Thanks for the replies, Don. I'll have to figure out a spot to burn our debris. The last few years, our town has paid for a brush pickup in our subdivision, so we've been able to at least get rid of branches that way....but needles are another story.


Sorry to hear you'll be selling....but if the threat of fire is worsening, and that, and/or the annual prevention work is weighing on you, I can understand that.
I worry about our area every spring.... 2 weeks ago someone 1/2 mile away started their property on fire, burned about 1.6 acres, the corner of their structure, lost a shed.....  New property owners trying to clean things up and burning debris on a VERY gusty day during the worst time of year for wildfire here in Wisconsin.  Thankfully fire crews got it under control quickly...

Gathered pine needles and fallen branches, slash, etc. were burned once or twice a year in a special area we had cleared out, after rains or late enough when snow had fallen and only when the fire marshall gave the okay.

We had decided to sell precisely because of what happened this past week. We could see fires starting earlier becoming the new normal. We've seen the areas burned in the past 10-15 years are larger than the old days 25 years ago and in many places are not regrowing pines and firs. Rather smaller trees and shrubs are filling in.

And the current fire (Cerro Pelado is the name FYI) is ongoing. This morning's figure was up to 22,000 acres. Because of the increasing size containment dropped from 15% a few days ago to 10%. The two lines they consider contained have actually grown in length. To the east, the fire has reached an area that was the state's largest ever fire up to 2011. That record lasted a year. That area has lots of standing and fallen dead from the 2011 fire that is presently drier than kiln dried lumber. Burning into areas where all cabins and homes were lost in 2011 and some of the new ones are threatened today.

Sad. We hope to get in our area soon, but there is no tentative schedule at all.

Quote from: Don_P on April 29, 2022, 09:51:30 PMHaving just poured 2 and staring at a third, get the power trowel! My arms were screaming after the first one. I sent everyone home after placing and did the second myself with the power trowel. Yes if he is close and sawing, and can do 22', get him to make a nice straight screed and go full width. You will need a couple of guys with rakes tending that long screed, that's 4 minimum. Rent a bull float as well and used it immediately behind the screed then get off it till the bleed water evaporates and it can take the power trowel.

I was using some poplar framing we sawed today. With plywood prices we're doing diagonal board sheathing. Basically higher grades, if not siding or trim, down to #2 is framing. If a log opens up ugly we start sawing 1x sheathing. A roof allows a minimum of #3 sheathing, a wall can use as low as #4. We tend to be more like a grade above each category and #4 is kindling but that gives an idea of a potential log sort and uses.

You bring up a good point. A prescriptive foundation is based on frost heave potential, as is a frost protected. If someone is in a gravel pit or obvious no frost heave potential, depending on frost depth locally, it may be worth having a geotech look at it in terms of a shallower foundation.

Thanks for the tips, Don. For now I'm still planning to do the walls in OSB. I'm going to do purlins for the roof, and for the gable I am going to get the felt membrane on the underside. For the lean-tos I will just let the condensation happen.

Started grading the downhill side today and hydrostatic transmissions are so nice for this kind of work. Hoping I can leave the old shed where it is until the garage is enclosed and I can move everything over there.

Getting one more load of round stone tomorrow to bring the pad up another 4" and then I will be ready to start forming things up.

Glad to hear and see the cabin made it! Thanks for sharing the experience.

I'm curious, if you're willing to share, why you had decided to sell?

Also, what did you do with needles and branches annually that you raked? Chip? Burn? Disposal site?
I've got 4 acres of pine forest, and realize it's past time to start raking up needles around my property....

Wow, sorry to hear but so glad your cabin made it.  

I've enabled an ICF option within the Foundation plugin however I am wondering if I should also enable an ICF option within the wall plugin?

https://www.nudura.com/products/

https://www.nudura.com/media/4088/2020-tremco-nudura-products-lr.pdf

Corners and Tee intersections might get a little interesting but I'm quite sure I can code my way through it.

Thoughts?

I've also been thinking about SIPS as well, so many different building systems to consider.

Very helpful and informative video put together by Braden York on integrating Quantifier Pro and the Wall plugin:

https://youtu.be/GWnwib94lSI

My first thought was about how much the aluminum would be worth at the scrap metal dealer. Then my sister in law saw the above picture and said it looks like wall art.

Yeah, we are happy we took time and effort to thin and to keep picking up fallen branches and rake up pine needles every spring from around the cabin area. We have done that every spring. In my recollection there has never been a serious fire here this early in the year. We usually rake about now and are done by mid to end of May. We were getting ready to do that.

So there was only one years worth of needle debris on the ground. They come off over the winter. We think the needles on the ground allowed creeping fire to get to the base of the shed and gazebo walls. The sheds were all metal walled and roofed but with a strong wind there were small gaps that could have neen ignition points. Tha gazebo was tinder. On the cabin I covered the underside of the floor with metal too.  We had timbers laid in places on the ground with the intent to slow rain water flow. That seemed to slow the ground fore in many places which was a side benefit.

Cleanup vomes next, once the forest opens again. It is still considered an active fire zone.

Oh my! I am sorry.
Your work clearing paid off. It looks like the trees might make it.
When we were cleaning up after a fire several years ago I was scraping with the bobcat trying to get broken glass and globs of aluminum when someone yelled Stop! The owner came over and looked at the glob of metal and determined it was right about where the drawer was with his grandmothers silverware.

Quote from: Don_P on October 25, 2009, 07:55:56 AMThat place is special to me. My Dad tells stories of an interesting man that you might enjoy researching, Roland Wells Robbins, an amatuer archeologists/ historian/ painter/ follower of Thoreau's teachings, the man who discovered the original cabin site. My Dad reconstructed Thoreau's 10x15 cabin in an apple orchard in Robbin's back yard a few miles from Walden Pond in the early '60's. It was as accurate as Robbins could make it from buying the nails from the same manufacturer, to hewing the timbers and shingling with hatchets. They incorporated a brick from the 1945 excavation in the chimney of the reproduction and a member of Thoreau's family donated a writing desk to grace the finished product. There was a small woodshed out back in the photo I have, I believe I see the edge of it in the video, maybe wishful thinking.

I've enjoyed Thoreau's writings through the years although like so many, this son of a pencil maker was certainly very human. Thoreau's adventure was sparked by his friend Emerson's work "Self Reliance". He later repaid his friend by having an affair with his wife. It is sometimes said of him that he enjoyed setting himself up in experiences and then recording the reverberations of those actions, not paying taxes, launching himself down rivers, moving to Walden. "It is a vulgar error to suppose you have tasted huckleberries having never plucked them"

I'm sorry, but it is not official that he had an affair with Mrs. Emerson, LOL! In fact it seems as if he was extremely uninterested in such pursuits!