Decking Continued...

The main decking was completed this weekend.  The ultimate plan is to have covered porches on both the front and back patio and an open sun porch above the garages.  The rear deck will be screened in while the front porch will be open air.  We will have to wait until spring to tie in the roofs.

This will be covered and screened in.

This will be an open sun porch.

Front porch will be covered.

This is the design that inspired the build.  Courtesy of coventryloghomes.com

Plumbing Continued

 I continued the plumbing this past week.  I installed a Naveon on-demand hot water tank.  This choice was made because we are trying to conserve the water that is collected in cistern.  This unit will provide enough output to run multiple fixtures simultaneously.  It will draw on the propane tank that was installed a few weeks ago.  I still need to run the gas line to the unit and the hot water line to the valve body.

Plumbing Started

I started the interior plumbing.  I had a 1000 gallon cistern put in the back yard that will collect rain water from the gutters.  The gutter water will collect in a catch basin and then overflow into the cistern and leave any solids form the gutter in the catch basin.  I have a submersible pump in the cistern that will pump water back into the house when the pressure tank falls below a certain pressure.  The pressure tank provides pressure to the fixtures when somebody opens the faucet or any other fixture.  This prevents the pump from having to turn on every time the fixture is opened.

The pressure tank will then push the water a filter and then to a manifold that will send water to each fixture.  The hot water will be provided by an propane tankless water heater.  I'll install that later.

This is the laundry room that will have the plumbing fixtures and hot water tank mounted.

Pressure tank mounted

Water manifold temporarily mounted to pressure tank.

We Have Power

Since the cabin is about a mile from the nearest electrical pole, I made the decision to power the cabin with a generator.  Yeah, this may be a bit costly but I want power and to be honest I don't want to rough it that much.  I purchased a 20K watt Cummins Onan generator for my primary power.  When choosing a generator I needed two things. First, it had to be quiet.  Cummins makes the quietest generator in the market and I was surprised on how quiet it really was.  The generator is no louder than an air conditioner compressor on the outside of most houses.  The second requirement was to have the ability to turn the generator on/off from inside the cabin.  This particular unit has a display panel that I ran a wiring harness from the generator to the house.  Since the unit will consume a lot a fuel when the load is heavy I decided to use a 500 gallon propane tank to supply the interior appliances and the generator.

The generator directly supplies power to a 100amp service panel where all of the house circuits will be connected.  A transfer switch is not needed in this implementation since I cannot back the public utility systems being off grid already.

Propane tank set and conduit run.

Trenching

 

Electrical service wire from generator to service panel

Cummins Onan Generator

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Goes into house to the services panel

Insulation

We started the insulation during the evenings of gun week.  The neighbors and JP were a huge help in getting this done.  We used around 80 rolls of various types. 

Gun Season Last Weekend

This past week was gun week in Ohio.  The family came down with me to get the cabin ready for the week.  Marisa had a chance to catch up on the progress we've been making. The weather didn't cooperate too well and the hunting was slow.  JP was able to bag his first antlered buck (he already shot a button during bow season.