Cabin project in east washington

[diyfrank]

Stinkerbell,

I like the areas out there a lot also.

Do you have pictures of your place posted on here?

Link?

[diyfrank]

This may fly and I could live with the smaller bedroom & loft.

[Bishopknight]

Hey Frank,

Love your land, nice choice. I cant wait to see how you frame the windows for the view.

[diyfrank]

Thanks Bishopknight,


I appreciate the comments.

[John Raabe]

Nice job Frank:

RE: windows:

If you get some good sized windows in your search you might try getting some solar sunlight into the place depending on orientation and blockages. Nothing makes a small cabin feel bigger than some expansive windows. You may have to consider security however, and you probably want good frames and glass so as not to lose too much heat. But I have found good low-e vinyl frame windows for pennies on the dollar because they didn't fit the order specs and were sent back. Ask if your supplier has a boneyard and check the thrift shops as they sometimes get these as donations from a builder or supplier.

Usually I like to get cross ventilation and two light sources in each room if possible. It is best practice to leave a 28" to 48" (two stud bays) wide panel of sheathing within 8' of each corner. This locks the walls structurally. However, in a small cabin with structural sheathing on all the walls you would have to work pretty hard cutting holes to make it structurally unsound.

[diyfrank]

Thanks for your input on windows John.

I have 7 double pane vinyl framed windows to work with now.  I don't know how energy efficient there are I picked them up in various places.

A larger one placed on the south side would catch a lot of the sun, however I'm on the north side of the hill.

I never thought about checking thrift stores.  hmm.

Building has slow down so much in the last 2 years. Not much left in the bone yards. I've been looking around.

Security... thats a tuff one. I'm 2 miles in and at the end of the road.  Timber company to the east, national forest the south. 1 neighbor (I think I can trust) lives to the north. He watches the hill like he owns it.  Fingers crossed, I'm 6 hour away.

You gave me some things to think on.

[MountainDon]

Speaking of windows... We changed the original oroentation of our cabin after spending a year or so of planning. We realized the prevailing winds were from the north or the south, depending on season and time of day mainly. So we turned it 90 degrees inorder to have a cross draft through the windows on the long sides.

I also designed the roof eve overhang to be sufficient to block the high daytime summer sun from striking the glass. The lower winter sun can strike the glass though.

I looked a lot for cheap windows (good windows at cheao prices like John described) but never had much luck until I got a couple off craigslist. Then we bought matching ones for the rest with a 10% off deal at Lowe's.

[diyfrank]

Don,

Now I'm needing to find out what way the wind blows!? 

I have thought about the roofing blowing off if I put it on with the sheets overlapping the wrong way but not sure what way that is.   I get trees down from all directions.   

I'm never there when the weather is at its worst.   

east /west ?  blow up hill coming from the north?


Is there a weather site that might log that kind of info for a specific area?

more to think about.

[MountainDon]

Wind direction can vary a lot with the changes in terrain. You get little micro climates in places. Our ridge runs east-west. Generally we have a breeze from the south as the day warms (up the slope) and then a breeze from the north (down the slope) as the day cools. But it can be all over the compass too. When storms blow through the wind is frequently predominately from the west.

I do have a weather station of my own, but to record the data over time there has to be a live computer as well. I have collected a lot of data while up there. When we're away all we can retrieve are the mins and maxes.

This may or may not be of any help to you.  http://www.met.utah.edu/mesowest/

That's a link to a weather recording service. There are remote sensing stations all over the country. You can access data from them and see what the hourly winds were, temperatures, humidity, rainfall (some stations have heaters and give near real time snow into water figures), barometric pressure, etc. There are also downloadable data going back many years. The national weather service among others uses this data in their forecasting.

We have one of these near our cabin site, 4 or 5 miles distant. Our weather is sometimes quite close, and at times several degrees off etc. FWIW, here's the link to the one close to us...  http://www.met.utah.edu/cgi-bin/droman/meso_base.cgi?stn=JESN5&unit=0&time=LOCAL&product=

If you're curious, here's another of my favorite weather sites, the National Weather Service.   http://www.weather.gov/  You can enter your location and use the clickable map to narrow it down to your location of interest.

Mine is (more or less):  http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=35.789725176060465&lon=-106.57952785491943&site=abq&smap=1&marine=0&unit=0&lg=en&mp=0

[diyfrank]

Perfect, That looks like a great site for what I was looking for.

I'll monitor it for a while.

[curlewdave]

Frank--I'd like to drop by this next summer and check out your work!  I have property up on Empire Creek ( must be pretty close) and spend time out on Samish Island in the summer (again, close to your environs).  We winter down in Tucson, and from the sounds of things up there, probably a good idea!!   I'd love to take you up on our property, about 170 acres, to show you some fabulous views of Granite Mt, Mt. Elizabeth, as well as the whole Kettle Mt. Range.  Dave

[diyfrank]

   Dave,
Sounds like a nice piece you have there.
How far are you from Curlew,I'm not sure where Empire Creek is.

you planning to build??

[curlewdave]

We're south of Curlew  a couple miles, off of 21, then west 2 miles up Empire Creek.  We have 2 sites picked out to build on, and had a seismic water test done on the sites to make sure water was available in both places. 

[diyfrank]

Thats cool.
What did the water test run you?
Whats the elevation?

I looked at the well logs online and was guesting water to be  300 ft+, possibly 600 ft
where I'm at.

[curlewdave]

The tests were expensive, about $1100/site.  But it's much cheaper than drilling a dry hole.  I used them in Western Washington, and they were spot on.  They said I'd have 3-6 gpm at 40' and we hit 5 gpm at 38'.  We sit at 2700' at our site , one of them came in at 10gpm at 95', and the other at 10gpm at 190'.  Not great, but enough to get by with some good planning.

[Redoverfarm]

Most people in my area would be tickled to death to get 10GPM.  I was fortunate at the house to get 60GPM @ 393'.  Also at the cabin 10GPM @ 190'.  10 GPM is more than enough if you use the casing as storage.

[glenn kangiser]

We have 1gpm from somewhere above 675 - static was 169

[diyfrank]

Dave,
Sounds like money well spent.
I looked at your area on the topo map You must be around section 4?  
Are you planning to post your progress. I know Theres a few people on here building the east side.

Its always good to see what people come up with.

[curlewdave]

We're in section 34, the other side of the county road.  Lots of deer, both whitetail and muley, turkeys (tho wild, they often follow you like a flock), black bear ( a 422 pound one was killed  there this fall!!), bobcats and cougar (one killed our neighbors dog a couple years ago).  What a great spot that I'd love to drag you around this next summer.  People don't realize how beautiful it is until they visit it in person... Well, you know , as you live right in the area!!!!!  America's undiscovered paradise.

[diyfrank]

Sounds great Dave, I'd like to check it out.

I know what you mean about the game, it's what brought me to the area.

[considerations]

"America's undiscovered paradise"

You have to lie to keep it that way. Don't tell anyone.  The Olympic Peninsula, Sequim mostly, has become overrun with McMansions, and then, after the new folk settled in, they started complaining about the lack of big box stores, so much for country living.  Now they are paving Sequim with them.  Looks like Anywhere, USA now.

Fortunately I found property in a demographically undesirable area.

[diyfrank]

I hear ya considerations.

BTW, Sequim was in the news this morning, seems it has peaked in popularity.

No longer the place to be.
http://www.komonews.com/news/36805604.html

[TROYL]

Are you a sure your a 4x12 ridge beam is gonna fly.  i'm gonna build this spring also and in 75 pound snow load are north of winthrop a few miles and for a 16x20. they quoted me a 5x15 glue lam to free span. might be something to check into.

[diyfrank]

I was told buy the planning dept. 2- 2x12 will work.

It has a 10' loft so it only spanning 10' without some sort of support other than the ridge beam.

[stressman79]

Frank! 

I think you are my neighbor to the north!  I have 20 acres off of little goosmus creek road, at the very top of the hill.

https://i319.photobucket.com/albums/mm471/stressman79/curlewtrip050.jpg

I can't get to the photobucket site from this location (blocked by work).

I too will be starting next spring.  we should talk concerning pooling resources (tools, etc)

shoot me an email @ stressman79@hotmail.com (my spam account)

-Peter