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acerocknroll
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# Posted: 28 Jan 2015 01:52pm - Edited by: acerocknroll
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Hey everyone! We are longtime readers of the forum and it's been a great source of inspiration and ideas. Now we are finally beginning work on our build! We wanted to share it here to see if you guys had any thoughts or recommendations.
A little backstory, my family owns a small parcel of land on a mountain in MD. It's bordered on two sides by a National Forest and a watershed and a very cool neighbor who owns the properties on the other two sides. It has never been built on and the only access is an old logging road that I can barely get up in my Jeep. From where the road ends to the build site is not too far but it is up a pretty steep incline. Because of the lack of direct access any tools or materials will have to be light enough to be carried by hand or ATV if we can obtain one to use. The property is also about 3 hours from where be both live in PA and our free time is fairly limited.
After lots of thought and many scrapped plans we decided to build the cabin in manageable portions offsite and assemble them over several long weekends. We found Michael Janzen's ebook Tiny Prefab: A Do-It-Yourself Prefab Building System helpful for filling in some of the blanks with our plan.
As of right now we are finished with most of the wall panels and should be getting the windows and door we need to finish the rest this weekend.
One thing we did want to specifically ask the forum's opinion on was the foundation. The frost line at the build site is 30 inches. We are stuck between using concrete piers, doing a post and beam system (similar to old buddy's cabin project) or trying those new Diamond Pier blocks. What do you guys think? Could we even get away with those 4 way concrete deck blocks or is that a totally horrible idea?
Thanks again for reading, we are looking forward to sharing our progress with the forum!
edit: removed inline image tags, uploaded a couple photos
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Just
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# Posted: 28 Jan 2015 10:57pm
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WE built a 9x12 last summer on 6 pier blocks but we placed a 12 x 12 x 2 building slab under each block for extra support . The building seems to be staying strait so far . It is built on a hill of dry beach sand , very stable soil . Let you know for sure in 5 years .
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Wilbour
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# Posted: 29 Jan 2015 08:38am
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My 10 x 16 was on poured concrete piers that were 36" down. With our climate and all the clay here that was not enough. They lifted over time and tilted almost 30°.
I purchased the property last spring and was able to salvage the building by placing it on 4 cinderblocks with 2'x2'x2" slabs. It will need frequent leveling but that was the most cost effective way to stabilize the cabin. 12 ton jacks are always on sale 
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acerocknroll
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# Posted: 29 Jan 2015 02:49pm
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Wow Wilbour, sorry to hear that! Glad to hear you got it sorted though.
The property does have a ton of fairly large rocks, think we could maybe swing placing a span of two or three 4x6 or 6x6 girders across them and building the joists on top of those? See attached highly technical and totally (NOT) to scale drawing.
(Showing 12' girders as Lowes and HD don't seem to sell 16's?)
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acerocknroll
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# Posted: 29 Jan 2015 04:43pm - Edited by: acerocknroll
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Or if we were to move towards a 12x12 structure (which may be happening), then something like this?
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Ruggles
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# Posted: 29 Jan 2015 04:53pm
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Wish I had found that book. My wife and I built a 12X16 a couple of years ago using the same idea. We built all of the wall sections 4 feet wide and trailered them to the property. Once you do the foundation (we trenched, leveled cinder blocks and pinned on treated 4X4) and build the floor, it goes together like a jigsaw puzzle. I drew up our plans in powerpoint if you'd like them as another reference. Cheers.
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Ruggles
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# Posted: 29 Jan 2015 04:55pm
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Here's one from the beginning.
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VC_fan
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# Posted: 29 Jan 2015 08:04pm
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I also preassembled wall panels in roughly four foot sections for about the same reasons you did. I did 4x4s as deep as I could get them with a target of 3' but it's on a steep hillside and as I dug the holes I noticed they were dry as a bone - I've had no noticeable settling in about 10 years on my 16x20 in Ohio. I'm not a great carpenter and I should have spent more time squaring up the deck and other parts as I went along. The walls went up very quick and easy (and I have a nearly full second story with half-wall panels) but minor errors magnified themselves with each not-exactly-square panel (I'm not a great carpenter but I do have a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and thought I'd taken out all sources of variability - hah - yours likely won't be exactly square either, so be prepared). At the top I ended up cinching things with ratchet straps to bring them together; I understand they did the same thing with the two sides of the St. Louis arch. Good luck and let us know how it goes!
Cabin Porch
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Cabin Interior
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Ruggles
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# Posted: 29 Jan 2015 09:19pm
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Space systems engineer here. I had to use a few ratchet straps as well LOL
Jeff
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toofewweekends
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# Posted: 30 Jan 2015 01:31am
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Even worse. History major.... Ratchet straps, and a couple of cans of foam!
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acerocknroll
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# Posted: 30 Jan 2015 12:12pm
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Haha, well I only have an associate's degree so I'm sure ours will go together perfectly but seriously, good to know about the ratchet straps. I'll make sure we bring a bunch when it comes time to assemble.
Thanks for all your replies! Glad to see the system is viable and has produced some amazing cabins. And Ruggles, I would love to see that Powerpoint. I'm not sure what the protocol is here but you can email it to me at tuf77020 at temple dot edu if you like.
We will be heading back down to the property as soon as the winter's over to finish prepping the site, we'll check out the terrain once we're there and see how far down we can dig before we hit rock.
Thanks again!
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Ruggles
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# Posted: 30 Jan 2015 11:14pm
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Sent the info to your email. Enjoy the build.
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acerocknroll
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# Posted: 15 Aug 2016 02:15pm
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So, been a while! We've been busy in the meantime, and (very) slowly but surely the cabin has been coming along! Lots of little mistakes and setbacks along the way but we've always been able to figure out some solution and learn from it. Please enjoy some photos, hope to get the roof on sometime this fall!
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VC_fan
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# Posted: 15 Aug 2016 05:14pm
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Looks like progress! Thanks for the update. Keep them coming.
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