overall was really happy with the piers. 


Here the beams are set in place.  I put some 2x4' a 1/2" below the top of the beams and then laid 1/2" OSB on there so the OSB was flush with the top of the beams.  Once the 2x10 floor joists are set I then get underneath and nail/staple the 1/2" OSB to the bottom of the floor joists.  I will then caulk the perimeter edges where the OSB meets the beams.  The 2x4's cover the OSB joints.  This kind of solves two things for me.  Gives something for the R-30 batt insulation to rest on and also is a good bug/critter screen.


Here are my floor joists sitting on the beams.


Here are the trusses I ended up purchasing.  Went with the scissor truss.  I am going to build a loft floor in half.  That loft floor will be supported midspan that creates the bedroom under the loft. 




Trusses on.  The gable ends will have a 1' overhang added on.


Coming along nicely.

[ryanlane55]

Next step inside and then siding on the outside.








Going to start framing interior walls, exterior soffits, and loft floor next.

[ryanlane55]

Here is my interior layout.  Not entirely sure what I am doing with the stairs yet.  I have it framed like what you see in this layout. 



I have 2x8's for the loft floor.  I ran the 2x8's all the way to the exterior sheathing.  Then I nailed the 2x8's to the 2x6 exterior wall studs.  I then put a jack stud under each one of them.  The 2x8's sit on top of the wall that is the bedroom wall for mid-span support.  These 2x8's are pushed up to the underside of the bottom-bottom plate.  That puts the bottom of the 2x8's at about 8'4".  Once i put the finish items on the ceiling the area under the loft floor will be at about 8'2".  The center of the loft to the bottom of the truss is over 8' currently.  The pony walls you see on top of the loft are 32" tall.  The overall width of the loft is about 15'.

[MountainDon]

Wondering how the insulation in the upper area is to be handled?  Insulation behind the pony walls and then up the roof trusses to the peak?

[ryanlane55]

Yes sir. I was planning to insulate the walls up to the top plate. Then return horizontal in the loft floor. Then return up pony wall and continue on up in the trusses.

Been contemplating closed cell foam. My biggest concern with that is the structure being so air tight and in Kandas climate you have 50/50 cold hot through the year. With a structure that will go weeks or possibly a month or two that is unconditioned the walls not able to "breath" may create condensation or moisture issues. Thoughts on that would be greatly appreciated. I work for a construction company and we do spray foam but this is a different situation being that the structure is not going to always be conditioned. If it was conditioned 100% of the year I would spray foam for sure.