20x32 A frame cabin Central KY

Started by EaglesSJ, July 23, 2010, 10:39:15 PM

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phalynx


EaglesSJ

Thanks for all the compliments and concerns all. The safe distance that came with the stove is 18" However the flashpoint for "wood" is about 430 degrees if I remember correctly. Even with the hottest fire I have burned so far the wood right up next to the pipe only gets to about 170 degrees F. This may be that I am not burning as hot a fire as I think. Not sure. But it is well below the flashpoint at which wood begins to char. I shot the temp with a laser to get my findings. I am assuming its pretty accurate. Any comments??? Always want to stay on the safe side but the wood stove couldnt get any more clearance because of 1. my sons room upstairs and 2. it would have been out in the middle of the floor down here.


EaglesSJ

A few more pics. Hard to believe I went from raking leaves to square off a plot on a hill to what I have now in less than 3 months.





rick91351

Wow great job.  About the stove and piping I think I would follow Mt. Don's advice.    But then I am very paranoid about fire.  I have lost a friend in a house fire and went through one as a child as well, however neither were caused by wood stoves.  (Both electrical.)  Just no sense taking chances.  That said we do heat mostly with wood and I do feel it can be safe. 
Proverbs 24:3-5 Through wisdom is an house builded; an by understanding it is established.  4 And by knowledge shall the chambers be filled with all precious and pleasant riches.  5 A wise man is strong; yea, a man of knowledge increaseth strength.

MountainDon

#104
Yes, you certainly have done a lot in a relatively short time.  :)


Flash point is one thing to be concerned about. There's an old thread around here on the subject of the dangers of exposing wood to medium levels, even low levels of heat, over prolonged periods of time. However, I have not had much luck finding it. The other, lesser known, concern centers around the formation of pyrophoric carbon under long term low temperature exposure of wood.

So to cut to the chase here's a link that will prove educational. It's a PDF, 571 KB.
http://www.doctorfire.com/low_temp_wood1.pdf

There is also a second companion file  http://www.doctorfire.com/low_temp_wood2.pdf

Plus here's a forest service lab report...
http://www.nakedwhiz.com/eggbase/fplr1464.pdf


Google books....
http://books.google.com/books?id=vopAAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA41&lpg=PA41&dq=heat+charring+of+wood+steam+heat&source=bl&ots=myx-_uqvIC&sig=FZahOG0e5dGwDFIGQSv5nsE1V1I&hl=en&ei=vcq3TJyzNYO78gaEsvn5CQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&sqi=2&ved=0CCEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=heat%20charring%20of%20wood%20steam%20heat&f=false

another...
http://www.interfire.org/res_file/fseab_si.asp


The thread I was looking for came up as a result of a fire at Reed college, if my brain is working......

......

...... Ta-da!!!!
http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=4332.0




Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.


bayview


   A side note to MtDons remarks about low temp wood catching on fire . . .

   We had a neighbor that found a smoldering bag of charcoal in their garage.   Spontaneous combustion . . .    We store our charcoal in a small metal garbage can.

/.
    . . . said the focus was safety, not filling town coffers with permit money . . .

diyfrank

I believe It.  I just did a demo on an 100 yr + house and there was a lot of chard wood around the fire place and in a few other spots through out the house.
Home is where you make it

phalynx

Glenn had a picture posted here somewhere showing what wood behind a stove looked like over time.  The flashpoint of the wood may be 430 today but over time you are drying, aging, and slowly charring the wood.  This lowers the flashpoint.  Ever smoke a brisket?  You do it at 180-200 degrees and it chars up nicely.  I would personally error on the side of caution.  It's about a $20 insurance policy.

Glenn, do you have pic handy?

nathan.principe

What type of wood flooring is that in your main living area?  I really like the looks of it


EaglesSJ

the flooring is from a local hardware store. it is made by designer choice. its just 10mm thick laminate wood flooring. after the first few pieces it all went in quick and painless.

as for the fire thing. that was some very informative reading and it seems that there is ALOT more to be concerned with than just the FP. Any ideas on what to do to insulate behind that pipe?

Redoverfarm

I am sure don will give you his take on building or creating an air space as he has done it previously.  You could incorporate that air space and camoflauge it with a cultured stone.  By using a cultured stone/lathe the thickess would be considerably less than that of real stone. BTW you have done a good job in the amount of time that it has taken you.

Shawn B

I would remove that single wall pipe and replace it with class 3 insulated chimney pipe. Leave a 12"-18" section of single wall pipe from the stove to connect to the class 3 pipe. Add one of those half-moon heat shields on the short section of single wall pipe.
"The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule." Samuel Adams

MountainDon

What Shawn suggests would be a huge improvement. Ideally you should have 18" between single wall pipe and combustibles. It's hard to tell how long a section of insulated pipe, down from the ceiling, would be required to get close to that from the pictures. I would recommend getting as close to those minimum clearances as possible. Stove to combustible clearances can be reduced with heat shields on the stove or at the combustible surface. Some stoves will come with or have optional shields. Wall shields of sheet steel, minimum 29 gauge, mounted to create an air space between the metal and the wall (1" minimum in most places, some 7/8") can be used to reduce clearance distance by as much as 66%.

I used metal shields in our gazebo...



How effective is such a heat shield. Here's a quote from my topic (link below)
"I was curious about just how well the air spaced steel behind the chiminea cut down the temperature behind the steel. (Forgot to take a photo). I drilled a 5/32" hole thru the siding from the exterior and inserted a dial thermometer to measure the temp between the metal and the wood. There is a gap of just over an inch between the steel panel and the floor. As well there is a 5/8 inch air space between the wood 2x4 sill and the L-shaped metal trim strip to allow air flow out. We stoked up a good fire and after a bit the metal panel at the point the chiminea is closest to was too hot to keep your hand on it for more than a second. The exterior air temp was 65 F. The temp between the metal and wood siding never went over 90 degrees F. I am quite pleased. "
link to page with more info/photos...
http://countryplans.com/smf/index.php?topic=2335.msg35598#msg35598
Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.

Betty

GREAT JOB!!! You've made some amazing progress, your family must be so proud. Keep posting those pics, I can't wait to see what's  next.


dollarcounter

Hi all,  This is my first time posting.  This retro-cool updated A-frame has been a favorite to follow in this forum.  The metal roofing seems to make the overall design even more dramatic.  Lindsey's pix have been great.  I read in one of the other threads where another DIY-er attempted an A-frame, only to have it collapse during a wind storm during the early construction stages; it prompted him to go with another, more conventional design.  I am a former draftsman and worked for 3 modular home builders (all bankrupt), so this particular style is one with which I'm less familiar.  I've seen some of the A-frame house plans on-line.    A lot of them have the bump-outs to offset some of the space-planning challenges posed by all of those slanty walls.  A lot of the on-line plans are also very wide; so it seems they'd require extremely long and unwieldy rafters.  But Shane seems to have made a plan just 20 ft wide work very well w/o any compromises in the basic triangular shape (though handling those 26 ft 2x8's used for rafters sure looked challenging to me).  While this A-frame is 32 ft in length, I can't say that I've seen any plans that are actually any longer than 36 ft.  So, I was wondering what the reason for that is??  Is there too much undulation in going any longer than 36 ft or so which makes sheathing and roofing an A-frame overly difficult??  Is there some guideline which would dictate the maximum length based on the width??  I'd be curious to read a reply from anyone who wants to weigh in.  Shane and Lindsey, thanks for sharing this blast from the past and congrats on constructing such a cool house.  Michael from Chicago.

EaglesSJ

Quote from: dollarcounter on October 29, 2010, 01:54:47 PM
Hi all,  This is my first time posting.  This retro-cool updated A-frame has been a favorite to follow in this forum.  The metal roofing seems to make the overall design even more dramatic.  Lindsey's pix have been great.  I read in one of the other threads where another DIY-er attempted an A-frame, only to have it collapse during a wind storm during the early construction stages; it prompted him to go with another, more conventional design.  I am a former draftsman and worked for 3 modular home builders (all bankrupt), so this particular style is one with which I'm less familiar.  I've seen some of the A-frame house plans on-line.    A lot of them have the bump-outs to offset some of the space-planning challenges posed by all of those slanty walls.  A lot of the on-line plans are also very wide; so it seems they'd require extremely long and unwieldy rafters.  But Shane seems to have made a plan just 20 ft wide work very well w/o any compromises in the basic triangular shape (though handling those 26 ft 2x8's used for rafters sure looked challenging to me).  While this A-frame is 32 ft in length, I can't say that I've seen any plans that are actually any longer than 36 ft.  So, I was wondering what the reason for that is??  Is there too much undulation in going any longer than 36 ft or so which makes sheathing and roofing an A-frame overly difficult??  Is there some guideline which would dictate the maximum length based on the width??  I'd be curious to read a reply from anyone who wants to weigh in.  Shane and Lindsey, thanks for sharing this blast from the past and congrats on constructing such a cool house.  Michael from Chicago.


Hello Micheal, I appreciate your kind words. The main reason that we built ours just 32' long is simply because of money and location restraints. Spanning 32 ft with a 4 ft back porch gave us 36 ft. And whenever we built on the side of a hill like we did making it any longer would have made the rear support piers about 16 ft tall. And since we were using cardboard builders tubes and hand pouring the concrete in them with 5 gallon buckets this just wasnt an option. Not to mention we started this endeavor not wanting to spend over 20k on the whole place and going to 40-50 ft would have far exceeded our limits.  Lindsay and I both wanted something small and easy to keep up. Something cozy, not big and cold.

As far as other A frames go, I think most are built small because the main reason to build an a frame is cost. So if you want to keep it down your gonna have to build small. A frames are cheaper to build because you cut out having to cover the outside of the house with siding, brick, stone, etc. and all the windows and doors. It cost me 600 bucks to put that log siding on the whole house and it was one of the most expensive things we could have bought to put on. Had I of went with t-111 or board and batten this would have been reduced even further. Think how much I saved just on not having to cover the outside of my house in something. And then factor in that we had to buy no windows for the those 2 big sides which saved even more. And then there is the fact that I have 8 inch walls stuffed with insulation instead of the normal 4 which is going to cut energy cost way down...well as much as it can cut it down since Im not on the grid anyways :) But these are some of the reasons that we went with an a frame. Not sure why anyone else did.

As for the guys who blew down. I havent seen that thread yet but I would assume that he didnt brace it properly or tried to build the a's first and then stand them up using a truck or something which just seems dangerous to me anyways. Putting up 26 ft 2x8 rafters weighing in at several hundred pounds each while standing on 2x4 scaffolding 30 ft in the air isnt much fun or real safe either but seemed better than the other method.

dollarcounter

Thanks for your reply, Shane.

I was just thinkin' that if a 20' wide A-frame were to be constructed with/one ground floor bed room & w/o any bump-outs, it would have to be 40 ft in length minimum.  Your description of handling those 26' rafters along with the pix of you up in the air ought to make a lot of DIY-ers reluctant to go any wider than 20 ft given that rafters even longer than yours would be required.  Based on your comments, cost now appears to be the only constraint to construction of an A-frame spanning 40 feet in length, or even a bit more.   So, that's good to know.  It'll be interesting to see how you finish off the upper level.  Hopefully, Lindsay continues to post pix of the progress.  Thanks again for gettin' back to me.

Michael from Chicago.

EaglesSJ

Thought I would post a few more pics of life here at the place we now call home. Not much progress. I have been cutting and splitting alot of wood. Planted a ton of cedar trees up on both sides of the drive leading down and all along the front border of the property. Built a composting bin, chicken coop and went and picked up my chickens from my dads. He had been keeping them in with his chickens for me. I have collected several eggs the past few days and I have just recently begun to supplement their day with artificial light. (3.5 watt LED spotlight on timer) Also added a Trimetric battery monitor, waiting for my shunt to come in to get accurate readings. Also picked up 5 more MAXX-29 batteries. Brings me to a grand total of 1875 Ah. And then below the house you see my temporary set up for the diesel generator we currently use to charge the batteries until we can save up the funds for our solar panels. I also added a dryer vent and a 80mm high efficiency fan for ventilation in the battery room. I was amazed at how much air it moves. And it only uses 1.44 watts!

I tied all my batteries together with a 1/2" copper pipe flattened out and then drilled holes for all the screw on post. This is ALOT cheaper than buying cables to connect all of them. Probably going to cover them with foam pipe insulation to prevent any tool mishaps from stopping my heart. Also upgraded all the battery cables and inverter cables to 1/0 size from the 4 gauge wire. i have noticed an extreme performance gain in my system. I am working on making a heat shield for the wood stove and will post pics when done.

Here are a few pics to supplement all my talking. Two are of the view off the back porch or the small pond stocked with bass. And the other is of the table I built to feed the critters off of.










bayview


   Great family portrait!   

   You have such a "can do" attitude . . .    Congratulations!   Job well done . . .

   Neat trick - using ½ copper pipe for cabling.

   This young man is going places. . .    I say he should run for congress!

/.
    . . . said the focus was safety, not filling town coffers with permit money . . .

phalynx

Certainly something to be proud of.  Keep the pictures coming.  Its always nice to see how everything looks.  So, for a brief moment, you can picture yourself there waking up in the morning with coffee looking out at the view.


EaglesSJ

I have kind of a engineering question for you all. Lindsay and I were wanting to stack fire wood in between all the concrete piers because 1. we have to stack it somewhere and 2. it will keep the wind down and hopefully not hit the water pipes as bad. Question is this: Will it cause severe stress on the piers with the wood "leaning" against them?

My thoughts are this:

"if thats all it takes to bring the house down then I didnt have much to start with"

"maybe all the wood stacked in between them will sort of brace them"

and last but not least

"if it does cause a problem and they lean and collapse then  Ill have a nice firewood foundation for the house to rest on"



What are some thoughts from you all? Keep in mind this will just be for this year. Next year when it gets warm again I will brace all the piers with steel cable and underpen the house normally to keep the wind out. I just ran out of money this year.

dug

I'm going to throw out a guess here and say that if anything it would sort of brace the piers more than anything else. I can't see how it could cause any damage with the footers in the ground and the piers attached to the beams on top.

A bigger concern would be the potential infestation of bugs, wood rats, rattlesnakes, etc., but probably not a worry over just one season.

bayview

Quote from: dug on November 16, 2010, 06:34:49 PM
A bigger concern would be the potential infestation of bugs, wood rats, rattlesnakes, etc., but probably not a worry over just one season.

   Including termites . . .    If you have them in your area . . .

/.
    . . . said the focus was safety, not filling town coffers with permit money . . .

MountainDon

My concern about all that firewood piled under the place I live in stems from seeing how ferocious a pile of firewood will burn when it catches on fire. Before seeing that we kept firewood piled under parts of our cabin. Not any more. No thanks.

I don't think there will be any issues with the piers, just a fire danger.
Just because something has been done and has not failed, doesn't mean it is good design.

EaglesSJ

Quote from: MountainDon on November 16, 2010, 08:15:13 PM
My concern about all that firewood piled under the place I live in stems from seeing how ferocious a pile of firewood will burn when it catches on fire. Before seeing that we kept firewood piled under parts of our cabin. Not any more. No thanks.

I don't think there will be any issues with the piers, just a fire danger.

I seen those pics in your thread. You were lucky that forest fire didnt do more than it did. I have thought about the fire hazard. And decided if it is close enough to burn that wood then it has already surrounded the house anyways.