20x27 single-story - Minnesota

[walkabout]

After years of lurking/researching/envying we have started our own cabin project in Corrina Township, Wright County, Minnesota.

It has taken a lot longer to get to this point than I originally thought because of numerous things including:
1. township/county approval.
2. getting our finances in order.

Our old cabin was 20x22 over a 1'-3' crawlspace. Our well had plugged up, our cabin did not have a bathroom or running water.

We will be building a new cabin that is a single story 20x27 over a 6'6" crawlspace to be serviced by a holding tank, new well and yes an indoor bathroom.
We had planned on a larger cabin over a full basement, but our county ultimately only approved a much smaller cabin :-(

Our old cabin and detached garage was demolished last week. The well was installed and the crawlspace was excavated.
This week we hope to have the footings pored and the block crawlspace walls installed. The concrete contractor is out at the cabin today,
pumping as much of the 5" of rain that fell this weekend, so hopefully they can get the block installed this week.

Old cabin:

Demolition was fun but sad to watch:

Crawlspace was dug (and filled up with many of the 5 inches of rain we had this weekend):

Our floor plan:


My family and I will be doing as much of the work ourselves except for grading, block crawlspace and slabs, septic tank install.
Our only real goal for this year is to have the cabin dried in (siding and roofing installed) and the landscaping/grading completed.
I have more photos including some models I built of the cabin that was not approved:
https://s677.photobucket.com/albums/vv137/home_walkabout_usa/Cabin%20rebuild/

I look forward to sharing my experience with you all.

Walkabout

[Sassy]

   My grandparents & mom were from Minnesota (Zumbrota & Stillwater).  I bet that was hard to watch the demo...  could you save any of the materials?

Looking forward to seeing your build!

[duncanshannon]

 

I'm excited to see another Midwest (minnesota even!) project here. There is so much south and west of us... nice to see something local. (I'm in the west metro, hoping to build near spooner wi in a few years).

which lake are you on?

did you make your plans yourself?  tell us about what you are going to build!

looking forward to watching your build!

[walkabout]

Sassy,
The old cabin was one of the original 1920s resort cabins in the area. It looked sturdy, but there was not much on the old cabin that was worth keeping. The foundation/block wall was collapsing in on itself making every window and door bind. We thought of keeping some of the old windows, but they did not meet current energy code as they were not insulated.

DS,
I too are in the west metro, but our cabin is out in Wright county on a lake called Sugar Lake. The drive is about 50 miles, which is great.
I bought the 1 story plans from this site about 2.5 years ago, but plan on a few changes:
A. 6'6" block crawlspace to be accessed via internal stairs. This was a must have for us for safety reason, since we have had some really bad storms at our cabin, where we have had to seek shelter at neighbors with basements. We thought of a storm door on the outside, but would not want to mess with unlocking/finding the keys in an emergency.
B. I wanted to frame my own roof per the plans, but the building inspector wanted rafter ties every 2' instead of the 4' the plan called for, which I did not want. We will be going with scissor trusses over the living area, 6/12 external and 3/12 internal pitch. The bedroom and bathroom will have standard trusses. This will hopefully allow us to get the cabin dried in before winter.
C. We took some of the planned bathroom space and will be making a closet by the side door for clothes and/or extra storage for the kitchen.
D. We thought of adding a fireplace but could not find a location that would work or not obstruct our west facing view of the lake. We will have natural gas installed, and will have a ng furnace and water heater installed.

[IronPatriotTN]

While you are digging, put in a 8x8 storm shelter!

Seems like everyone needs one of those these days! 

[oifmarine]

Good luck!  I am lurking right now.  I am hoping to start mine next spring.

[walkabout]

Footings have been installed. Block walls of crawlspace is being installed today. The rest of the concrete/block work will be completed tomorrow, including the interior drain tile, slab floor, core fills etc. I would like to seal (DryLock) the block walls this weekend, but might not be able too since it is meant to rain a lot this weekend, so I am looking at other work I can do on this long weekend. I would like to at least frame the daylight basement wall if I can't paint.

Question 1: daylight basement wall framing?
Even though I am limited to a 6'6" (ceiling to slab floor) crawlspace, I would like to install windows in one of the walls. Our concrete contractor will be doing 10 courses of block on 3 walls and 5 courses (pony wall) on the one side where the land slope allows it. Does the following framing diagram look adequate? The farming will be 2x6. Green = green treated lumber.


Question 2: location of electrical panel/furnace/sump
Unfortunately I had not given the location of where water heater, electrical panel, furnace, sump pump will be located until the concrete guy started asking where I would like the sump pump. I drew up this preliminary diagram this morning. Do any of you see any issues?

[oifmarine]

In my complete "non-expert opinion", I might double up the studs on the short wall, especially in the middle between the two windows.  That is a long run for that short wall to support.  I have nothing to justify my answer other than "it sounds right".  Hopefully, one of these more experienced guys will chime in for you!

As you can see, I am still lurking.....

[John Raabe]

I would consider eliminating those corner block piers. If you have a solid bolt down PT sill plate between concrete and wood all the way around, and then frame the pony-walls with 2x6 at 16" o/c and sheath the wall in plywood for a diaphragm. This will be stronger and easier to build than those isolated pony-walls between piers.

If only one of your walls has room for the pony-wall, then your diagram may be the way to turn the block corner. Ask your mason.

[walkabout]

Some progress was made this past week.
The footings were done, block installed, internal drain tile installed, 2 coats of water-proofing on the outside painted.
We did have a lot of rain though (5"), so my brand new sump pump worked all day today to empty the water that filled the crawlspace and outside the footings.

Here is a photo:


John,
I am not sure what you meant by corner peers. Either way there is not much I can change now. Hopfully the photo above explains what I was trying to explain. The low wall in the photo is obviously the wall I will be framing first, with the 20' trusses running from that that pony wall across the cabin.

[John Raabe]

Yes, you have only one pony-wall and block corners. From the diagram I was wondering if all sides were pony-walls. They are not!

[Don_P]

The pony wall framing is adequate, The header table in chapter 5 lists the allowable span on 2- 2x6's for a header supporting a 20' clearspan floor supporting floor and roof as 3' 11" so you should be fine there. The window dimension and height from floor gives me pause. I know this is technically a crawlspace. Have you explored dropping the sill as low to the block wall as possible and making those as tall as possible for egress just in case?

[John Raabe]

Good suggestion Don.

[walkabout]

Thanks Don and John.
I will redesign with the largest awning windows that I can. Sliders don't work well for egress it seems.

I also found out that the trusses I will be getting will be 16" engeneered trusses 19-2 OC (19 and 2/10 inch). I assume I should frame the studs in the pony wall to match the trusses (i.e. 19-2 oc)?

I have also decided to change the way the walls/sheathing will be done.
Originally I was going to have the studs, sill plate and trusses line up flush with the outside wall, resulting in the sheathing being outside of the block,  per this diagram:


But because I this would have created some exposed sheathing on the sides of the pony wall framing I have decided per the advise of the building supplies people to have the sheating flush with the block. This alows me to install any trim work right against the sheathing and block:

[Native_NM]

There are diagrams at the TJI mfg. website.  They show something like this:


All of the floor structure, including the rim joists, rests on the sill plate.  In your diagram, you don't show the rim joist directly, but do show the non-structural Thermax resting directly on the block.  They show the Thermax inside the rim joist.  The reason to have the sheathing extend (overlap) the block is minimize water weep.  I think it depends on what you plan to use for final siding on that section. 

[walkabout]

With engeneered floor trusses there is no rim joist at the end of the joist.
They are tied together something like this:


If I add the siding and trim to my diagram it would look like this:

[Native_NM]

I missed that.  I was thinking TJI's.      I am surprised there is no rim joist, as they add much of the side/lateral strength, but I don't know enough to comment. 

Here are some diagrams from an engineered truss system, but it might not be applicable:

http://www.ufpi.com/literature/ojtech-77.pdf

In your diagram, the trim block and siding overlap should keep the water running down properly.

[John Raabe]

Insulating between the sheathing and the sill does not make a great connection between the sheathing diaphragm and the sill/foundation plate. Your 2x band is acting as the rim and that is also floating out there on the foam board. Those solid ties can be pretty important for your lateral bracing in wind and earthquake conditions. What if you took out the foam board, made a solid well nailed connection and then did a spray foam for both rim insulation and air sealing?

You do not need to have the framing of the pony wall the same as the truss spacing. Check locally but I'll bet you can use 16" o/c framing with a double top plate. Makes the sheathing layout work better.

[Native_NM]

I just found another article - a builder indicates that if you ever plan to add a deck or any other structure off that side of the house, add the rim joist now, or there will be no place to attach to in the future without a lot of work.

[walkabout]

Thanks guys.
If I increased the sill plate to 2x8 and moved it out to within 1/2" of the block wall, that would provide better support for the sheathing?

[John Raabe]

That would improve the bottom connection. I like to put the sill flush with the foundation and let the sheathing go outside the foundation wall and hang down about 1/2". Then the floor and wall framing is the same size as the foundation. This decreases errors and increases (slightly) the interior floor area.

Here's the typical layout:



Note all the framing that is nailed to the sheathing and tied into the foundation plate. This is one of the non-engineered aspects of platform frame construction that works to make things stronger.

[Native_NM]

The lack of a rim joist still concerns me. Looking at your drawing, much of the weight from above that bears down on that end does not have anything underneath it for support. Half the 2x6 wall is cantilevered in your drawing.  The band tie does not add anything downward, only laterally.

What am I missing?

[John Raabe]

For a 20' wide span a 16" tall truss at an odd spacing seems overkill. You could use an 11 7/8" I-joist at 16" o/c (ie: TJI-360) with a solid rim board supplied by the manufacture. That gives you a L/480 deflection that is more firm than code requires and you have all the advantages of standard platform construction.

[walkabout]

Floor was pored and the exterior drain tile installed by my contractors.
I completed the pony wall this weekend. You will notice that there are no headers over the windows. This is because the truss company is building a header into their floor-truss design, allowing me to move the windows up as high as possible in my 6'6" crawlspace. I am going with web trusses instead of I-joists because I can hide all the plumbing and a/c ducts within the web and not loose any of my precious 6'6".
Trusses arrive this week and I will be installing them next weekend.

[John Raabe]

Good point about the ductwork. Project looks good and you're doing careful planning. Should be fun when you start framing!