Okanogan 14x24 by a lurker :)

OlJarhead · November 14, 2011, 10:32:46 AM

Once we began packing up Sunday I made the final decision to truck home some wood to make into flooring or window trim....so we tossed it into the back of the truck to haul over to the trailer (would save time we figured) but realized that we weren't pulling the trailer loaded with wood out of there....so strapped it down and left it in the back of the truck instead

Most of that is blue stained pine and a lot of it will require cutting out rotten sections while a bunch will need to be milled straight on the table saw with a 'joiner' jig. With luck though, we'll get a lot of beautiful and useable wood out of it.

The well solar was completely iced over until Sunday afternoon and the batteries were dead

I have to get that sorted as it seems the Xantrex charger is crapping out and the batteries are dying...not sure why but something is clearly amiss.

The woodshed is working as planned it seems....hmmmmm.......

Winter is such a beautiful time! Specially when the woodstove is cranking!

Speaking of which, I thought I'd started a chimney fire this weekend!!!! It wasn't good! My son was vacuuming the floor with a shop vac on Friday night after cutting a bunch of paneling inside the cabin (we planned it that way) and I noticed smoke. I had him shut off the vac but realized it wasn't the vacuum at all! The wood stove was really burning because I'd left the door open a crack -- I sometimes do that to make sure it gets burning again nicely when I let it die down...only I'd left it open long enough to really get it hot! The double wall pipe going through the wall was hot enough to burn you (it's never been that hot before) and the chimney was ticking....I shut down the draft after closing the door and we watched in fear! Josh went out and looked at the chimney outside but couldn't see anything unusual and we couldn't see anything inside either....and waited.

After a but it calmed down and stopped ticking etc and the smoke cleared...and I wondered.

One thing I've found with the little Vermont aspen is that it is a bit finicky. You can't just put the wood in and open it up and let it go. It has a plate above the door that is easy to bump and if bumped askew it shuts down the draft...also if it doesn't have a lively flame it shuts down the draft...I find it hard to keep at a happy medium but that may just be because I'm burning crappy pine.

We swept the chimney in the fall before burning season and after a winter of use it had a small amount of creosote in the chimney but it wasn't terribly bad so I don't think that's the problem...but who knows? I need to try burning some fir or tamarack but I just don't have any yet.

OlJarhead · November 18, 2011, 05:51:40 PM

One thing I'm wondering is if nailing paneling to the ceiling under the lofts is adequate? Seems to me they might need something better to keep them from eventually dropping....thoughts?

November 18, 2011, 06:07:50 PM

Quote from: OlJarhead on November 18, 2011, 05:51:40 PM
One thing I'm wondering is if nailing paneling to the ceiling under the lofts is adequate? Seems to me they might need something better to keep them from eventually dropping....thoughts?

I just used finishing nails on my ceiling but it is 1x6 vs paneling. Not sure if you are talking about using T-111 siding type paneling or the thinner 1/8" wood type panels that used to be used in mobile homes.

OlJarhead · November 18, 2011, 06:54:42 PM

Quote from: EaglesSJ on November 18, 2011, 06:07:50 PM
I just used finishing nails on my ceiling but it is 1x6 vs paneling. Not sure if you are talking about using T-111 siding type paneling or the thinner 1/8" wood type panels that used to be used in mobile homes.

Using 1/2" paneling we made

If you look back a page or two you'll see what we've done on the walls

I plan to use the same paneling.

Redoverfarm · November 18, 2011, 08:45:24 PM

I wouldn't think you would have any problems using a 2" finishing nail in the tounge. But if you are doubting you could get small trim screws and use them. They come in a variety of lengths and the head is not much larger than the shank. Finishing nails is all I used on my vaulted ceiling w/ 3/4" no problems.

November 19, 2011, 08:40:20 AM

Glad I looked back a couple pages looks like you too have good taste in handgus. My ccw is a Kimber Stainless Ultra Carry with nightsights in a leather IWB.

As for the walls, that stuff looks really nice and I dont see any reason at all why that wouldnt work on the ceiling. Id say youll have no trouble at all with it. It takes alot of force to pull the slightly oversized head of a finishing nail all the way through the board. I had to remove a couple of our ceiling boards a couple months ago when I was doing the living room fan install and it was pretty tough prying it off without completely destroying it in the process.

OlJarhead · November 19, 2011, 10:37:05 AM

Quote from: Redoverfarm on November 18, 2011, 08:45:24 PM
I wouldn't think you would have any problems using a 2" finishing nail in the tounge. But if you are doubting you could get small trim screws and use them. They come in a variety of lengths and the head is not much larger than the shank. Finishing nails is all I used on my vaulted ceiling w/ 3/4" no problems.

Thanks -- I may go up to 1 3/4" then (remember I'm using 1/2" panels)...but I won't worry

OlJarhead · November 19, 2011, 10:41:13 AM

Quote from: EaglesSJ on November 19, 2011, 08:40:20 AM
Glad I looked back a couple pages looks like you too have good taste in handgus. My ccw is a Kimber Stainless Ultra Carry with nightsights in a leather IWB.

As for the walls, that stuff looks really nice and I dont see any reason at all why that wouldnt work on the ceiling. Id say youll have no trouble at all with it. It takes alot of force to pull the slightly oversized head of a finishing nail all the way through the board. I had to remove a couple of our ceiling boards a couple months ago when I was doing the living room fan install and it was pretty tough prying it off without completely destroying it in the process.

Kimber Custom TLE II for me

I probably mentioned that earlier....

I have a friend with a Baby Desert Eagle (nice handgun) and we loaded up some new bullets (cheap HSM HP's) for plinking. They wouldn't feed in his BDS for some reason....after much checking and resizing I got them to feed through a mag for him but when he went to the range he just couldn't shoot them...I found this odd but decided to load them into the Kimber...bang bang bang bang...hmmm....nothing wrong here

Seems the Kimber is not only an excellent pistol with excellent accuracy etc etc but it's also very forgiving...perhaps that's just one more reason to love them!

Usually people say "I don't make Kimber money!"...to which I answer "me neither but I put it on lay-a-way to get it because I'd rather have a kimber that I had to wait for then some crappy pistol I'm unhappy with"

But then I love my Ruger Vaquero too...and my M14...and my....

Do you know how many guns a guy needs?

........

Just one more!

CjAl · November 19, 2011, 10:53:07 AM

i have had two desert eagles. both were finiky about what they would fire and thats being nice on my part. im a ruger guy, they shoot anything i throw at them. and im big enough of a guy to ccw a p89/p90

duncanshannon · November 19, 2011, 02:35:59 PM

nice progress OlJarhead! glad there was no real fire! yuk.

EaglesSJ · November 19, 2011, 07:42:45 PM

I also have a rock island armory tactical and I really like it. I sold a springfield and an ATI 1911 to get the kimber. I couldnt have made a better choice. The springer was a nice shooting gun too though.

OlJarhead · November 20, 2011, 11:17:48 AM

Quote from: duncanshannon on November 19, 2011, 02:35:59 PM
nice progress OlJarhead! glad there was no real fire! yuk.

Thanks! Scared me there for a bit but after cutting off airflow it stopped...it was just VERY hot and I'm always the worrywart!

On a side note I rechecked the book on the stove and was reminded that I'm also supposed to clean the primary air plate from time to time -- I then found a review in which a guy claimed that it was best to not glue it back down, just remove, clean and replace (after removing glue) and apparently the stove works better that way....

Problem with this stove is that it's one of the new low particulate models and it is prone to clogging up a bit when burning poor quality wood (don't know about good wood as I don't have any yet). So, my next mission is to get some good wood, like Tamarack cut and stacked so I can burn it instead and see how the stove acts then

MountainDon · November 21, 2011, 04:21:49 PM

I've measured 300 F at the top of the single wall pipe (60") and have seen 500 to 600 degrees on the stove top front.

Quote.... because I'm burning crappy pine.

It's not so much the species, IMO, it is how well seasoned the wood is. We burn probably 90% pine and 10% aspen. I don't even think of burning either until it is at least a year old. Some of what I used this weekend was likely cut in '09 and has sat partially under cover most of that time. Low rainfall area so it's not difficult to get it dry. I also used ponderosa that was fire killed May '09. It was left standing till a couple of weeks ago. Nice and dry and burns great. IMO, the wood you might be cutting now is to be burned next year, not this.

We've been using a muffin fan for a couple winters on the outside air inlet to get the fire going. Works like a charm and doesn't seem to slow down the intake of air with the fan off. It beats leaving the door open a little as I found that tends to make the room smell smoky, not to mention seeing smoke escaping into the room. The fan is not on the VC approved list of accessories but it does work very well.

To start a fire in goes a handfun of pine needles, then a few sticks on kindling, three or four 1 inch rounds and then split pine on top. Click the piezo ignition propane torch to light the pine needles, close the door, flip on the fan. Never fail method.

Also in the morning if there are some coals left I rake them forward, add a few small pieces of split dry pine/aspen, close the door, flip on the fan. Jump back into bed and twenty minutes later get up to a warmer room. Turn off the fan.

OlJarhead · November 21, 2011, 05:02:28 PM

Thanks for the reply Don,

In my case I'm burning wood that was cut and stacked back in the fall of '09 and as late as June '10 so it's all very well seasoned. Also starting a fire is never an issue for me. I just wad up a few news paper pages and light them in the back of the stove as recommended, to get the draft going (from dead cold only) and then once those burn out I use some very dry pine kindling (often scraps from making paneling) and it goes right up.

I leave the door open a little when starting a fire but never have an interior smoke issue.

In the case mentioned I left the door open after putting a new log on the fire as I find when it dies down to embers it doesn't draft very well and it helps to open the door to get the draft really going to get the next piece burning -- but I think, from reading the manual that my issue is only that I need to clean the primary plate area.

I've been emptying ash every day (in the am) and keep the fire running 24hrs a day in the winter (So no dying down really except when working and I forget to stoke it).

I've read that Pine is only about 2/3rds of the BTU capacity of Tamarack so I plan to cut, stack and dry both Tamarack and Fir this winter and spring so next year it will be ready.

I also suspect that once I have the place completely insulated that I won't have as much of an issue as I won't need to burn so much -- a good fire once the place is warmed up should be able to keep it warm a lot longer then today -- today if I let it die at night (down to embers) then the cabin loses 10-15 degrees easily over night. Then it takes a while to get it warmed back up because we don't have the ceiling insulated yet.

November 21, 2011, 09:33:56 PM

It didn't dawn on me that the roof was not yet insulated; that will make a big difference. We first did R13 and noticed a big improvement. Now with R45 or so it is very cozy indeed. Once we have our cabin warm it does not take more than maybe three 8 to 9 inch rounds (15 inch long) to provide heat for 24 hours; exterior temperatures from a low around 25 to a high of 45.

I thought you were having problems keeping the burn going, and unseasoned wood will put a "damper" on a fire.

I've never cleaned out the primary air outlet. I looked in there once at about the two year point, and there was only a tiny bit of ash. I believe our air inlet fan keeps it blown clear. Without running the fan, and with a small bed of coals raked forward, closing the door with the air control wide open results in a mini blast furnace effect right there at the front.

Barry Broome · November 21, 2011, 10:55:53 PM

Tractor Supply is selling a wood burning stove for $269 but it doesn't have a window built into the door. If you are only using the stove for occasional weekend use is it important to have the window?

http://www.tractorsupply.com/united-states-stove-cast-iron-logwood-stove-large-3192571

metolent · November 21, 2011, 11:16:59 PM

Looking great! I've been meaning to mention how cool it is that you're cutting/milling your own T&G. And, I really like the idea of the multiple widths on the walls. That section with the angled cuts looks great!

OlJarhead · November 22, 2011, 09:32:09 AM

Thanks Don!

That re-enforces my belief that I need to get the roof done! I've got R21 to go in there but it will be about R19 when done because I'm putting in the vent baffles, but I'm sure with a fan and the wood stove going we'll be very toasty.

I suspect that since I'm plowing through loads of pine I've got a ton more ash then you! I run the stove wide open the entire time we're there with a log going in every couple hours!

OlJarhead · November 22, 2011, 09:34:49 AM

Quote from: Weasel on November 21, 2011, 10:55:53 PM
Tractor Supply is selling a wood burning stove for $269 but it doesn't have a window built into the door. If you are only using the stove for occasional weekend use is it important to have the window?

http://www.tractorsupply.com/united-states-stove-cast-iron-logwood-stove-large-3192571

I've seen those 'boxwood' and 'logwood' stoves sold in Oregon and wouldn't mind trying one. They aren't legal in WA but frankly no one has a legal wood stove up there in the mountains (except me) which means they all spent $1000 less then me on a wood stove

sako · November 24, 2011, 03:19:28 PM

I sure love your pine that you've milled yourself.
When we burned wood heat at home i would burn out my pipes like that about once a month, i don't know if it's bad
or not but they were always clean. I would sweap the pipes every fall with not much build up at all. We also had
straight pipe through the ceilling.
We love to see your progress and pics, it makes us miss the cabin (aka) rv/shed. Hope to make it up there for new years.

November 25, 2011, 12:34:57 AM

Quote from: sako on November 24, 2011, 03:19:28 PM
I sure love your pine that you've milled yourself.
When we burned wood heat at home i would burn out my pipes like that about once a month, i don't know if it's bad
or not but they were always clean. I would sweap the pipes every fall with not much build up at all. We also had
straight pipe through the ceilling.
We love to see your progress and pics, it makes us miss the cabin (aka) rv/shed. Hope to make it up there for new years.

Thanks!

We'll make it up there in a week or so and then again on New Years if all goes well

It's a great time to be there!

OlJarhead · November 26, 2011, 08:19:32 PM

Picked up two more rolls of R19 today so we can finish off the walls and any of the floor that isn't well insulated -- might have enough left to stuff in under the porch too

Also picked up some window and door "great stuff" so I can finish sealing the windows too (something not done yet).

And finally, as the temps at the cabin are now treading around 15-25 degrees at night and reportedly will be around 15 next weekend (at night) I picked up a new wick for the Kerosene heater. Hopefully I an change it out easily enough after we arrive (and after the wood stove is going)....kerosene is running at a stupidly high price in HD ($8.79/gallon) so I need to find a source for it somewhere -- ace had it around the same price I think but I can't remember and I think Ranch and Home might have had the best price locally that I've found. However, in PA I noticed that they sold it at gas stations so I'm hoping to find a similar source here so I can get it much cheaper -- it has to be at least half what HD is asking!

Anyway, the Kerosene heater (23,000btu's) helps get the cabin warmed up faster when it's only about 15-20 degrees inside! So I'm hoping to have both fuel and wick ready for next weekend

OlJarhead · November 27, 2011, 04:20:41 PM

OK I broke down and paid $40 for a 5 gallon bucket of Kerosene at Ranch & Home. At least it was a little better then the HD price but still!!! $8/gallon is highway robbery!

nysono · November 28, 2011, 10:01:59 PM

Quote from: OlJarhead on November 27, 2011, 04:20:41 PM
OK I broke down and paid $40 for a 5 gallon bucket of Kerosene at Ranch & Home. At least it was a little better then the HD price but still!!! $8/gallon is highway robbery!

Yes it is........4.25/gal here and you buy it at the gas stations....about the same price as diesel fuel

Don_P · November 28, 2011, 10:50:30 PM

Wow, that is a crazy price. It's a bit over 4 bucks here at the gas station, slightly less at the fuel oil distributor. I should get about 100 gals to top off the Monitor's tank before the driveway gets too tough. When work dried up a couple of winters ago we went through about 5 gallons and kept the woodstove going. When we're away at work during the winters it'll go through about 100 gallons if we run the woodstove morning and evening. When I put the monitor in K1 was about $1.35/gal and I figured I'd never cut wood again. It about doubled by the next year