Well, we signed the papers this afternoon on 11 acres. 10 acres of hardwoods and 1 acre of swamp. The plan is to build a 12x16 with a loft. This will be my hunting cabin, although I'm sure that I'll spend more days there than not  . My wife is worried that I'll just dissapear into the woods one day and never come back.

I read some of the regulations of this site and saw that a title should include a cabin size, so I started a new post here.

If I have one complaint about this site, it's that I can watch a cabin go up in a day or two of reading and lurking here. I'm afraid that doing this myself will be a slower process. I have some physical limitations as well as financial. This is where you all pull out your hankees and cry me a river  .

I've been like a kid at Christmas these last few days. I've stashed a few hunderd bucks and went buck wild on craigslist. I bought 3 new (small) vinyl windows for $50. I scavanged some 2x6 lumber for free and will pick up the rest at 25 cents a foot in the morning. I also bought 15 sheets of gently used plywood for $75.

The buying is easy. Now comes the hard stuff. I can use all the advise you all may have on setting the foundation. I'm on a very strict budget . I'm wondering what to expect in terms of cost for a sonotube foundation.

I'll try to post pics of the building site.

<a href="https://s871.photobucket.com/albums/ab277/tajans/?action=view&current=camera079.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="https://i871.photobucket.com/albums/ab277/tajans/camera079.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>

This is a natural clearing in the woods on a hill that overlooks the swamp.

My patient wife is helping me post this because I'm far better with a gun than a computer 

4 ft. sonotube is about 10 bucks.
rebar should run about another $10, maybe a little more.
concrete for about a 3 ft. pier and 24 in. footer should run about 20 bucks or so, less if you mix your own.
bracket for beam can vary- $10 to $20 each is about what I've seen.

So I'd figure on about $50- $70 per pier (for that size)- plus whatever you want to add for your sweat and labor.

The formula I use for estimating how long a particular job will require is to guess what the very longest I think it will take, then times that by 3... or 4. Works for me!

Here's the image...  (use the IMG tags, not the webpage ones, in photobucket. click and copy, then paste in message here)



Nice clearing... a meadow to me.

Quote from: Tom on June 11, 2010, 09:22:08 PM
Well, we signed the papers this afternoon on 11 acres. 10 acres of hardwoods and 1 acre of swamp. The plan is to build a 12x16 with a loft. This will be my hunting cabin, although I'm sure that I'll spend more days there than not  . My wife is worried that I'll just dissapear into the woods one day and never come back.

I read some of the regulations of this site and saw that a title should include a cabin size, so I started a new post here.

If I have one complaint about this site, it's that I can watch a cabin go up in a day or two of reading and lurking here. I'm afraid that doing this myself will be a slower process. I have some physical limitations as well as financial. This is where you all pull out your hankees and cry me a river  .

I've been like a kid at Christmas these last few days. I've stashed a few hunderd bucks and went buck wild on craigslist. I bought 3 new (small) vinyl windows for $50. I scavanged some 2x6 lumber for free and will pick up the rest at 25 cents a foot in the morning. I also bought 15 sheets of gently used plywood for $75.

The buying is easy. Now comes the hard stuff. I can use all the advise you all may have on setting the foundation. I'm on a very strict budget . I'm wondering what to expect in terms of cost for a sonotube foundation.

I'll try to post pics of the building site.

Awesome!  I can't wait to watch!  And don't worry about the appearance that some cabins go up fast!  At ten months - yues TEN MONTHS (I'm still just getting the exterior finished!  I think at the one year mark we'll have a party and start the interior

Take your time and have fun!

For that small you might try using 4X4 PT posts covered in tar.  That is what I used.

OK, I'm running solo on this picture posting thing. The wife has left me unattended. SUCH a dangerous thing to do.

Progress is slow, but it's progress. If wet weather isn't in my low back and legs, I can manage 3 to 4 hours of work before I'm done in. I love the sound of that Stihl 029 singing out on a clear day 

I'm 95% finished clearing a driveway back to where the cabin will be. Now I need to get back out there and and witch for water. The water isn't hard to find, but finding a vane within easy reach may take longer. I'd like to put in a hand pump inside, but I don't know how hard it will be to drive a well point. Has anyone done this by hand? My other option would be to place the cabin near the water vane so that the pump sets outside the door.

Next week I'll clear an area. I'll have a slope to build on. How important is it to put gravel down under the cabin?

Thanks for your input.

Trying again

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After a great deal of rain here in Michigan, I could no longer navigate the hill onto my property so I called a guy to come and move some dirt for an access. Unfortunately, it was too wet for him to complete the job. He was spinning around with his equipment. He told me that he'd come back after we've had some dry weather

The good news is that I did get a start on the cabin site. I used a post hole digger and found dirt that seemed about the same as what they spread out on a gravel road. I managed to get about 3 feet deep before I couldn't go any deeper. I'm hoping that this will be good enough to deal with the frost this winter.

Tomorrow I'll fill the holes with pea gravel and set the piers.

I did manage to find a few water vanes and as far as i can tell, they're at about 30 feet. Unfortunately, with this gravel soil, I don't think that pounding a well down will be possible. At some point I'll have to have someone come in.

What do you mean "I did manage to find a few water vanes" ?

Water vanes can be "witched". Most anyone can witch for water.

Is that the same as "dowsing" (SP?) and if so how can you tell how deep the vein is?

Ok, I debated as to whether or not to post this.  You all are going to think I'm nuts. However, if this helps someone then it's worth it.

When I first heard of water witching 25 years ago, I thought it was something invented for TV... something that only hillbillys  like Jed Clampett would believe. It was funnier yet when I heard how this all worked. The only reason why I even went along to watch this guy witch for water was because he was one of those quiet, never brag kind of men. It wasn't like him to spin a tall tale or to ever draw attention to himself. He had lived on a farm all of his life. In the 30 years that I've known him, I've never known him to lie.

He was helping out a guy at work (Jeff) who had a garden too far away from the house to bother with all that hose. Jeff had a separate pump for watering the vegetables. His well was drying up and so he asked Ed to find him water.

Ed took 2 pieces of coat hanger, each about 15 inches long. He bent them in the middle, into an "L" shape. Then he held them loosely in his hands (one in each hand) so that the wires were pointing straight out in front of him. He walked slowly around the garden until the wires both pointed inward. Ed said that he had found water.

Ed then took a standard hand saw with a wooden handle on it and knelt down over the spot holding the saw with both hands by the tip with his thumbs on top. He held it steady until the handle began to bob up and down (maybe an inch or so). He counted the "bobs" until it stopped. Each bob was 1 foot.

I laughed and told him that I wasn't going to fall for this and look like a fool at work when word got out that I suckered for it. Ed smiled and told me to ask Jeff how deep the water was when the well was sunk. 3 weeks later Jeff told me that Ed was right on the money and that he had asked for Ed's help because Ed has never been off by more than 1 foot.

If you doubt this, bend some wire and walk in your lawn. When the wires turn inward, you may not think I'm crazy. I can't tell you how this works, but it does.

This is kind of interesting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rOqyMykIso

Intertesting.     The old guy (90-something)that sold us our land in the Jemez indicated where he had dowsed and found water.

He also told me where I should dig to find gold.  I've always been skeptical.  

Maybe I need to try the buried water canister/bottle trick here in the desert myself.

I use a witching rod to located the things that aren't recorded. There are things in the ground that the city/county don't have the  records of. If I'm digging through an area that I know has buried services that locates can't locate, the rod comes out. I use 1 rod but 2 are what most use that I've seen. 1 works every bit as well. It will point forward away from you till you cross the path of something. Then It will point across.  It will pick up trench line of any kind or depth. water, power, a drain pipe or wood logs etc. If the earth has a void, it will cross.  You don't need 2 rods. It doesn't have to be any thing special to work. Any old piece of wire any length will do. It has saved me from destroying many things over the years and saved a lot of time finding the unknown.  I've used it to find water on my property where my cabin is.

People will still try to tell me it's hocus pocus and that ok with me if they believe to be.   

I'm the kind of guy who enjoys a good practical joke... especially if I'm not on the receiving end . I'm a born skeptic, and I don't mind at all if someone has doubts about this because I wouldn't have believed this if I hadn't seen Ed do this, or if I hadn't talked to several people that he witched water for.

It's hard to believe in something that you can't explain, but I'm a believer.

We are yet babes in the woods and just don't know it.

One thing I often tell people is this:  If man, modern man, has been around this earth for 40,000 years and all we know about him is really the last 4000 or so....what was he doing the first 36,000 years?  What did he know?

10,000 years ago there were men who could calculate the circumference of the Earth to within ONE YARD of accurate.  Huh?  Ya, that's right.  You try it.

10,000 years ago Caucasian statues were built in South America.....um, how's that?

How were the pyramids made exactly?

You see there is so very little that we DO know and yet when something so simple as witching is done we are skeptical.  Why?  We don't even know how to build the pyramids for crying sake.

I think the problem today is that people think you have to have some kind of gizmo or technological wonder to do something like this -- while the cows face North and South with ease.....

Here's the view from the front.
I plan on building 24 inches on center instead of 16. I'm assuming that this will be ok for the floor joist too. If not, I'm hoping that someone will advise me.

Take a look and let me know if you see any potential problems.

Thanks