Here's my latest...

Quote from: cbc58 on Yesterday at 03:00:18 PMOlJarHead - just wanted to thank you for your videos - they are well done and very informative. 

Thank you!  I appreciate the feedback!  More to come!

Version 1.2.3 - 05.14.2024 thru 05.15.2024
- Fixed a minor bug with the estimating module (wall header library initialization).
- Fixed a minor bug with the estimating module (wall material library initialization).

Version 3.6.2 - 05.14.2024
- Enabled wall sheathing 2 statistics for the Medeek Estimating Module.
- Fixed a bug with wall presets and the wall sheathing 2 option.

We also used to have a system for storing things like canned goods that should not be frozen. I cannot locate the particular portion of my build thread where this was detailed. So here goes a description.

I had a polyethylene tube 7 feet long  x 24" diameter. An old playground slide tunnel tube. I dug a hole to drop that into. Then I built a box unit over the upper end. I cot an XPS foam plug for the upper end. That fit inside the upper end of the 24" poly tube and had a bicycle tire tube fitted as an o-ring to air seal. The box unit was well insulated around the tube upper end and had a heavily insulated hinged lid.

I had a dozen or so 4" diameter thin wall pvc pipes, dropped in vertically. This was large enough to load with canned goods from one end. The bottom ends had a pin that kept cans from falling out. The top ends had similar pins used as a handle to raise and lower the tubes.. With the insulated lid the inside of the poly storage tube never dropped below about 50 F. The heat from that depth in the soil kept it frost free.

The humidity in the hole was high enough to cause labels to get wet and come loose. Some cans did begin to rust lightly but that was never a serious issue through one winter.

Used to have... The box top and poly tube burnt out during the wildfire in 2022.

 

Spices, anything dry (oats, flours, seeds.....) have not suffered at all over the many winters our cabin has gone through winters unheated. Olive oil turns solid in the cold but turns liquid again when warmed with no discernable harm.

OlJarHead - just wanted to thank you for your videos - they are well done and very informative.  

I'm new to the terminology, so please bear with me.

Including the porch on two sides of the house, my total dimensions are 24'x24'. The house itself is 16x20. I am planning on a pier and beam foundation. The county I am in is completely unrestricted (no building codes/zones/permits/building department/etc). There's not a single red light in the whole county and much of the population is Plain (Amish/Mennonite), just to give context.

Frost line is 10-12" and state code says we should have a minimum 12" deep footing for the piers. I was going to go 24" down, 6" compact gravel of some kind, and then 18" Sonotube cement footing. I was planning on doing double 2x8 beams (aka 4x8 beams) and doing 2x8 joists every 16" oc.

I am trying to figure out how many piers I need. I was thinking about doing 4 rows of 4 (16 total distributed evenly), 4 rows of 5, or 5 rows of 5.


Am I wildly off here or is this okay? Thank you! 

I am framing the 1 story right now which is based on the same footprint.

It was about 4500 to do my crawlspace foundation (6" CMU 4 high, fully grouted, plus footing, excavated to 12").  Including renting a backhoe.

The framing I'm looking at about $15k all in, plus another 12-15k or so for roofing/sheathing/windows.  I think maybe you have similar subfloor unless you do a slab.  I spent about $4k on my subfloor including select structural floor joists for the called out 2x12x20'.

I anticipate finishing the shell for under 40k including the plumbing from the house to the septic system.  Utilities cost me another ~35k including a septic system, power extension 1/5 mile, DIY power run 300 ft from property line, temp power for construction, running water and temp spigot a few hundred feet to the property line.

Have a general question about building an off grid 3 season cabin that will remain uninhabited (without power) over winter.  It would be vacant from December through March and the temps can get down to 15 below... 

What can you leave in it that will survive the temp drops and temp fluctuations ?  Will food items like spices and powdered drinks be ok -- or maybe people have figured out unique ways of storing things over the winter so they don't have to bring it back each spring.

Any info. or tips appreciated.