20x32 A frame cabin Central KY

Started by EaglesSJ, July 23, 2010, 10:39:15 PM

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EaglesSJ

Just got medically separated from the Airforce as a SSgt. (weapons specialist) after 6 years for Malignant Melanoma. I was gonna buy a house from my aunt. Well the house was in good shape internally but the windows and siding were in bad shape. So bad I couldnt get a loan for it. So I spent $4k putting on new siding and new windows to get the loan to go through and then my aunt decided she didnt want to sell it anymore. AND SHE REFUSES TO REIMBURSE ME FOR THE WINDOWS AND SIDING!!! So needless to say I was pissed and said some things that didnt set so well with her and now Im being kicked out of that house. (I was renting it from her when all of this started about me buying it)

Well anyways I have 1 month to get this place Im building livable. (eviction notice of 30 days from Jul22) Its not gonna be anything too fancy but were hoping to have it dried in for 10k. Foundation will be 12" diameter concrete piers reinforced with rebar spaced every 8 feet apart. 5 piers on either side and 5 down the middle for the center beam. I will try to post pics as I go. I bought 9 acres for $15k will a small spring that runs through the middle and a pond. The final place will be the permanent residence of myself, my fiance, and my 4 year old son. Surrounding land will be home to my 3 german shepherds and chickens. We will have county water until we can afford a well and will be using a solar electric system.

Were going for something like this as the completed project.


Day 1

Cleared out the area for the cabin and stacked the wood that was cut. im on the left picking up a piece of firewood. The guy on the right is my best friend since I was about 6 and my main helper through all of this.




Day 2

Squared out our area with line levels, stakes, string, and a tape and dug 8 of the 15 holes 3 feet deep 16" diameter for our 12" builders tubes.
Tomorrow we plan on finishing digging and getting all of the builders tubes set in place and squared. Possibly even a little concrete poured.


Looking up towards the edge of the woods. In front of this is a couple acres of fenced off fields thats mine we plan on using for horses.


Looking down into the woods


My little helper measuring the depths of the holes :)





travcojim

Keep up updated, I have wanted to try an A-Frame.  Even with the drawbacks I still like them.  You have any pics on of interior of your inspiration cabin in the picture? 


Tom

I look forward to seeing your progress.
As for your Aunt... Life is about lessons. It's sad that a verbal contract means so little these days. Always get it in writing.
Good luck

Rob_O

Sounds like you have windows and siding for the new place. Hope you kept the receipts

I'm in Louisville, holler if you need some help.



"Hey Y'all, watch this..."

EaglesSJ

already talked to an attorney. if its nailed to the house or buried in the yard i cant take it.

anyways here are some more pics. days 4 and 5 were spent shooting the forms with a transit and pouring concrete. I have to go pour more today. So far I have 120 bags in these big things. Its probably gonna take another 20 or so. also got the driveway excavated.






Colton just getting to do whatever it is his little 4 year old heart desires


Which apparently is play in the dirt





rdzone

looking good.  How tall are those sonotubes sticking out of the ground?  I am just curious as I think you stated you only dug the holes 36" deep. 
Chuck

EaglesSJ

Quote from: rdzone on July 28, 2010, 10:18:41 AM
looking good.  How tall are those sonotubes sticking out of the ground?  I am just curious as I think you stated you only dug the holes 36" deep. 

the tallest one is sticking out about 7 feet. all of the others are around 3-5. They are reinforced with 3 pieces of 1/2" rebar each. running the full length of the tube. I finished pouring today and stuck in all the bolts in the top that will be used to bolt a 2x8 plate down on top of the piers which I can then sit my Laminated beams on top of and nail up from the bottom. the center piers are 9.5" shorter than the rest of the piers to allow me to run my center beam that the 20' floor joist will sit on. I am ordering my subfloor lumber package tomorrow and will hopefully have it done before the weekend. thanks for the compliments.

buffman

Hey Shane! This is Ed. I see that you're working hard, keep it up and tell Lindsay I said hi. I am proud of what you guys are doing, I will be coming back in September on my way to St Louis.

EaglesSJ

Quote from: buffman on July 30, 2010, 01:17:15 AM
Hey Shane! This is Ed. I see that you're working hard, keep it up and tell Lindsay I said hi. I am proud of what you guys are doing, I will be coming back in September on my way to St Louis.

good to hear from you Ed. We got the floor done today and started on the back deck. Im going to order the rafters tomorrow and we should have them up in a couple days after they come in. They have to be special ordered 2x8 26 foot long. Gonna have alot of fun sitting them in huh? Anyways here are some pics of what all we did today with the help of my uncle, his son, and a couple friends.











making a rafter pattern



EaglesSJ

Been trying to figure out what were going to do for water at the place since were going 100% off grid and got to walking around the property today and found a small spring! Lucky me. I dug down about 1 foot and a half in front of where the water was running and it is just seeping out of the ground in various spots so I am going to go back tomorrow and dig a bit bigger hole (3ft wide 3 foot long and about 2 feet deep) and lay some concrete stones in the bottom and line the sides and then build this little system out of 2-3" PVC. This water will only be used for feeding animals and bathing/washing clothes with. It will run down hill to a 500 gallon tank that has a pump in it to push the water back up to the cabin. what are yall's thoughts on this?


rick91351

I can tell you what we do here and it works very well. Some springs we have improved in this method have been going well for about twenty years.  It is a method the Forest Service and BLM required at one time so it just sort of caught on.  It is a method you seem to have a pretty good grasp of.  However what we do is take a back hoe and dig a trench toward the spring.  This trench will be most likely about three foot deep and we most of the time will hit white sand or rock that is what we are looking for.  If you do not find that level of strata your chance of this working is some what diminished.  We might run two legs but most of time we find we have just as much water or more with one long leg.  When you go past the point of the spring you will know it.  Stop digging.

We then back fill about six or eight inches of good clean drain rock or sandy gravel will work well.  Lay in your PVC drain pipe and then cover with a foot or more drain rock if available.  If not the largest corse sand and gravel you can find.  Next we cover that with several layers of plastic sheeting.  At the end where you are going to bring the water out of we place a solid cap that we have bored a inch and a quarter hole and secured a ply pipe fitting.  Glue, screw or what ever method but we want it to be water tight.  Hook to it a inch and quarter ply pipe and run it toward your tank or what ever or where ever you are gong.  About fifteen feet we cut and fit in a tee fitting and to that we place a length of ply pipe straight up in the air about ten feet with a very good metal window screen clamped to the end.  This when we back fill will get a wood post or a long metal tee post. to protect it.  The purpose of it is to prevent the pipe from air locking.  We then back fill with top soil.  The sheeting prevents the top soil from leaching in to the drain material or rock.  If you do it in a sanitary manor and with a little caution I would think you could have your water tested in a few months and you very well might have good potable water.

I have attached a couple photos of one I put in several years ago that is still running strong today.  The tire tanks work very well and are free.  We bring the ply pipe up from the bottom the loop another piece of ply to the next tank and if you want to the next and so on.  On each the inlet is lower than the overflow of course which sets the maximum level of the water in the tank of course. 



If you note fairly centered on the tire in the distance there is a post sticking up that is where the vent is located.



This year I took the over flow from that spring and ran it in to this ply tank that we use to irrigate this young orchard.  This picture was taken several years ago very late in the year.  So today the trees are larger.  We still do not allow them to have fruit because they are still very immature but growing well!  With that little spring we can empty that tank in the evening.  Next morning it will be full and the cows and calves about thirty of them will have came in and watered there.

Two more things if your spring quits running use the vent or the end block it off the best you can and take your compressor and shoot air in to the pipe this will move any air that might be blocking the spring water.  Next do not let trees or brush start back in this area where you have excavated it will shorten the life span of your work greatly.  You will have to dig it all out and do it over.       
                 
Proverbs 24:3-5 Through wisdom is an house builded; an by understanding it is established.  4 And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.  5 A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.

John Raabe

#11
I know you are not working from any of my plans here, but I'm concerned that you may not have a sufficient support beam under the outside of your joists. See if these diagrams explain the concern. Perhaps there are things going on I can't see in the pictures.







Also, you are probably just testing the slope of the rafters in the photo above, but they are pretty skinny for real roof rafters!

Finally, if you are going to add a loft floor to the A-frame (as shown in the first picture) you will have that load to support as well. How does it get to the beams? It all adds UP!
None of us are as smart as all of us.

NM_Shooter

I'm a little concerned about the lack of beams as well.  You might want to consider adding an additional rim joist.  However, this is still a bit of a deviation from other foundation practices, and having an engineer check on this would not be a bad idea.  I hate to bring this up now, but you should consider using joist hangers to better support the joist ends.  The 2x material that you have placed to line up the joists does not provide any significant structural support. 

Make sure you brace your tall piers too.  Any racking that starts will result in catastrophe, and I would hate for your family to be inside if it were to happen. 

Looks like an awesome site!  Give those kids some hammers!

-f-
"Officium Vacuus Auctorita"

EaglesSJ

I will be drill holes and inserting anchor bolts into the bottom 9 concrete piers and strapping them in an X pattern with steel cables so if one wanted to move it would have to pull down all nine. And thats just not going to happen. They are already all tied together with a 2x8 plate that is bolted down with 1/2 anchor bolts sunk 9" into the concrete. The outside beams are 2   2x10 LVL Beams (laminated wood) They sit on a 2x8 treated plate that runs all the way from pier to pier and is lag bolted down via bolts that I sunk in the concrete before it hardened. Then that "mud seal" 2x8 plate is shot up from the bottom into the beams with 16's in 50 or so spots. Each beam is 50 times stronger than a regular 2x10 per the manufacturer. And I used 2 of them on each side so it should more than support the load of the roof. The floor joist also sit on this 2x8 mud seal and are shot up from the bottom and also toe nailed in and then shot in from the side of the first beam before we nailed the second beam in place on each side.and they overlap on the center beam This may sound confusing as it did to me when my uncle was explaining it all to me the first time.  Here is a little pic i drew up to maybe help you understand how its going together. and here is the link to the beams that I bought. They are solid pieces 36' long each. 4 of them 2 per side. The lumber company suggested I only use one per side but I thought it best to overkill than chance it. Also the rafters are just a pattern to get an idea of what it would look like at a certain height. we are using 26 foot 2x8s for the rafters. spaced every 16"a

http://www.gp.com/build/product.aspx?pid=1392



EaglesSJ

Also forget to say thanks for your input and give an update on the spring. I got my collection pipe system installed and gravel/bigger rock poured on top today and i have a flow rate of about 1/3 a gallon per minute. Or 480 a day. Last month we used 8000 gallons of water with a typical 5g per flush toilet and watering our animals and not even trying to conserve. That comes out to only 266 a day of usage. In this cabin were going to have a composting toilet (no water) and a shower (we currently only have a tub) so we should be able to get down to about 180-200 gallons a day EASY. If so we will have 280g of overflow every single day. I am currently looking on craigslist and other sources for a 2-3 hundred gallon tank to downhill from our spring. I will be using some kind of pressure tank/auto pump to feed the house.

John Raabe

Thanks for the update EaglesSJ:

That sounds better than what I was seeing. You have an interesting system I've not seen before.
None of us are as smart as all of us.

EaglesSJ

It is definitely out of the ordinary, but I am hoping that it all turns out ok. I am building this with a very simple, almost primitive mindset though. When I was sitting there amongst the rocks today washing the dirt off my hands via the spring that I just dug out I felt as though I had stepped back in time 1000 years and it gave me a very deep appreciation for the the small pencil sized stream that was flowing through my hands. Knowing that this simple water collection system would be what kept me and the two that I am responsible for alive. Anyways enough rambling I suppose. I will post more pics when I get more done. I am waiting on lowes to deliver the rafters.

John Raabe

Best wishes on the project. You have a lovely spot there.
None of us are as smart as all of us.

EaglesSJ

Got 8 of the rafters in and got all of the rest cut for tomorrow. These things are HEAVY! 26 foot 2x8s and you have to lift em up on that rickety scaffolding. Scary. But anyways here are some pics. Thats my dad in the overalls.








And the spring in work


Wish us luck for tomorrow. Gonna be a long day.
 

bayview



   You are moving right along . . .    Looks like you have a good crew!    [cool]


/
    . . . said the focus was safety, not filling town coffers with permit money . . .


EaglesSJ

More of today. Hopefully all rafters will be done tomorrow and part of the second floor. Maybe :)





TeeCee19

Congrats and welcome to the site.. w*
Project looks great. I had planned to build an A Frame originally, but, after not being able to find many plans and the negative comments on buidling I changed my mind. HOWEVER, I love your picture of the "proposed" finish of yours and Im sorta RE-enthused again about an A frame. I lived in one for part of my college life and I loved it. It burned down a year after I graduated.
Please tell me where you got your plans from or where i can peek at them.
Tee Cee

EaglesSJ

Quote from: TeeCee19 on August 11, 2010, 02:28:37 PM
Congrats and welcome to the site.. w*
Project looks great. I had planned to build an A Frame originally, but, after not being able to find many plans and the negative comments on buidling I changed my mind. HOWEVER, I love your picture of the "proposed" finish of yours and Im sorta RE-enthused again about an A frame. I lived in one for part of my college life and I loved it. It burned down a year after I graduated.
Please tell me where you got your plans from or where i can peek at them.

There are no plans. Im just winging it all. we did 20 wide by 32 long with a 24 pitch roof which makes it 20 ft tall in the very center. Im doing 7' 8" ceilings downstairs which will give me a bit more headroom upstairs. The rooms upstairs will be 12' wide at the bottom and about 5' wide at the top of your head. My sons room will be 12x12 and ours will be 12x16 and I am leaving a 4 foot opening in the center for a big set of stairs.

Don_P

Drinking my coffee, avoiding the plans I'm sketching and looking at others pics  c*. Do fill the ridge before you're done. You're bearing on the toes of the rafters up top, that'll split them over time, they need to bear on their heels.

EaglesSJ

Quote from: Don_P on August 12, 2010, 04:59:39 AM
Drinking my coffee, avoiding the plans I'm sketching and looking at others pics  c*. Do fill the ridge before you're done. You're bearing on the toes of the rafters up top, that'll split them over time, they need to bear on their heels.

were putting a 2x12 in from the bottom after we get the second floor in. I was just tired of being up so high on that scaffolding.