Posted in March 2010

Secure Cabin Design – Folding Roof

Folding cabin roof model

Cabin shown on hill

secure cabin idea - openHere’s my version of a simple yet secure cabin. The idea came from Casey Brown an architect in Australia. His is all metal but a more doable version in my eyes would be made of wood.

To make it more secure for the off season or when ever you aren’t there there aren’t any window except on the front face where the swing down door covers.

French doors would be nice since they’re mostly windows and when they are open the deck would be an extension of the living space. This 3d drawing is 10×12 and the person in the drawing (he comes with SketchUp) is 6′ tall.

The swing down door would be sheathed in correlated metal and operated by a ratcheting boat winch reached through a padlocked window in the back of the structure. A couple of pulleys would be needed and the lifting beam should be a 4×6″ or so. I’m not sure how the structure of the door should be made but some welded 2×2″ steel frame work would be best to keep it strong and light. The drawing shows the cable split to support both edges because that’s what Casey did but this door would be much lighter than his so if the structure is stiff enough one 5/16″ cable could take the weight.

One important safety item that may be considered is some kind of brace when the “door” is in the up position. I think a few people commented on this. Possibly some swing down braces from the sides could lock in position. So you and yours don’t get decapitated if the cable fails!

Here is Casey Brown’s amazing structure called “Permanent Camping”. It’s made of steel beams with copper cladding and has a rain water collection system off the roof. Transported to the remote hillside in Australia from it’s building spot in Sydney. The folding roofs provide protection from high fire danger in the bush.

Tagged , , ,

Rain Barrels and Sand Filters for water storage

We don’t have any well or running water on the property but being on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State, we have a ton of ….  You guessed it. Rain!

We already catch rain off half of the shed roof into one of two 55 gallon barrels we have. It’s connected to a garden hose and then a hose spigot. Used only for washing it works great for us now but I’d like to connect the barrels like the guy in the video did with a PVC manifold. That would give us more pressure and get us through a long summer drought.

I wanna build this:

The master plan is to pump the water in the 2 barrels up to our 650 gallon storage tank on the hill above our property. We’d use a 12 volt utility pump to empty a barrel when the sun is out then let the batteries charge again. If we did it a little everyday we’d have plenty of water in the tank on the hill that could then provide tons of pressure for our cabin. I can imagine some pressure to spray pots off and even take a shower in the summer would be great. Also having some pressure to spray out of a hose would come in handy for fire fighting if we ever had a fire get out of control.

Here is some bad photos of our system now. The rock filter you see stops most of the pine needles, but a screen would be better.

Then someday if we want to drink the water, maybe we’ll make a sand filter. Here’s a great video show you how they work. Towards the end they show it can be backwashed, which you wouldn’t normally do but it’s a good illustration of the concept. Sand filters use microbes to clean the water.

How a sand filter works for dummies (short)

An actual filter in action (long)

Tagged , ,

The cabin foundation is in!


This is the foundation that our Small cabin from Penny Pincher Barn Company will go on. We ordered the Owl’s Clover kit. It’s a 200 square foot mini-cabin kit. The 4×8 bump out make it exactly 200 square foot vs other plans that are 192. I’ll take the extra 8 feet! Anne from Penny Pinchers has been awesome to deal with and we can’t wait to get and build our cabin! Apparently we are the first ones to build this model so we got a discount if we promise to take pics for their site. Of course I will!

The dimensions of this platform are 12×14 plus the 4×8 bump out.

Tagged , , ,

Andy’s Sawmill – Free beams

Andy milling us some 14′ 4×8″ beams for our small cabin foundation. He milled 3 of them for us out of a medium sized tree. Looking at the tree I only thought there was 1 beam in it but he got 3 out of it. He truly has an amazing setup. A diesel powered sawmill under a nice enclosure on a wooded lot that can provide lots of wood.

Tagged ,

Cabin Foundation 3d Drawing

Update: I’ve added our 4×8′ bump out to the foundation model to show how it will tie in. We’re going to use existing 4x8x8′ beams from the yurt foundation.

The brown posts will be 4×4 pressure treated and the rest of the lumber won’t be. I made the girders or beams red in the model just so they would show up. The main beam/girders will be 14′ long 2×10′s doubled with 1/2″ plywood in the center to make them a full 4″ and give them strength. This will save us about $100 in lumber costs. I’m thinking about using treated but most people on the forums on CountryPlans.com don’t and as long as it’s keep dry by the platform I hope it will be ok.

The floor joist’s will be 12′ long 2x6s. This design will give me exactly 200 square feet of platform.

Old drawings:

Tagged , , ,

Eat Email Burrito


Delivered by Google FeedBurner