Week #3: Floor sheathing and Kitchen wall.

Last weekend we went over for two days (again I decided to cut my trip short due to rain in the forecast).

We were able to finish all the floor framing (including the cantilevered joists for the back deck, and installed the floor sheathing. We also finished installing the cross-bracing and the structure feels perfectly solid.

Now that we have the basic footprint of the cabin, we laid out the location for the windows, doors, interior walls and kitchen cabinets. We have some doubts about the bathroom door: the original plan was to use bi-fold doors but they might interfere with the kitchen cabinets, so we are considering using a pocket door instead; since we wont need to build the interior partitions right away we still have some time to make this decision.

We also framed the first wall. It went really fast, and we had time to raise it and brace it in place.


This will be the view from the kitchen front window:



I'm hoping that the weather improves over the next couple of days and go over and finish framing the walls!!

Week #2: Posts, Beams and Floor Joists.

The concrete has hardened for almost a full week, so I can get started on setting up the posts.

I wont be using 6x6 posts. I knew from the beginning that most of the work I'd do by myself, and handling an 8 feet long 6x6 is not an easy task. Instead I will be using built up posts made out of 3 2x6 nailed together. The result will be a post that is 5 1/2" x 4 1/2". Since the post based that I'm using (Simpson Strong ABA66) is designed for a 6x6 post (5 1/2" x 5 1/2") I will fill the remaining space with a wood spacer. On the other end the post will be the exact width as the built up beams, so I will not need to notch the posts to fit.

Since I don't have a set height to build to, I started from the highest pier and cut a post 10" long. I will cut all the remaining posts to the correct length to ensure that the top of all the posts is level. I used a water level (a long piece of transparent flexible tubing, filled with water and some food coloring. I also added a drop of dish soap to break the surface tension and avoid capillary effect) to mark this height and transfer the level form the first post to the remaining three. Once I had my four posts up, I started putting together the beams. Unfortunately the precision of either the water level or my marks was not good enough and one of the posts is off (short) by about 1/4". I realized this - off course- after I had already cut assembled and nailed all the posts to the bases, and taking three pots out is not an option. I'll shim the beam at this post to fix this...

The next day and for the posts for the second beam, I cut one piece for each of the posts first and used the water level as starting point then used a 2x8 (visually checked to be perfectly straight) and a spirit level to mark the final length; then I cut the remaining pieces... Much better!!

Both main beams are 'built up' made out of 3 2x8. Each beam is 20' long; I used a combination of 12', 8' and 10'. (12+8,10+10,12+8) The joints between the 12' and the 8' lands on one of the beams, while the join between the 10' pieces is in mid span (as allowed by code ;o) ) The result is a much straighter beam that would result if I used all 12' and 8' pieces.


The rest of the day was tedious and dirty... back filling the holes and regrading the site around the piers.

Day #3 did not start in a good way... The night before, I connected my phone to the cigarette lighter charger for a few minutes. When I went to sleep I did not turn the switch off, so my car battery was completely drained ;o(. I had to take the car battery off, haul it to the cabin (where I left the generator for the night) and use the generator to recharge the battery. Then I flooded the generator engine so it took me at least half an hour to get the generator going... By the time I got the truck going it was already 11 AM, so I missed the most productive part of the day (before it gets too hot).

Once the truck problem was resolved, I loaded all the wood for the floor joists (13 12' 2x8 and 6 8' 2x8) and got them to the cabin. I started by cutting all the floor joists to length 11' 9" (3" shorter than the width of the cabin); The outer joists are doubled as they will carry the load of the gable walls, so two of the floor joists were cut at 12' (Yes cut, as none of the 12' long 2x8 are actually 12' long). I assembled the outer joists and placed them approximately in place. Next step is to measure the diagonals to ensure that the floor assembly is square.

Some 'small' errors in laying out the location of the foundation are definitely showing up now: to make the floor square one of the outer floor joists would not be fully supported by the beam. The easiest way to cut this corner is to reduce the size of the cabin by two inches...

After the layout of the floor is set and the two outer joists are secured to the beams, I used a length of mason string (hard to see on this picture) as reference for the remaining floor joists.


The next part of the process goes fast, I only marked the location for the second and second to last joists on the beam, for the remaining, I cut a piece of blocking 1' 10 1/2" long (my distance on centers minus the thickness of each joist) and used it for keeping the floor joists in place as I toe nailed them to the beams. Once all the floor joists are secured I nailed the front rim joist to each joist. I could not resist and put a couple of boards to get on, It's an amazing feeling!!! I can't believe that I've gotten so far in only a few days work! It's definitely starting to take shape, and it shakes... I better get off and get going on the cross bracing!!! (this last picture was taking once some of the cross bracing was installed)

Week #1 - Trip 2: Concrete Piers.

I made an early trip on Wednesday morning and had a full day to work on the foundations.
I set the forms for the piers for the upper beam and poured the concrete for them. To ensure that the piers are on the correct location, I used a 'hair cross' made with mason string (Measured the circumference of the form, divided by four and made some shallow cuts with a hand saw.



Then I used a level and a plumb bob to locate the forms. To keep them in place I loosely back filled about 12 inches.
I poured concrete to the top of the form and trowelled the top to level, by the time I got to the last pier I run out of concrete just an inch from the top of the form. Since I already have an appropriate coverage for the rebar, I just vibrated the concrete flat by tapping the form.

The 'hair cross' was also used to mark the center point to place the anchor bolts.

On Thursday I finished the excavation for the footings for the lower beam. There was a massive tree root on one of the holes, so I had to move the whole a few inches, and dig a little bit deeper (the root comes from a dead stump, so I have no worries about the root growing and displacing the footing). By the end of the day I had placed the rebar and poured the concrete for these footings.

After I stripped the form I found that the last pier (the one that was not flushed to the top) has a much smoother surface than the first three, so I decided to use the same technique for the lower beam. I placed the post bases on the piers and started working on aligning them. After a while I realized that it will be much easier to do this once the posts are in place.

The rest of Friday was spent placing the form for the lower beam and puring the concrete.

At this point all the concrete for the foundation has been placed, and I need to allow it to harden for a couple of days before I put any load on them, anyway the forecast is for rain on Saturday and Sunday, so I'm going back home....

Week #1: Excavation and footings.

After the move was completed, and the camp was (somehow) set up, I could focus on the cabin:

The next tasks were to finish laying out the location of all the footings, finish the excavation and pour the footings (My girlfriend was over during the weekend, and helped me with all of these tasks).

Excavating the first feet was really hard as the surface is full of rocks that make using a shovel impossible. Once this first layer was removed, the soil is more sandy and excavation is not as hard. Unfortunately sand does not have a great bearing capacity, so the size of the footings was increased (from 14"x14" to "16"x16" - it does not sound like much, but this increases the capacity of the footing by almost 40%!)- I did not use the forms that I was planning to use, instead I just filled the bottom of the hole with concrete up to 6 inches from the bottom - Hopefully the extra concrete that I brought will be enough.

Each footing has two pieces of rebar with a 4 inch hook inside to footing. A 2x6 and nails was used to hold the two pieces of rebar in place while we poured the concrete.



Since the foundations are fairly simple and the amount of concrete is small, we did not use a concrete mixer, we used the old bucket and shovel method - Mixing concrete by hand under the sun at 30+ C is something that I don't recommend to anyone!!

By the time four of the footings had been poured, we were both exhausted, and had just enough time to clean up, go for a swim in the ocean and wait for the water taxi that would take us back to Vancouver... I'll be coming back next Wednesday and the target for next week is to have the foundations completely finished and maybe make some progress on the posts and main beams!!!

Succesful move...

After the last push to get everything (or at least as much as possible into the container), and get everything secured to prevent it from shifting during the trip, the date came to get the container over to the site.
Everything went smooth: The truck arrived onsite on time and the barge was waiting for us at the ramp. Once the Jeep and the truck were loaded we were on our way...

The original plan was to travel by barge to the fircom pier (40 minutes trip from Horseshoe bay). There is no real ramp at Fircom, to unload the barge just gets as close at possible to the beach (which is not that close unless the tide is really high), and the truck would have to drive on a loose sand an pebble beach for a few meters. In order to avoid the risk of having the truck stuck on the beach, the barge was taken to 'Long Bay'. This added an extra 15-20 minutes of travel time, but there is a concrete ramp and the first few meter of road are paved (good thing as this is one of the steepest pieces of road I've ever been on!!)



Unloading the truck of the barge and getting it up the hill was the scariest part! But the truck made it to the top with no problems; from there getting to the site and unloading the container took less then 20 minutes.

After opening the container I found that only one small box had moved around, and there was no damage at all!!

The first two days I spent setting up camp and re-organizing some of the contents of the container to make access to everything easier. I also installed and tested the water pump, and got to drink some fresh water from the well...

Cabin in a Box. (Some assembly requiered).

After several trips to/from Home Depot, I have almost all of the materials for the cabin in the container. I'm only missing the metal roof (corrugated galvalume) that should be delivered early next week, the concrete forms (I'm using Sonotube forms for all the piers, the concrete for the foundations and the 6x6 pressure treated posts.




My target date for shipping the container is Thursday next week. Hopefully my next posting will be from the Island...