Victoria Cottage NE TN

[NavyDave]

Hello to all!

It seems like it's been a long road to get to this point and I haven't even driven the first nail yet. The first thing I'd like to do is say thank you to all of the members who've taken the time to post threads and share their project with all of us dreamers wanting to be doers. I first found this site about three years ago and submersed myself into ScottA's modified Victoria Cabin plan. After reading it over and over again I started reading other posts and kept gaining knowledge from this website.

I mentioned ScottA because he's literally the first thread I came to. He enthralled me with his details and craftmanship but I don't want to single him out. There are so many people on here who I'm grateful to for the knowledge they've passed along. Jdhen, great House! Beavers your 12x16 is simplicity plus! GlennK, MountainDon true inspirators. And John it goes without saying that none of us would be here without you. There are really too many folks to name. Thanks to you all.

OK now that my forward is done....after almost 20 years in the military, 10 of those spent dreaming about owning a piece of paradise and living a simpler existence, my wife and I have decided to buy 23 acres in a small town north of Crossville Tn. It has a really nice spring fed pond on it stocked with catfish, bass and brim. We've decided on a modified Victoria Cottage to build overlooking the pond. The property is laid out with approximately 10 acres in pasture and the remaining in a nice mixture of mature/maturing hardwoods and pine. There is electric run to the property to an old trailer site that happened to burn down and there is an old well with a well house that I don't know the condition of yet. There is city water that runs along the paved country road but if i had my preference i'd rather minimize my monthly bills and ties to utility companies. I plan to install solar electric eventially but will remain tied to the grid to possibly earn a little extra income from excess electricity produced. The home site I've selected for the Cottage has a ledge of shale less than 24" from the surface so my foundation should be very solid.

I plan on starting my build in Early November before it gets too cold. My plan is to go down to the property (currently stationed in the extremely crowded and traffic laden Washington DC metro area) and camp for 8 days to pour the footings for my post and beam foundation and possibly get the beams built and set in place and level so when I "retire" in late March we have a solid place to start the framing from.

I have pics of the property and will post them as soon as I can figure this photobucket thing out.

[NavyDave]

This will be the driveway onto the property.


A different angle of the driveway. You can barely see the pond back by the woodline.


The pond. The home site will be to the right hand side of the pond. The driveway would be almost in direct view of this picture if the knoll wasn't there.


Another pond shot. The homesite is located in back of me and to the left a bit. Notice the rock ledge in the pic, this should make a nice solid foundation.


My dad while we were walking the property.

[devildog]

Welcome. Thanks for your service to our country.
The property looks great. I look forward to watching your progress.
My inlaws live in seveirville, I'll have to look at a map  to find out where that city is.
Oh, and congratulations on your upcoming retirement!

[NM_Shooter]

Beautiful property!

Good luck with the build.  Stick to tried and true methods, and you will find all the help you need here to make it a success!

[UK4X4]

awsome pond - I can see you enjoying that in the future

as a note some shales are expancive - check what you have before designing your foundation

[yankeeredneck]

Nice property. Wife and I are talking about getting property over that way. We are in the mountains of NC and love it here but like everywhere else......no work. Eventually we will build but right now.......we can only dream. Anyways.......cant wait to see the progress of the build.

[Don_P]

Nice looking place. Do think about the shallowness of the soil when thinking about bracing the piers. There isn't enough soil sitting on top of the ledge to provide any rack resistance to the posts to resist the wind pushing on the walls above.

[NavyDave]

All, Thanks for the greetings!

UK4x4 - I call the rock shale because that's what my dad called it but the soil scientist who did my perc test called it bedrock in the paperwork. With an aviation background all I know about geology comes from the discovery channel and the few things i've read about plate tectonics. I did a google search of "expansive shale" and all that came up was a Portugese hip hop band that i've never heard of. I'm assuming that what you meant was that it may be susceptible to frost heave like soil is? The Victoria Cottage plans came with an information packet giving basic info about soil types and according to that a rock base is excellent due to it not holding water. I know that some rock is porous and does hold a certain amount of water but is frost heave normally an issue?

If anyone has any info about the type of bedrock normally found in Fentress county TN it would be much appreciated.

Don_P - actually the shallowness of the soil was a concern of mine also and to be honest I won't have any idea of how deep the bedrock is where i'll dig for each specific pier until I actually auger into the soil. I'm hoping that it is right at 2 feet like the perc paperwork says but I know there'll be some deviation from that. My plan to solidify the piers and keep any shifting to a minimum is to:

dig a 24 inch diameter hole to the bedrock for each pier. Drill 2 holes into the rock about 8 inches or so. I'll epoxy two 1/2" lengths of rebar into the holes i've drilled and leave it to length to cut later.  I plan on pouring concrete directly onto the bedrock and allowing it to self level and set then thread 8" square cinder blocks over the rebar, mortar them together and then fill in with more concrete. I'd make sure the top cinderblocks are level by using a water level during the concrete pour.

One question though.....do I need stone under the concrete for drainage?

Any ideas to make the process easier or if anyone has any ideas please shout. Thanks in advance. 

[UK4X4]

"I did a google search of "expansive shale" and all that came up was a Portugese hip hop band that i've never heard of. I'm assuming that what you meant was that it may be susceptible to frost heave like soil is?"

yes it would be- basicly there's a few types of shale- some impermiable- some that swell with water so can frost heave when they are saturated

Google expansive shale oilfieldor road building

If you look a shale layers in a road side cutting for example - usually there are thousands of cracks and piles of shale on the floor- where they contract and expand with the weather - to the point of simply droping out of the wall, while other layers stay intact

There are technical terms for each type- but I'm no geologist -I just know from drilling oilwells

and how I got to spend the millenium sat on an oilrig in the North sea because of expansive shale was stopping us running the completion in the well

while the rest of the planet was at a party !

Then I got a good trip to CO and worked on the oil shales in western co - many a chimney fire was caused by this particular shale in the past !


,

[jbiehl]

That is going to be a nice site, cant wait to see the progress. Beautiful pond btw!

[Sassy]

Lovely property - the pond is really nice - looks like you found a great piece of land!  My dad was in the Air Force for 30yrs - B52 instructor pilot for many years.  Thanks for your service!  I worked at a VA hospital for 21 yrs, just retired the end of July.

The Victoria Cottage is a really nice plan - there's been several who have built that here on the forum.  John has some good plans that can be adapted to your needs & wants. 

Looking forward to your build! 

[NavyDave]

YANKEEREDNECK - NC Mountains are beautiful also. I'm not sure what the work situation would be here, it seems like the whole country is in a crunch right now unfortunately. Thankfully we've been able to put a few dollars away to be able to put our place up before we have to start looking.

UK4X4 - Thank you for the heads up. It sounds like you have plenty of experience with rock hounding. I will definitely have to take a sample of what I have to someone more experienced when I get down to the property in November.

Jbiehl/Sassy - We are definitely excited to get down to our place and start the build. I can't wait to make the vision a reality. The pond was a real good find. We looked at over 20 properties this summer all over TN and every one that had a pond on it was either dry or the water looked really mucky, rightly so after a 40 day drought I suppose. This pond was very clean and seemed really healthy though, obviously there's a decent spring feeding it otherwise it would be low.

Sassy - Congrats on YOUR recent retirement! I'm not sure whether it's harder being military or a government servant like you were. They both have their merits I suppose. My positive is that I've travelled all over the world, I've seen a lot.....actually seen the Pyramids over 10 times.....every time from over 20,000 feet though. I'm over in that area now actually and luckily am scheduled to be home in about a week. In my offtime, which I've had a lot of recently i've managed to plan and replan my piers and foundation what seems to be 15 times!

Here's a rough sketch that I think may be what some of us would call the "final plan" of my piers. Hopefully the quality is ok.



Also here is a floorplan of the main floor. The kitchen bumpout is facing South and looks to the pond.



And here's the loft floorplan. I kind of copied Scott Lemay's idea on his Michigan 16x26 and added a touch of personalization.

[MountainDon]

If you have bedrock that you're digging down to, I don't understand the gravel layer at the hole bottom with concrete poured on top.    Why not just concrete right on the bedrock? I don't think you need drainage if you have solid rock available at the hole bottom.

Also if you can angle the drilled holes some they will provide better uplift resistance.

My 2 cents...

[NavyDave]

I wasn't sure about the gravel to be honest. You actually answered one of my uncertanties. Now I have a new final plan!

I've read about angling the holes also and I'll see if I can make that happen while i'm drilling. Should be interesting as to how i'll be able to get that done. Thanks Don.

[Don_P]

This might be some help with the soils and maybe what's underlying;
http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/HomePage.htm

If you build corners maybe running about 4' out of each corner, pinned to the rock it would help stabilize things.

[timj]

Navy,
Your site is beautiful! Just a thought for you.....How about use one rebar, and one "all-thread" epoxied into the holes in the rock. You could then use the "all-thread" as an anchor bolt for the above structure.

Tim

[rick91351]

I wasn't sure about the gravel to be honest. You actually answered one of my uncertanties. Now I have a new final plan!

I've read about angling the holes also and I'll see if I can make that happen while i'm drilling. Should be interesting as to how i'll be able to get that done. Thanks Don.

If you have solid rock or bed rock it is not going to frost heave.  You can anchor rebar, thread all, cable and ect. with molton sulfer.  That has been done for years and certainly stands the test of time.       

[NavyDave]

The progress begins! I spent all day yesterday pulling my 10 foot trailer filled with my tools from Wash. DC to the site in TN. My parents met me here and today Dad and I spent all day long clearing/preparing the site, building batter boards and figuring out where each of the 25 piers will be situated. We are pretty happy with the progress so far.







Tomorrow we'll be augering all of the holes and figuring out exactly how much topsoil is above the bedrock. I'll be renting a rock drill to drill 3 holes into the bedrock about 12 inches. I'm going to try to angle my holes for my rebar as much as possible to help with uplift resistance.

[Jeff922]

Looking forward to following your build (I built a Victoria's also).  Best of luck!

[NavyDave]

Jeff, I read through your entire build and you do great work. I just hope mine turns out with similar character. Long hard day today. I augered 25 holes down to the bedrock and widened the holes to about 14 inches in diameter and cleaned them so the bedrock was bare. Tomorrow dad and I are drilling and mortaring in the rebar.

I got some dissapointing news from my septic guy today though. Since we have bedrock so close to the surface he'll have to blast to set the septic tank. This is something that we knew but what was suprising to us was that the septic permit wasn't complete and wouldn't be for another couple of weeks. We were planning on him blasting early this week and then pouring concrete for our piers but since he won't be able to blast until the permit process is complete I won't be able to actually pour until spring. I'll get all of the site made beams built though so it won't set me back too far. Hopefully!

[TheWire]

Do you have to blast just for the septic tank or the whole drain field?  How deep is the rock?

[NavyDave]

We'll have to blast just for the tank. No blasting for the drain field. Where the tank will be the rock depth ranges from an extremely shallow 3 inches under the soil to 30 inches. The drain field goes down an avereage of about 30 inches.

[NavyDave]

I'm back in DC now and the week was a very busy one. We made almost as much progress as planned except for not being able to por the piers because of the septic situation. We got a lot cleared on the site and were able to get all of our holes drilled in the rock and the rebar cemented in. We also were able to build all of the beams. Lots of nails in those beams! I can't wait to get down there full time in March. We made good friends with the neighbors and made some good contacts in the small country town. Can't wait to start our new life in the country!


augered and rebarred holes




Temporary electric service


Building the beams


Lots of nails!


Finished beams


Breaktime for dad






Bonus of the week! we found what we think is a natural gas well on the property! we still need to have the pressure tested to see what the output is but this may be a real find.




I'm not 100% sure what this is?? It's a couple hundred yards from what I think is the gas well. It's in the woods and not by any structure. Any ideas?


Beams all covered for winter. Be back in March!

[Don_P]

Check your deed and the county tax office for an easement.  I'd have Miss Utility come out and flag the line... and don't blast till you straighten this out.

[Barry Broome]

I'm not 100% sure what this is?? It's a couple hundred yards from what I think is the gas well. It's in the woods and not by any structure. Any ideas?

Looks like a cut off valve, perhaps for the lp.