ski cabin in central cascades

metolent · December 03, 2010, 12:15:30 PM

Hi all, I've been lurking here since the summer of 2009, following all of your builds and learning about building small houses. I'm on the ski patrol at White Pass and with my wife and 2 kids that are emphatically into skiing (one that is joining the race team this year and my 3 year old that first strapped on boards last year when he was 2), we have been wanting to build a small ski cabin to reduce our drive time and maximize time on the hill during the winter ... as well as enable more time in the Cascades, particularly since Rainier and St. Helen's parks are really close as well. However, I've never built anything on the scale of a house, but I stumbled onto this site. Last fall, I decided to give it a try and bought the little house plans from John. Using those I built a small 12x16 at home, so I could learn some things hands-on and make as many mistakes as possible on a smaller scale (mission accomplished there - i've redone lots of things, but haven't made too many of the same mistakes). That project is still not completely finished, but it's mostly done. It has been a great learning experience and after getting this one up here I'll get some pics of that that project up here too.

After finishing up most of the little house shell at the end of ski season last year we got a small lot in a tiny town nearest to WP and planned to break ground in the summer. We went through a number of designs, I bought my second set of plans from John (the 20x30 1.5 story plans), and set off to build a pod design - iow, a 20x32 main building with two 12x20s for bedrooms. But that worked out to be a bit pricey, particularly given the slope of our lot and need for a stepped foundation ... plus I didn't feel good about the angle of the lot and the pier and post foundation (even though I'm sure it would have been fine). So, I ended up doing a custom design using google sketchup for a single 20x34, had the wife review, changed to a 24x30, had the wife look, talked to several other people and looked at their cabins and finally settled on a 28x34 with loft, which is just long enough to fit between the septic and the setbacks from the road. Planned to break ground over the summer building by myself, but health problems got in the way - did some "therapy" for 2 months over the summer instead of building, felt terrible, and finally decided to get a crew to do the foundation and shell for me. I took to google sketchup to draw up the plans to submit to the county and get bids. The county approved my plans with no changes, I signed with the builder (which I just couldn't be happier with), and "we" broke ground the first week in November.

Enough story - here are some pics of the build - the shell is nearly done now, most of the metal roof is on (as you'll see in the pics) with the exception of the mud room/entrance way that is a separate gable to create a double door entrance system (yeah it's cold up there) which I was inspired to include based on all of the houses I've been in up in Canada. I'll try to orient the pics in order from lot to where we are today... Of course, suggestions are most welcome and as I start the plumbing and electrical (myself) I'll be asking more questions...

Lot after I installed a mobile home pack and masthead for power

metolent · December 03, 2010, 12:18:59 PM

Here are some pics of the foundation going in....

December 03, 2010, 12:28:26 PM

I got all of the windows and doors for the place myself (combination of Marvin wood windows as well as Milgard and custom ordered Atrium windows for the front gable), so as the walls were going up, I brought them up to the crew. I hung around for half the day on site to watch the first wall go up. The crew really is great and the builder had a ton of pictures of other jobs in an album he had on site.... I was really impressed with the workmanship of the crew... and at a really great price!! Plus, he's emailed or texted me photos every day of the build - it's really cool to get a text with a photo of more done...

More pics:

nice big crawlspace - after they poured the stemwalls there was about a yard of concrete left over, so they put it in the lower part of the crawlspace and smoothed it out, so the lowest "step" has a scratch coat so to speak - and there is full head height in this part - going to be nice for a utility area for the air handler, water heater, and storage , particularly until I can get a detached garage built.

metolent · December 03, 2010, 12:35:01 PM

first wall framing day... These show the start of the siding. We went with a really nice smooth (no grooves) doug fir T1-11, with cedar battens at 12" oc. We've been debating painting vs. staining and pretty convinced we'll paint it. More pics:

In this pic you can see where the "mud room" will come out from the main part of the cabin. The gable will die into the main roof. One exterior door on the real outside, one exterior door on the inside to create a buffer to the cold outside air. We picked up an old church pew that we plan to cut to size and put in there along with all of our winter coats/gear/etc. Should be nice to have a place to step into to take your coat and boots off without intruding on the actual interior. At least that's the thought....

metolent · December 03, 2010, 12:44:01 PM

During the rest of that week, work continued ... they framed up the other walls and the two bedrooms and bath on the first floor as well as the loft and stairs. I should have noted earlier that the cabin is positioned on top of a hill right next to the cowlitz river and is facing Mt. Rainier. So although I don't have any pics of it yet, we have a great view of the top. I'm going to need to get a telescope and see if we can watch climbers summit during the summer. More pics....

In this pic you can see the back wall framing and will notice that low roof pitch. The front roof pitch of the cabin is a 12 in 12, whereas the back portion of the roof pitch over the loft is a 4 in 12. This was to accommodate ceiling height in the loft (well obviously) but we didn't return the roof pitch to 12 in 12 at the very back. Looked funny to me, but we can barely see the back of the house, so I traded off some visual appearance in the unseen back for usability within the loft. By the way, the loft ceiling height is ~ 13' at the ridge beam....

Views from loft

I put in a 15"x93" tempered window in the stairwell, so they had to balloon frame that wall section. Looked kind of funny till they got the roof on...

December 03, 2010, 12:52:23 PM

Very nice project. Thanks for posting all of the pix.

Sounds like an exceptionally great experience with the county building dept. No changes doesn't happen often.

metolent · December 03, 2010, 12:53:41 PM

Was really cool to watch the roof go on.... I'm glad I didn't have to do it....

Rainier is hiding over there in the clouds in this one behind Adam:

26 guage metal roofing from Champion on the back portion over the loft:

start of front wall framing:

Custom ordered windows arrived ... and they were installed! Funny, the tallest one is 8'3" in the longest dimension, but it looks small in the pic! I shot from the hip a bit when coming up with the window design for the gable. I don't like it when the whole gable is consumed by windows right up the eaves, but I didn't want them to be too small, particularly considering the view. I think they look a bit small in this pic, even though I know they aren't, but I think they'll be fine when I actually get up there later today to check it all out.

Final pic from yesterday afternoon. I have early patrol tomorrow, so I have to be on the lift at 7:30 am, so instead of getting everyone up at 4 am, we're going to grab a room tonight and spend this afternoon checking it all out. I'll post some more pics from the weekend in a few days when we return. Plus I'll have some plumbing/electrical/wood stove questions as I'll probably start that next week.... I'm on sabbatical until the end of January, so I have some time to focus on getting the cabin livable for the next 2 months.....

rdzone · December 03, 2010, 01:05:05 PM

Great project. Keep the pictures coming.

phalynx · December 03, 2010, 01:45:21 PM

Really nice build going on there.

December 03, 2010, 02:14:06 PM

Very cool! Looks like it's going up quickly...congrats. I love White Pass; attended a PSIA/AASI Divisional Academy there a few years ago.

metolent · December 06, 2010, 01:13:30 PM

The place is about to be completely closed in now. The mud room is nearly complete (rafters were mostly up on Friday and it should be getting sheathed and the metal roofing put on today and/or tomorrow.

So I'm about to take over and start on getting the chimney installed as well as plumbing. Hence some questions...

I just scanned in the floor plan for reference below. I have two bathrooms, one of the first floor centered between the two first floor bedrooms on the back wall (toilet, sink, shower) and one in the upstairs loft on the "right" side of the loft. I'm lining up the walls to allow for a straight shot of 3" vent pipe from the crawlspace to the roof.

The first floor seems pretty easy since the drains all tie in within the crawl space. However, since I'll be using that 3" "vent" pipe as the drain for the loft toilet and shower, it would therefore be a wet vent (as shown in the diagram I just scratched together below), which I think isn't correct, right? So I was thinking I could run a separate vent for the 1st floor shower and sink up right next to the 3" main stack and then connect it back to the 3" stack above the flood rim level of the loft bath... does that sound reasonable?

Also, in the loft bath, I have 2 sinks right next to a washer/dryer, which I can run down through the wall next to the stairs - I figured I would basically create another 2" stack in that wall, which would therefore drain and vent those 2 sinks and the washer/dryer and then tie that vent into the main stack vent in the ceiling of the bath. I wanted to do that so I would only need a single vent through the roof. Is that reasonable.

Finally, there is the kitchen sink and dishwasher - drain is easy, but I'm not how to avoid venting in an exterior wall... plus the vent for that is really tricky since I have a big LVL directly over the downstairs bath which the loft floor joists are hangered to... Any ideas or suggestions?

Thanks for the help/suggestions. Btw, I'm in Lewis County, WA and there aren't any special provisions - just have to follow the Uniform Plumbing Code.

glenn kangiser · December 06, 2010, 01:21:05 PM

Can you take the vent out near the ridge to prevent sliding snow from ripping it off - maybe a couple 45's to get it to the peak - box it in with wood if it is going to be exposed and you don't want to look at it.

glenn kangiser · December 06, 2010, 01:27:58 PM

Looks like issues with venting on the downstairs stuff too - all wet vented due to the toilet and other plumbing above. I'm out of time now but perhaps I or others can help more later.

metolent · December 06, 2010, 01:33:50 PM

Yeah, it will go out really close to the ridge for that very reason. Even though LaNina hasn't started really stacking up the snow yet, I'm concerned about that; actually that's one of the reasons I'm hoping I can tie the vents together and have a single roof penetration...

As for the wet venting of downstairs, that's exactly what I was hoping for suggestions with. I was thinking that if I had a separate 2" vent for the downstairs shower and sink, and then run that up the same wall right next to the 3" main stack and then tie in above the floor rim of the upstairs bath drain/vents, I would be on the right track... However, it's not clear to me if the toilets are ok without separate venting?

December 10, 2010, 05:45:46 PM

Well, the shell is now complete and weather-tight. I spent the day up there yesterday installing locks on the doors, dropping off the wood stove and plumbing supplies, as well as trying to figure out how best to do the plumbing. The inspector showed up while I was there and he spent at least an hour helping me develop a complete code-compliant plan for the DWV while on-site! Was really great... I also stopped by LNI and pulled the electrical permits today (1 for the house, 1 for the feeder) and bought stuff to get started ... So, the good news is that the major check-writing is over, but now it's on me to get the rest done. I'll spend all of next week getting the DWV, supply plumbing, and electrical roughed in. Anyway, here are some pics....

These show the mud room pretty well.

From the upstairs bathroom looking "through" the wall that will be there towards the great room.

Master Bath

Toilet room - check out that ceiling!

Standing in the master bath looking towards the master bedroom in the loft.

This is the view from the master bedroom through what will be 5' wide french doors towards the great room.

All closed in.

MountainDon · December 10, 2010, 05:53:45 PM

Looking good. It's nice to have an inspector willing to assist like that.

Yonderosa · December 11, 2010, 12:27:37 AM

GREAT project. Thanks for sharing it with us. Look forward to seeing it through to completion.

metolent · December 15, 2010, 06:43:17 PM

Got started on the DWV - well, mostly the vent parts so far. Got the downstairs bath drains and vents in as well as the upstairs except for hanging and connecting the laundry box (forgot to get one, but have one now). All dry fit so far. Still have to finish running those vents to the roof, but I'm waiting for a dry day before I even think about getting up there. Plan to spend tomorrow in the crawl space connecting all of the drains and pointing them at the stub out through the footer to the septic. Hoping that will be it on that one...

Also, got most of main panel hung (yeah I know that's pretty trivial) as well as all of the boxes placed. Will start pulling wire right after I get the supply plumbing run - which after staring at things for a while, looks like it will be easier than I first thought. Went and got a cheap angle drill today to make things a bit easier as well.

Couple of not so glamorous shots...

metolent · July 25, 2011, 12:37:46 PM

Well, I realized I hadn't updated this with any more pics since December 15. A few days before christmas last year I learned that the cancer I've been battling (had radiation last summer) had spread yet *again* and I had to do 3 months of chemo....which obviously put things on hold. However, I made it through all of that and got back to work on the cabin. I'm nearing the "big" rough-in inspection and thought I'd post some pics - it's a combined framing/plumbing/mechanical here in Lewis County then followed by electrical (via LNI). So, I've finished the electrical rough-in and actually had that inspected and all was mostly ok with a few minor corrections, notably to finish the plumbing and duct work (yeah, I might have called them a bit prematurely).

I've since finished all of the DWV plumbing from the septic connection through the roof and the supply is all hooked up - even turned on the water this past weekend to check for leaks and things look good. Two weeks ago I went up on the roof to get all of the plumbing vents installed...SCARY! I tied a rope to a tree, threw it over the top of the house and used that to get up the 12/12 to the 4/12 section where I had two of the three vents come out. Then this past weekend, I had to go back up there to install two bath fan exhaust vents. Pics of all of that below.

I had someone install the chimney for the wood stove as I couldn't pass up a pro chimney guy offering to do it for $400 labor. What? No brainer in my book. I bought all of the chimney pipe from Lowe's and when I went to pick it up one day, it was there! A quick check of their computer showed they hadn't even ordered it! On the plus side, they gave us a several hundred dollar gift card to make up for it, making the whole wood stove purchase even better!

Based on Mt. Don's LP lines and someone else's experiences, I installed most of the LP gas plumbing lines this past weekend as well. I just have a few more pieces to put together after the on-demand Rinnai water heater arrives this week. Plan is to get that installed (last part of the plumbing left - supply to the water heater and then hot water supply back to the hot water manifold. I haven't yet tested the black pipe for the LP yet under pressure although I have a Schrader (sp?) valve installed to do so.

The only thing after that is to get the heat pump installed. I installed all of the registers but two this weekend as well. Just finalized my duct design last night (manual D and manual J calculations can be a bit painful), so I'll be putting that all in this weekend. Then it's just a matter of getting my heat pump guy to bring the equipment, and connect the condenser to the air handler! Hoping for that inspection in 2-3 weeks. Based on the bids I had gotten previously, I won't be installing insulation, nor will I be doing sheetrock - the economics don't make sense to diy.

Anyway, that's my update and here are some pics!

Main panel installed and labeled. Still have number of spaces left

I made a little "plumbing room" below the stairs and just to the right of the under-stairs pantry. The rest of the area to the right of the mini-utility room is going to be a built in bench that we figure the kids will be into. One of the cold air returns will be under that bench.

The first plumbing vent (1.5") for the kitchen is at the peak of the mudroom

One of the easier bath fan exhaust outlets

The back two plumbing vents and two bath exhaust fan outlets on the upper part of the roof (4/12 pitch). That back drop off is ~36ft!!

One of the scary drop offs looking left of the vents

I would get on the ladder up to the top of the mudroom roof first then pull myself up the rope to the peak and mount the 4/12 roof. Here's looking down my path

The wife making sure the rope attached to the tree doesn't slide too much on me

The view forward showing the chimney. Weird that my iphone camera didn't pick up Mt. Rainier as it's right there - oh well

Plumbing plumbing plumbing

LP gas line

1st floor bath plumbing. Took these so I could stare it this week as I'll be running duct work through here this weekend

Final quick pic as we were getting ready to leave last night

mogie01 · July 25, 2011, 01:11:26 PM

Sorry to hear about the cancer, hopefully it's gone for good this time!! It hasn't slowed you down though, you're getting it done

I love your cabin. My husband and I love to snowboard and that is the reason why we are building our cabin up north. Of course our hills aren't quite as big as the ones you have there

August 01, 2011, 11:53:33 AM

Busy weekend as I got the heat pump installed and working! For reference, my place is ~1200 sq ft, so I went with a 2 Ton 14 SEER, 9.0 HSPF with variable speed A/H. I had to build up a level site for the outdoor condenser which took a bit longer than I originally planned, but basically I built it up with two layers of cinder blocks which I the back filled and then used some of the concrete "scraps" from the foundation pour to reinforce the sides and downhill sides. The idea was to get it up off the ground just a bit. Then I put the Styrofoam "pad" on top of that. In the crawlspace, we hung the air handler, I wired it up to the disconnect that I already had a HR to and then cut in and installed the last two registers (downstairs bath and under cabinet register for the kitchen). Connected up the line set and outdoor temp sensor, then wired up the outdoor unit to its disconnect, changed out the breaker in the main panel for a 60 amp (larger electric coil backup than I originally planned for) connected up the house and started it up! Then we put together the main trunk line with takeoffs for all of the downstairs registers, ran flex to all of the registers, and installed the thermostat (Vision 8000)!

I still have to put the return in and run a 10" round up to the loft and wye for the 8" I have for the loft bedroom and the 6" for the upstairs master bath, but I'll take care of that this weekend and it will officially be finished!

Also, got all of the LP piping installed as well as the ground wire run from the panel to the black pipe. Pressure tested it to 15psi and overnight I saw a fraction of a psi lower in the morning (which I hypothesized was due to temperature) and sure enough once it warmed up on Sunday it returned to the same 15psi. Felt great about that...

Finally, I got the Rinnai water heater installed. Ran out of 3/4" pex so I was only able to plumb the cold, supply side from the cold manifold, but adding the line from the w/h to the hot manifold won't be a big deal this weekend. Cutting down that exhaust and then lining that up and getting it seated by myself was a bit tricky, but it all worked out.

The cool thing is that I plan to call for the inspections next week after I get everything done this weekend! LNI will reinspect the electrical based on the required corrections from the earlier inspection and then the county will do the combined framing/plumbing/mechanical. I think everything will be in order after this next weekend, but we'll see!

On to pics:

Heat pump:

End of the supply trunk:

Supply runs:

Outdoor unit:

Water heater:

Sassy · August 01, 2011, 06:05:30 PM

Nice to get all that in - looks like lots of work!

metolent · August 12, 2011, 12:06:11 PM

I passed my electrical rough-in inspection and my combined framing/plumbing/mechanical inspection yesterday!!!! Consequently, I've been approved to insulate, so I'm about to call up the insulation people and get scheduled for next week. Was a really great experience, well except for the morning. Talk about stress - I pulled into the cabin and there is a creek flowing down my driveway ... ok, I know I turned off the water "in" the house, but I left it on at the meter and that's the source of the river - the water meter box. I'm thinking the only thing I did there was connect the 1" poly water line... is that leaking? So, I turn it off, dig up the box and a nice hole all around it, turn the water back on the it's pressure regulator! It was the kind that I guess comes apart as there were four screws on the corner. I hypothesize that perhaps I could just tighten the screws and get through the plumbing inspection. So I touch one of the screws and the head falls off while the head for the adjacent screw is gone. Bummer. I run down to the local Ace hardware store hoping they have one and THEY DO! Score. And interestingly, the nice woman working there said that I should save the receipt and call the water service people because they are the only ones she's ever seen come in to buy pressure regulators and perhaps they'll reimburse the cost since she thinks they actually maintain that part. That might be good, but at the time I'm thinking, "the inspector is coming!"

So, I get back, replace the pressure regulator, check everything else and I'm back in business. Then I go around and check all of the plumbing one more time since I've had the DWV full of water to the roof since Sunday. I hear a drip drip in the crawlspace and find that one of the clean out fittings is leaking, so I run back to the ace and get a few parts and replace the fittings there. Then I find that the kitchen cleanout has been leaking a bit too. Grrrr... So I try to tighten the clean out and I crack the tee-fitting! Argh! So I quick replace the tee-fitting and related piping there too. Finally, I make sure all of the valves from the supply manifold are on and i find the hot fitting to the laundry box is leaking just slightly. Last weekend I went through the place and removed all fittings I had previously put together with teflon tape and redid them with rectoseal ... except one, and what do you know - it was leaking. So I quickly redo that one fitting with rectoseal and finally, all looks good. I am now with Mtn Don and others - I plan to rectoseal for *everything* now, teflon tape is out in my book. Just as I'm finishing up, the electrical inspector arrives. 5 mins later the building inspector arrives. I tell him about the day's saga and he says, well everything looks good now! I fill the DWV back up (using the fittings I created to fill the entire thing through the roof from the crawlspace so I didn't have a dedicated Tee-fitting for the test (his suggestion) at about which time the electrical inspector indicates everything looks great and gives me some stickers on the panel. Then I walk through the rest of the place with the building inspector and he points out a few things I need to correct and approves framing, plumbing, and mechanical!

Felt great to leave the place yesterday knowing all of the systems are now in order. The few corrections will be re-inspected at the insulation inspection, which hopefully will be in the next 2 weeks. Unfortunately, no pics from yesterday as I was too giddy to remember to take some.

duncanshannon · August 13, 2011, 08:09:40 PM

Nice looking place! You seem to have some plumbing background... Right?

Always wanted to be ski patrol in the mountains. Not much for Great skiing here in Mn.

metolent · August 22, 2011, 01:00:03 PM

Hi duncanshannon - no, I don't have any formal plumbing background. I've only built a small guest cabin at my house (based on John's little house plans) and this cabin. Although I spent about 10 years collectively in the engineering departments across 3 universities, I don't count any of that time as experience when it comes to building.. ;-)

Yeah, the ski patrol thing is pretty fun most of the time, particularly given the whole family is now on the hill all winter. This cabin is already providing more time together. This winter should be the best yet if I can get more of it done quickly!