16x26 2 story house in Alaska

[mountainmomma]

Here Eli is putting grace vycor on the sliding glass door leading from the master bedroom onto the soon 2 b deck.

[mountainmomma]

more progress

[mountainmomma]

Pump jacks are down from the south side, On to the north side.....

[Arizona Highlander]

Nice build. Looking forward to that deck.

[mountainmomma]

Well, we got the metal up on the roof finally. We still need to get the gable trim and the ridge cap on though. Just as well, we'll need to get up there just to put up the stove pipe. My (this is Jane) dad paid for a woodstove for us as an early Christmas present for us which was VERY nice of him. We got a Vermont Castings REsolute that we found on Craigslist. There are a couple of issues with it, primarily, I am concerned about the damper "ear" which gets loose and falls away when you close the damper. I have tried using some high temp wood stove cement but I'm not sure how that will hold up. I've also cleaned it up quite a bit and repainted it. I need to get some gaskets. I think that I might have to order a gasket kit on-line though because they look a bit thinner than the thinnest I can buy here in town.

[nbj40]

Great Pictures!  I had a Resolute and loved it.  I did have to get replacement gasket kit.  I ended up buying it from a store here in Ohio.  Lehmens Hardware.  I also had to buy the piece where the secondary smoke burns, I can not remember what it was called The reason i needed to replace it was because i burned it to hot.  My fault. 

we had a smaller house at the time and burned it from December to March without turning on the electric heat.  It was great and oh how i miss it. 

Looking forward to continuing to see your progress.

[mountainmomma]

Whatever wood stove (or other fuel) you choose, don't fail to get a good carbon monoxide and smoke detector----I got some CO poisoning in a tent once----a horrible experience I was very lucky to survive.

I am a big advocate of the CO detector these days. When I first bought my cabin, I decided to make an upgrade from headlamp to propane lights They really were wonderful for the most part. Provided a fair amount of heat in addition to light but I found myself feeling odd and borrowed a friends CO detector and discovered that I was regularly exposing myself to deadly amounts.

Scary indeed.

[Bishopknight]

I think im going to pick up one of those detectors too. Good advice.

[MountainDon]

One thing to remember about CO detectors is that they do not have as long a service life as smoke detectors. Five years is given as the maximum today. The newest models will have an end of life indicator.

According to Consumer Reports there are also sometimes great differences in how well they detect CO at differing levels. Todays models are generally better than those from 5+ years ago. So, another reason to buy a new model if yours is older, like mine.

I ordered a couple new ones today.

[mountainmomma]

We have been spending the dark chilly winter in our little cabin, planning the wood stove installation and just basically keeping warm. We are going to get an energy rating on the house for the Alaska Home Finance Corporation (AHFC)'s Energy Rebate program. If you build a 5 star energy efficient home, they will rebate up to $7500 of the expenses. That is going to happen in February. Meanwhile, I (Jane) just started a Kindergarten teaching job and have been more exhausted than ever before at the end of the day. This however, will give us a boost in income to help us finish the house.

I HAD to share this video with you all though. About a mile from our home, someone put a motion sensor camera on a moose carcass back in October. The footage is amazing. You'll see the plethora of animals that surround our home. Moose, bears, lynx,coyotes , wolves. Oh my!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l6XBr__DdI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-l6XBr__DdI

[wildcottonroad]

Awesome vid.  Where are you at?  Our "shack" is about about 4 miles north of Anchor Point off Tall Trees.

[mountainmomma]

Wildcottonroad, we are on the Homer hillside area.

SO, I recently decided to go ahead and do the Alaska Home Finance Corporation's Energy REbate program. I contacted and energy inspector to come and check out what we've done and give us a speculated rating based on our plans. GOing with a spray foam insulation in the walls and cellulose in the roof, we will have a 5 star plus home. So, going with the rebate program, we should be able to recoup $7,500 of our building costs in the form of a rebate after our house is done and a blower door test is done. BUT! After I paid our energy inspector a big ol chunk of change, I was informed that to partake in the NEW HOME rebate program, we would have to have had inspections done since the time of foundation pouring. I was informed by two inspectors that we aren't supposed to build on concrete pilings without consulting an engineer. UG!!!!!

[twize]

That's a shame about the concrete pilings.   Have you tried to get the blessing on the pilings from any engineers?  We love the Anchor Point/Homer area and go camping/fishing there every summer.  I want to build a nice log cabin down there after I finish building our new house.

Tim

[mountainmomma]

Hi Tim. Glad to see anohter Homerite on here.   We have not talked to any engineers. We just kinda decided that was cost ineffective and moved on but I may (if I find some time) do so....

At any rate, after a 7 month long winter, we finally got back to work on the house. Eli framed in all the interior walls which will provide more shear strength. We now also have a closet framed in upstairs and the bedroom. Between the bedroom and the stairs there is a little nook which I will be using as a little office nook with some built in shelves in the knee wall.



We also rented some scaffolding and got back to work on the stovepipe.



We now have one three ft. section and the chimney cap left to install once we get the roof support straps.

We had our first fire in the woodstove though and it worked wonderfully. We're going to have to get used to the steps of which levers to pull when but it was amazing how fast the griddle got hot and then we were able to lift the griddle and add more wood. So cool! Or, should I saw, so WARM?!

[lonelytree]

I still cannot even got to my cabin. It snowed again today. The lake is still froze but not safe unless you have an airboat or hovercraft. What are you using for siding? I am still fighting with ideas.

[mountainmomma]

We might not post much these days but we are doing some projects when we find the time and money. We have been working on the skirting most recently. Here are some pictures of that.




From under the house


Now we are trying to figure out how we will extend the skirting to the ground. We get a lot of heaving here so it has to be able to move without buckling or slamming into the house. We are thinking about something that slides up and down. I would like to have metal roofing down at ground level but don't want it to get all smashed up. We are also considering some cinder blocks on the South side (the highest gap under the house). 

[soomb]

Could you use the same principles as a dock on the water?  Where your skirting is allowed to travel up and down with the heave. The kink in the system is if the pipe/rails heave with the ground vs hold fast.

[mountainmomma]

Could you use the same principles as a dock on the water?  Where your skirting is allowed to travel up and down with the heave. The kink in the system is if the pipe/rails heave with the ground vs hold fast.

Interesting idea soomb.
We are thinking about having two layers of skirting essentially. One is higher off the ground and fastened tight to the house sheathing (plywood) and other boards behind the sheathing. Then, actually touching the ground would be more skirting (perhaps attached to a movable piece of plywood). The skirting will likely be metal roofing BTW. This skiting would be able to move up and down with the heaving ground by using loosely tightened bolts in vertical slits. I'm not sure if this description makes sense. But, that is what my brain allowed me to put together this Saturday morning. 


I appreciate your input.

[diyfrank]

You may be able to dig a 1' deep trench around the perimeter.  Secure the metal skirting to the building and allow it to extend into the trench holding it above the bottom of the trench a bit.  Backfill the trench with pea gravel or drain rock. This should allow the ground to heave without coming into direct contact with the skirting.

Just a thought..

[Redoverfarm]

Why not just use a stationary piece of metal roofing or corrogated secured to the house by a 2X framework leaving it 6" from the ground.  Then use another piece of l;ike kind slotted with fastners attached to the stationary piece.  That way if it does heave the bottom piece will slide up over the stationary piece. Then when it settles again it will drop back to the ground level until next winter.

[mountainmomma]

Its been several months since we've posted on here. In part its because we were paused in our process while we saved up the $$ to do spray foam insulation on the first floor. Once that was done, we started moving along at a great pace again; expecially with the days as long as they are now!

We got all the sheetrocking done on the 1st floor including mudding and taping. Eli did a bit of texture on the lid and walls.


We chose "Naturally Calm"(tan) for the ceiling and "Japanese Koi" (yellow) for the walls. Those bight warm walls will help us keep our spirits up through the long dark winters.


I really love the way that these colors bring out the natural tones in the log and beams.

[astidham]

Looks great,
really like the colors!!

[duncanshannon]

 

another great project to follow!

Questions about your blog... how has it been keeping that blog and keeping this thread going?  im tempted to blog about what I do too... but am not all that excited about the redundant work - so that makes me shy away from the blog.

Also, I see you have some ads on it.. how are those working out for you?  Making much from it?

Duncan

[Danfish]

To echo the words of your excavator...you do professional work!

Question...It appears you used drywall returns on your windows...have you experienced any condensation damage where drywall contacts window frame?  Do you plan to use any casing trim on doors?

[mountainmomma]

another great project to follow!

Questions about your blog... how has it been keeping that blog and keeping this thread going?  im tempted to blog about what I do too... but am not all that excited about the redundant work - so that makes me shy away from the blog.

Also, I see you have some ads on it.. how are those working out for you?  Making much from it?

Duncan

Duncan,
I started the blog as a way to share with family and friends. It only became redundant for me after getting into Facebook because I was posting pics on there too. Perhaps I should just stop that. W/R to the ads, we haven't yet recieved a check because my proceeds from ads is still only about $40 from the beginning of the site. I think that if I was more diligent in posting regularly, I'd get more hits on there and more ad revenue as well. BUt, it just hasn't been a priority. Its free to host a blog on google though. So, I figure no harm no foul. Might as well. Good luck!

-Jane (Mountainmomma)