small house in moab

[jan nikolajsen]

Hey!

I've posted a bit before about our off-the-grid, off-the-septic, off-the-hot-water cabin in Washington: http://coyotecottage.com/

Well, we lived there for seven years until we recently became aware of our growing weariness with the rural lifestyle which, with a kid in school, translates into lots of driving and still not enough peer time for an activity hungry boy.

Last labor day as a temporary distraction we loaded some camping gear on our bicycles and rode 1800 miles to Moab, Utah to revisit the place where Bjorn was born 11 years ago. Charmed by old and new friends we decided to move back here.

Now I'm starting to build a new version of our Washington cabin, this time located right in the middle of town, with all the rules, regs and red tape associated with dense neighborhoods. New to me is the concept of building permit, sewer hook up and a lot size of a mere 70 x 80 feet.

What we had in the Northwest was ideal, comfortable and simple. Except for the loneliness and remote location we found out precisely what we wanted in a house. Can it be redone to our taste under the scrutiny a narrow minded authority? Maybe. Affordable too? Prolly not.

Our little place will be in this development: http://www.mulberrygroveonline.com/

While different than the usual obscure hunting retreat and back woods hippie dwelling, I still hope there will be something of interest in this account. That is if I have time and energy to update it regularly!

On the program this week: Connecting to the grid (ouch!!) and digging a bunch of trenches.

Jan

The south elevation, with 700 sq two story house on right 520 sq shop on left:

[Homesick Gypsy]

Exciting new adventure, Jan.  Can't wait to see / hear more.

[MountainDon]

Good to see you back here, Jan.  This should be an interesting project. I hope you do find some time for updating.

Is the development south of Mill Creek, near Pear Tree LN?


Are there many who have built already? The green points worksheet is an idea I've not seen before.

[Solar Burrito]

Hi Jan, good to see you post here too. I've followed your Coyote Cottage for some time too!

Have you sold the Coyote Cottage yet?

Love you boats you make. My wife's parents have a similar "i forget the name of it" sailboat as you sailed on in some of your trips you posted. It's small and green and looks like a tugboat because of the pilot house. I don't have the link anymore but they enjoyed seeing where others had gone on a the same boat.

Wishing you the best of luck.

[John Raabe]

Jan sent me an email link to the biking adventure the family took finding the property they are now building on. I'm sure they won't mind sharing these pictures with us. It is a really great story...

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=RrzKj&page_id=115080&v=8S

[jan nikolajsen]

Put up the combination meter box, cut down a few rotting cottonwoods which eventually would have crashed on the house, and staked out the corners of the future buildings. All in all a productive stretch of time spent in the sun.

Tomorrow the big machines operated by men of great wisdom will arrive and start their work.


The glorious dirt patch


Waiting for the power company


Not much held up that towering tree


Behind the lot is the Mill creek Parkway..


..and the Rotary Park


Orchards in bloom within Mulberry Grove




Green belt and park which is part of common area

[jan nikolajsen]

To answer a few questions: Mulberry Grove is between Mill Creek and Pear Tree, and we are the first to break ground in the development. No, we haven't sold CoyoteCottage yet.

Today the trenches were dug with a little nifty apparatus the concrete guy had, and form work were begun. Everything ended up on layout and square, so we are happy for now. The footers are down 24" and integral with the stem walls and slab, making it what the Steve the concrete guy calls a monolithic pour. Slab height is 8-10" above grade.

On Monday I called for an inspection of my meter box work, but so far no one has shown up. The one-man framing crew (me) is anxiously wanting to plug in saws and drills by Tuesday. We'll see.

In the late afternoon I interfaced with the plumber, who also runs a mountain bike tour company. It is Moab after all. While I have a decent grasp on the more superficial aspects of plumbing, I felt it could end up being money well spent to have someone else bury the pipes under 4" of concrete slab and those hefty stem walls.

[MountainDon]

To answer a few questions: Mulberry Grove is between Mill Creek and Pear Tree,

Cool, that is a nice area, a bit of country close enough to the shops to bicycle to and fro. I have a friend with property in south Moab. Having a plumber do the pipes that will be encased in all that concrete is probably money well spent.

Do you get to share in the fruits of the orchard?

[LeoinSA]

In the late afternoon I interfaced with the plumber, who also runs a mountain bike tour company. It is Moab after all. While I have a decent grasp on the more superficial aspects of plumbing, I felt it could end up being money well spent to have someone else bury the pipes under 4" of concrete slab and those hefty stem walls.

The dirt in the pictures appears like it might have a pretty good clay content.  Here in SA there are many houses that are built on a slab on top of heavy clay soil.  When it's wet the clay swells and the slabs move.  Same when it dies out.  The clay shrinks and the slabs move.  Lots of older houses - 20 to 40 years old - have nasty problems with water and drain pipes breaking because of the slab movement.

Those places that were built with the live pipes inside a larger sleeve pipe don't seem to have problems - even if the slab moves 4" or more as the soil wets and dries.  A work compadre just spent over $8K last summer getting broken pipes fixed under his house slab.

Might be the same thing with freezing and thawing.  Dunno what's what in Moab.  But might pay to get several opinions.

Leo

[jan nikolajsen]

Good point, Leo. We followed your advice and sleeved all the pipes, including extra material where they penetrate the slab.

Here's pics of progress up to the finished foam-work before pouring:

[jan nikolajsen]

Big day today. Covered all the blue board with 35 yards of mud.

[MountainDon]

Now the real fun can begin.   

[jan nikolajsen]

..yes, fun indeed.

Spent two days flashing the blue board surrounding the stem walls. The inspector wanted me to go 8" below grade, so I trudged around with a shovel for a bit. The vertical part of the job consisted of unrolling 50' sections of galvanized sheet metal, holding it up against the foam and then back filling to keep it in place. Wrapping around the top and over onto the slab I glued on 3"x3" corner flashing. This is just part of the job, as more detailing and weather proofing will happen later.



The walls will be 2x4 double walls with 3" of space between, for a total R-value of maybe 35. The first exterior part is coming along good, with most of them up by now. With the double walls there will be very few areas of thermal bridging.



The home made chop saw table with 9' support on one side and 5' on the other. Holding up good, considering the $20 cost.



I'm using O.V.E. (optimized value engineering) framing techniques. This greatly reduces the number of studs required, not only saving lumber, but also leaves a lot more space for insulation. Some of the methods used can be seen in the pic of the window framing.



This massive, ratcheting, over built version of the wimpy, and annoyingly over rated quick grip clamps have restored my faith in this type of tool. Use it all the time. Amazingly powerful.

[jan nikolajsen]

The outer (and structural) 2x4 wall is up, all around. Next is to build the house again, inside, in shape of another off-set 2x4 wall.


Ahh, the waste.. here the window cut outs.


Looking out the big loading door of the shop, with the family quarters behind.


Bjorn helping, sort of.


Looking from the kitchen area towards the shop. Interior walls will partition it all off.


The 4 south facing windows of the downstairs.


Shop.




Our current residence, a 1971 Trillium. Been good to us for the last 6 months.

[jan nikolajsen]

Another week went by. Did all the double walls on the ground floor, started the floor joists and other tidbits.


The two walls have a 3" space between them. The outer have J-bolts cast into the foundation, while the inner is fastened with drilled expansion bolts. By now I have sunk 85 of those 5" thingies into the cement.


9 1/2" engineered floor joists over the east 320 sq ft of the house.


The opening for the staircase, also showing the 10 inches deep walls, tied together with 1/2" plywood.


Another view of the top plates.






Bro-in-law Ralf is here to help for 2 weeks


Shade is essential when the temps soar.

[soomb]

is there AC in the 1971?  If not are there any options as the summer temps arrive?

[jan nikolajsen]

No AC, but yes, there are options. A few weeks after school is out we're doing this:

[John Raabe]

Great report Jan! Good documentation we can all learn from.

That sailing trip looks like a powerful motivator.  

[Solar Burrito]

No AC, but yes, there are options. A few weeks after school is out we're doing this:

Like your boat, It's a Nimble right? I was out on my father in law's Nimble 27 a few weeks ago. He doesn't have the rear sail though.

[soomb]

I spend too much time in the office!  Arrrrrggghhh

[Bishopknight]

Wow Jan. I've been a long time fan of your work. I felt a lot of what you were saying in your posts about being remote and growing tired of the commute. I Love the pics and the implementation of the O.V.E.

Can't wait to see how this turns out. Best of luck!

[jan nikolajsen]

Thanks, Bishopknight.

Here's a couple of new pics from the last days;


67 kwh to build the house so far. Quite affordable at 8 cents per kwh. Too bad the electricity comes from the coal fired plants south of here.


Looking thru a shop window at the nearly completed second story




View from the east facing kitchen window.


Living room/kitchen. Looks a lot bigger than the actual 320 sq ft inside measurement, thanks to the 24mm wide angle lens on my Ricoh.


With 2x4 double walls there's lots of room in the corner for insulation, an area that's typically is nothing but studs.


Late yesterday afternoon we put the last nail in the wall framing of the house. The biggest dimensional lumber that has gone into it so far was a couple of 16' 2x6's cut up for headers. Not bad for a house with 10" thick walls.

[jan nikolajsen]

Spent a day and a half struggling with the staircase. Despite having built 3 of these in various configurations before, I still have a hard time getting it all right.

Fitting a staircase in small house with space constraints is even trickier and it means going right up to the allowed sizes to make this massive, overwhelming hulk as small as possible. The max riser size per code is 7 3/4". In the end my risers ended up at 7 7/8, some even at nearly 8". Hopefully the inspector will not whip out his tape. Treads can be no smaller than 10", which is what I got.


I managed to get all the treads from the left over sub flooring scraps. Later I will find some suitable solid wood to stick on there. The risers are 3/8" cdx that actually looked alright, and I'm contemplating making those the finished surface. The width from wall to wall is 37".


I'm still missing to do the sheet rock blocking.


Another issue was meeting the 6'8" headroom requirement. Well, I didn't. Simply no room here. So the action needed is to take out the double I-beams marked BCI in the pic and transfer the wall load to those headers above. Luckily it is not a bearing wall. Poor planning on my part, but in the end it will hopefully work out.


The treads are supported at the ends by two notched 1x12's glued, screwed and nailed to some nice 2x12's. In the center is a notched 2x.

[speedfunk]

looks like you will have a very snug little home there!  I'm surprised more people don't double frame the walls.  If you seal it up real tight ..just make sure you have some way of getting fresh air in there.  Looking forward to the rest of your build ..nice job!   

Are you going to use blown in cellulose or maybe sprayfoam?? 

[jan nikolajsen]

speedfunk: the plan for insulation is one inch of spray foam followed by blown in blankets (BIB's) or as you suggest, wet spray cellulose.