David and Lisa's 20 x 30 in Plumas County, CA

[davidj]

Yay - finally up to date on documenting progress!  Now for two or three months of skiing-in to work on the rough plumbing, mechanical and electrical.

At this point we're about $50K and 18 months into the project (excluding land, well and outbuildings).

[pocono_couple]

Hi david,
  great picks.. i love the idea of skiing into a cabin in the woods..  you guys sure got the snow..   we are on the other end of the country - NE  PA, and normally, we would have some snow by now, but all of the storms that have swept across the country have either gone north or south of us.. much like the one that is hitting Washington right now.

I like the lift that you used for your beam for the porch.  My son was visiting over thanksgiving, and we used a built up beam for the same purpose.. but we had to get in in place ourselves..   I think that I scared him - he is a rock climber, and he said that getting that beam in place was more frightening than anything he faces on the cliffs..  , but the system worked, and the beam is in place..  maybe we will try your method next time!
 
we started our house about 2 years ago.. not much gets done over the winter.  we have just about the same 50k invested without the land - that does include a septic system and a well, however.  we are going to go easy from here on - spending only what we have on hand.   I am hoping to come in under 70k when we are all done.   

I am looking forward to more pics!   enjoy the snow.. we are taking a group of students skiing tomorrow - but it is nearly all man mad snow

[diyfrank]

Very nice.
Love the porch. Thats about what I had envisioned doing for my porch and now I'm sure I'll go with it.

[PA-Builder]

. . .  we are on the other end of the country - NE  PA, and normally, we would have some snow by now, but all of the storms that have swept across the country have either gone north or south of us . . .

I have between 20"-24" of snow in South-Central PA that you can have . . .   

[Pine Cone]

Cool project!  I love Plumas County and have lived there during three different summers, 1975 and 1980 in Meadow Valley (west of Quincy) and 1976 on the west shore of Lake Almanor.

Haven't spent much time near Graeagle, but there used to be a great hot spring out in the middle of no-where just NW of the town.  I think it got filled in back in the mid-1980s, but it was just some nice pools out in the middle of a large flat.  I don't think there was a house within 5 miles of it back then.

Great climate in the summer months, but the winters are a bit severe.  I wonder how much the snow on your porch weighs in the winter picture you posted.  Looks to be about 3 feet deep over the door area...

[poppy]

Nice project.

Nice wife.

Nice neighbors

Nice roof; nice windows.

Not bad for someone on the left coast. 

[davidj]

Cool project!  I love Plumas County and have lived there during three different summers, 1975 and 1980 in Meadow Valley (west of Quincy) and 1976 on the west shore of Lake Almanor.

Meadow Valley's pretty - must've been nice to live there.

I'm guessing Lake Almanor's changed a bit since you were there - they seem to be pushing at as the new Tahoe and there's been lots of development (although I'm guessing not so much the last couple of years).

Haven't spent much time near Graeagle, but there used to be a great hot spring out in the middle of no-where just NW of the town.  I think it got filled in back in the mid-1980s, but it was just some nice pools out in the middle of a large flat.  I don't think there was a house within 5 miles of it back then.

I'm pretty sure there're no hot springs near Graeagle now.  There are some in the Sierra Valley but they're on private land.  The plan was to make our own, but the hot tub project has been on hold since the framing started and looks like it's a few years off at this point.

Great climate in the summer months, but the winters are a bit severe.  I wonder how much the snow on your porch weighs in the winter picture you posted.  Looks to be about 3 feet deep over the door area...

Just went back up again two weeks later and the porch roof is completely clear.  This is good news, as it's the compacted snow that builds up over weeks and months that becomes "sierra cement".

[davidj]

One problem we had with the cabin recently was mold in the crawl space.  I'd planned to put in a vapor barrier and a bunch of vents, but with the hurry to get the place winterized I just covered up the crawl space entrance and the single prototype vent hole.  6 weeks later I went into the basement and there was a thin layer of mold everywhere, with water literally dripping from the sub floor.  Turns out the temp. in there was in the high 30s, which was enough for any moisture in the dirt to evaporate.  However, the rim joists were more like 28F at night, making a great condenser

The remedy was to put 6 mil polyethylene down, taping the seams and the edges (to the polyiso foam) and then cut a few more vents.  It seems way better now - no obvious moisture except under the poly sheet.  The relative humidity is 86%, but with feet of snow and temps oscillating around freezing I think this is as good as it gets for a month or two.  We also found some damaged vinyl flooring at HD, which we've laid down to protect the polyethylene.

Were I doing this again, I'd put down the vapor barrier before laying the subfloor - seeing your brand new crawlspace turning green and damp is no fun!

[John Raabe]

Good advice on covering the crawlspace early.

[Annalea]

This year it snowed in mid-December and I'm hoping to get in late April. On a heavy snow year it can be closed in from Thanksgiving until May.  However, I've just invested in a "tool" to handle these issues:

(you can tell it's a tool, and hence an essential purchase, because it's yellow like my DeWalt saw.  If it was a toy it would be red!).

Hmmmm . . . most of my "tools" are red . . . 

[davidj]

It's taking way longer than I thought to do the plumbing and electrical.  Driving through snow and hiking in an hour each way isn't helping, but having only done one plumbing job before (a bathroom remodel) it's mostly inexperience slowing me down.  Finally, a couple of weeks back, I finished the DWV after a couple of changes of plan:

 

It all seems very simple now, but the whole 3d issues along with trying to avoid 90s made it harder to think about.  I also followed the Hemp plumbing book ("Plumbing a House") for the toilet vent details, but it turns out that most of the toilet patterns don't work in CA.  You can't have horizontal venting until 6" above the flood level of the fixture and all vent connections need to be wyes (some of his are sanitary tees) - basically you have to use his "pattern 5".  I also don't have any interior walls that extend to the cathedral ceiling, so I had to swing the drain over to the outside wall and go up at 45 degrees into the bottom plate.  Fortunately I called the inspector with a minor question and he explained everything patiently (and it actually makes more sense intuitively this way, even if it's more limiting).  This all resulted in me having to change my existing vents, which I'd already taken up the wall and out of the roof before I really understood the underfloor stuff.  The photo on the left is under the bathroom and the right is under the kitchen sink.

I've also got 1/2 of the electrical in, which is also going slowly.  Which is good, cos I'm still trying to work out where to put the light fixtures and switches (we want old-fashioned looking, title 24 compliant, cheap, warm light and works with cathedral ceilings - apparently an almost impossible combination!).

Last week my pex arrived and I'm working on that too (I don't know if it's me, but the cheap lead-free pex fittings really don't like to hold solder!).  But once any copper fittings have been soldered, the pex itself is great to work with.  I went with the steel clamp rings and they work well.  I'll post some photos in a week or two...

[eddiescabin]

Gotta love the cheese/sausage croissant at the Blairsden bakery and the lil' bar in Graeagle!

[davidj]

The good news is the snow has finally cleared and we managed to drive in over the weekend.  The last time we could do that was Thanksgiving - almost 6 months ago.  That's quite a Winter considering we're only at 5000ft!  But even though the dirt road is open it still dropped down to 23F on Saturday night, snow on the ground both mornings and Donner Summit was closed for a couple of hours by snow and accidents on the way up.  It looks like we're pretty much gonna jump straight from Winter to Summer this year.

The bad news is that now I've got no excuse for not making some rapid progress! I'll try and remember to take some photos of the pex setup next time I'm up there - it's mostly done at this point.  Still dragging my feet on the electrical - at this point I'm fed up of crawling around under the floor and can't wait to move on to the decks and siding.  Need to have everything ready for the 4R inspection at the end of September...

[davidj]

Spring lasted for about 3 days this year - it already feels like Summer.  Which means it's time to finish the decks (18'x6' at the front, 8'x6' by the back door).  Here are a few photos of the work on the stairs for the front deck...

Here are the forms for the concrete pad - it took >30 bags of concrete to fill:

[davidj]

Some of the "hired help" used to mix the concrete - Joy and Christian.  Amazing the amount of sweat you can get out of these guys for a couple of bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale...

[davidj]

Another look at the stringers (2 hours with the sidewinder to cut).  This is the first time I've done anything serious with concrete screws - seem to work pretty well although I probably went too long with 2 3/4" - using 2" length would have been fine and I'd have spent a lot less time drilling holes with the hammer drill.

[Redoverfarm]

David and I thought I had a wide set of steps on the cabin at 8' but you have me beat hands down.  Thats a lot of concrete to mix by hand but it looks like you "got r done".  Looking good.

[davidj]

David and I thought I had a wide set of steps on the cabin at 8' but you have me beat hands down.  Thats a lot of concrete to mix by hand but it looks like you "got r done".  Looking good.

The main justification for the steps is for winter access.  After heavy snow falls there can be a pretty big heap of snow in the middle of the porch but the corners don't accumulate much due to the hip roof.  It also gave me another foot of deck using the top step - I was limited to a 6' porch unless I had the whole thing engineered, but that width limit doesn't include the steps.

[Redoverfarm]

This past winter it wouldn't have made any difference for me I couldn't use them anyway because of the roof snow slide.  I am planning on making a small set to the end of the porch which shouldn't be effected.  I will probably just be able to walk level off the snow to the porch deck without using the steps if this winter is the same.

[davidj]

Wow - that's a fair bit of snow!  Wouldn't wanna be under that one when it came down!!

[Redoverfarm]

The worst part was that this was mid season.  There was still more that came down after that.  I guess when it finally ended there was about 4' between the peak on the pile and the overhang soffit.  Of course it had already made it's way to the porch deck and covered the steps.  But it finally left by the hardest.  Now what to do about putting gutters up. 

[davidj]

As promised a while back, some photos of the pex plumbing...

Here are the main hot and cold manifolds, which sit directly under the on-demand water heater (still missing three or four fixture runs when I took the photo):

Here's the pressure tank, along with a home-made 3/4" manifold:

As usual, I went a bit over the top with the design of this, especially given the small size of the system.  It's set up to gravity drain from 2 points:

i) The valves at the bottom the main manifolds (along with a third valve for the cold inlet to the water heater) can be used to drain the cabin itself but keep water in the pressure tank and crawlspace-only pipes
ii) The tap on the pressure tank can be used to drain everything else, including the tank itself.

In general I liked working with the pex, although I spent more time sweating the copper for the manifolds and water heater connection than I ever did crimping pex!

[davidj]

Yeeeeeee Haaaaaaa - passed the rough inspection.  The inspector even emphasized that I'd done a great job on the DWV - better than some of the local plumbers - which was nice to hear given how much hassle I went through plumbing it.  The only issue was that he wanted one of the smoke detectors moved higher on the cathedral ceiling - a 30 minute fix.

The last few weeks before the inspection were definitely the toughest of the whole project - long lists of things to finish off, all of the jobs I'd put off because I didn't want to do them and very little visible progress.  Working all week, building all weekend and all my vacations days, and a "summer vacation" of 1/2 a day hiking in Lakes Basin. Even the dog pretty much moved in with the neighbors because I was so boring and never threw a stick for her!  But a great feeling of relief to have it all done and move on to the next stage.

So if I've got the outside pretty much finished and the rough plumbing/electrical/mechanical done, what % of the way through are we?  Have we done 2/3 yet?

I'll try and post a few more photos now I'm not spend every spare second putting up siding or running Romex.

[altaoaks]

hi david and lisa, just finished reading your thread.  i really enjoyed it.  i smiled at the victories, sympathized at the bumps in the road, and the outhouse thing and that bumperbummer thing made me laugh until i cried!  my husband in the living room thought something hapened to me and came running. silly him, and i just could not stop laughing/crying to expain to him what i had seen and read!

your cabin is so awsome!  and you got so far so quickly.  i bet its going to take us years to get there.  and congratulations on the building inspection, that must feel good!

so is this a vacation cabin, or a full-time residence?  we will be in the bay area for about 10 more years for work reasons, but then we are going to be full-timers.  unless of course we hit the lotto?  i would defect in a minute!

thanks for sharing so much details with us, i will refer to your thread for several of those details!  you guys rock!

[davidj]

so is this a vacation cabin, or a full-time residence?  we will be in the bay area for about 10 more years for work reasons, but then we are going to be full-timers.  unless of course we hit the lotto?  i would defect in a minute!

Whoops - sorry - missed this question.  This probably won't be a full-time residence, although maybe half-time when we both retire.  The winter is just too harsh, with no neighbors, a 45 minute ski to the road and 4ft of snow everywhere.  We might try and survive one winter up there, just to prove we can, but I don't think either of us are under any illusions that it'll be easy or our preferred way of life.