Solar Panels

Up until two weeks ago I thought I had my solar panel mount plans finalized – a single pole mount to the east of the cabin.  That WAS the plan until I found out someone had gone through a lot of effort to steal from my property – more about that later.  I’ve now settled on two separate locations and mounting systems for my solar panels.  Phase one, last weekend, was installing a permanent roof mount for two panels where theft should not be a concern.  Phase two will be a ground mount with a quick attach/detach feature so the panel(s) can be stored in the cabin when I’m away.

The roof mount I constructed this weekend was a simple Unistrut-based mount, of which there are many examples of on the Net.  The only thing unique about it is that I used VersaBrackets from S-5 to attach the Unistrut to the roof.  There are many different mounting brackets for roofs out there, but the VersaBracket was the only one I could find that would fit between the 1″ corrugations on my metal roof.  The rest of the mount consisted of some Unistrut spring nuts and square washers, in addition to various stainless steel bolts, nuts, and washers.

The roof array consists of two Uni-Solar US-64 panels feeding into a Morningstar SunSaver 10 amp charge controller.  The Uni-Solar panels are unique because they’re glass-free and virtually unbreakable.  They’re also designed so that even if a single cell is damaged, let’s say from an errant bullet, the rest of the cells in the panel will continue to function and provide power.  While these two panels alone are not a lot of power, they will easily keep my batteries charged while I’m not there.  While I don’t have the solar panel for the ground array yet, it will probably consist of just a single ~200 watt grid tie type panel feeding into a 15 amp MPPT controller.

All is not perfect with this new arrangement though.  First off, my 4/12 roof pitch is nowhere near the best angle for solar panels, especially in the winter.  The optimum fixed angle for year round use would be somewhere between 45 and 60 degrees.  According to PVWATTS, I will lose about 23% of the power in December compared to a 45° angle, although I will gain about 10% in July.  Second, and probably more important, is the issue of snow accumulation on the panels.  Low angle solar panels obviously do not shed snow as readily compared to higher angles.  This means I might need to use a roof rake in the winter if I expect to use these panels at all.  In the end it’s probably not that big a deal.  I don’t spend a lot of time at the cabin in the dead of winter, and I will eventually have a ground mount array at a more optimum angle to deploy when I’m actually there.

Now about the theft from my property.  Several posts back I talked about the rock pile near the cabin that I had removed.  In the process of removal, a half dozen or so large (by Wisconsin standards at least) boulders were found – you can see some of them in the pic to the left.  I was planning to use them for some landscaping at my entrance.  Can you believe someone actually stole these?  One of them was large enough that I can only imagine it being moved with heavy machinery.  It takes a lot of nerve to come on someone’s property with that type of equipment just to steal some rocks.

On a more pleasant note, at least I didn’t miss the peak colors this fall.

Drywell

I finished building my drywell last weekend with the help of my neighbor – the one with the earth moving equipment.  Two weeks earlier my oldest son (21) dug the 2′ deep by 17′ long trench for the drainage pipe.  The trench took him about eight hours to dig, with a fair number of texting breaks mixed in.  In all fairness to him though, the ground is pretty rocky around here, and it’s also kind of hard to dig while on your hands and knees under the cabin.  The drywell pit, on the other hand, only took my neighbor about 10 minutes to dig with his excavator.  I can’t even imagine trying to dig a hole that large by hand in this soil.

The drywell is strictly for disposal of the greywater generated in the kitchen and bathroom.  Since there’s no toilet in the cabin, I don’t have to worry about any blackwater disposal.  The drywell itself is fairly simple, and I got the plans for it in the eHow article Make Your Own Gray Water Dry Well 55-Gallon Drum.  The entire drywell cost less than $150, which included all the materials and my neighbors time and equipment.

Wanting to do the right thing, I had originally contacted a local septic company last year to ask if they installed drywells for greywater.  They told me they couldn’t install a greywater system and that I would need to have a septic system.  It just so happens that septic systems around here are usually mound systems that run anywhere from 10-15K.  When I gagged at the price they said they could install a holding tank instead for 7.  When I asked if they meant $700, they corrected me and said $7,000.  For 7K I’d keep using a bucket under my sink for a long time.

Here’s some more pics of the drywell construction.

Bathroom 1.0

I’m going to start this post off with a container construction tip.  If you plan on having exposed metal walls or ceilings, by all means try to have them painted with a spray gun early on in the construction phase.  I discovered too late that standard diameter paint rollers are too large to deposit paint in the concave portion of the corrugations.  Instead, I had to use a mini roller which took much longer than I had planned.  My arms and neck are still feeling the effects.

Although the bathroom is close to being functional, it will probably be a work in progress for a bit longer – hence the 1.0 designation.  Aside from all the accessories I need to add, I’m still not sure about the shower.  Because I had to raise the shower on a platform due to the interior discharge plumbing, the 20″ combined height of the tub and platform makes it difficult to get into.  What I’d really like to find is a 30″ diameter tub that’s only 6″ high, with little to no slope on the sides.  I’ll probably end up having to make one myself someday out of epoxy coated wood.  In the meantime, it’s at least functional.

The platform is constructed of 2″x6″ cedar boards with stainless steel screws holding it together.  The vertical support boards are cut out along the back wall to make room for the plumbing, which runs from under the kitchen cabinets to the shower platform.  The tub is a Behrens 35 gallon galvanized steel tub that I got from Amazon, of all places.  I cut a hole in the center, recessed the perimeter of it a bit with a punch and hammer, then epoxied a threaded drain into it.  The HepvO waterless drain waste valve screws into the threaded drain and runs horizontally to the the main drain pipe.  Without the HepvO valve, I don’t know how I would have been able keep the shower trap indoors.  The other big advantage to these, as I mentioned in a previous post, is that they are self winterizing.

Here’s a look at the plumbing behind the scenes.  I’ve got to say it took some time to figure out how to fit this under the kitchen cabinets and shower, allowing for the requisite 1/4″ per foot slope.  The urinal is plumbed to the drain with flexible PEX tubing attached to quick connect/disconnect SharkBite fittings.  An added bonus with this setup is that the tub and urinal can both be disconnected and removed in a matter of minutes without any tools.  And before anyone asks why the plumbing can’t go behind the walls, there’s a structural steel post between the containers and directly behind the drywall that prevents it – such are the challenges of container construction.

It’s rather difficult to take pictures inside such a small place and be able to see everything, so I’ve included an overhead layout of the bathroom from SketchUp.  This shows the main bathroom area and the “utility closet” for general storage and the electrical and water systems.

Old well

Some readers have emailed me lately asking what’s going on and if I had stopped posting. There’s nothing to worry about, it’s just that it was a long and busy winter away from the cabin. I try to keep this blog focused on building the cabin, without any off topic posts or personal ramblings, so when I’m not working on the cabin, I’m not posting. I’ve started several new projects over the last couple of months and, interestingly, they all have to do with water.

First, the bad news. The old well that I had high hopes of restoring is beyond repair. When I bought my property many years ago, there was an old, but still functioning, cast iron deep well hand pump. It wasn’t long before someone stole the pump, which unfortunately is not an uncommon experience up here – I’m sure it’s looking good in someone’s garden right now.

I was originally concerned that the well was hand dug, so I had my neighbor dig around it with his excavator last fall and found that it had a 4″ casing – good news, I thought. I contacted the local well driller this spring to see what my options were.  If they could fish out the old drop pipe that the pump thieves had sawed off and let drop into the bottom of the well, they could clean up and restore the well for around $1,000. A couple of weeks ago they tried to get the drop pipe out, but ran into an obstruction 4 feet from the bottom. With the old drop pipe still in place, the well is a dead end.  A new 80 foot drilled well will cost about $3,500.

Water system

Once I do get my well in place, the water supply system will be ready.  My water system is purposefully very simple, and has more in common with an RV than a home.  It consists of a 30 gallon water storage tank/drum, SHURflo Classic 12V pump, and a “2 gallon” well pressure tank. For now, the tank is filled manually with water brought from home.  In the future, it will be filled from a hand pump on the well via a hose and connector on the cabin.

Many of you will probably ask “where’s the hot water heater?”. I could respond with a comment such as “real men don’t need hot water”, but it would be untrue since I enjoy a hot shower as much as anyone. I gave this a lot of thought, and felt that the type of short visits this cabin gets would not justify a hot water system at this point in time. I can always add one later, and have made provisions in the plumbing to allow for that. If the occasion ever arises where I do need a hot shower, I have a low tech workaround in place.  The pump has an alternate inlet that will allow me to feed the system from a different container, such as a 5 gallon bucket. I can partially fill that with cold water from the tank, and add enough hot water heated on the wood stove – not convenient, but functional.

Bathroom in progress

The bathroom and plumbing is as simple as the water system and consists of just a waterless urinal and a shower/tub with exposed copper plumbing. The waterless urinal is probably the most controversial, as it’s not female friendly, and only deals with half of the issue. I wanted to avoid the cost of a septic system, and also not have to worry about winterizing and dewinterizing a flush toilet system throughout the winter.  I have a great outhouse (with a beautiful view, I might add) that functions in all weather conditions and is about 50 times cheaper than a legal septic system – Wisconsin is strict when it comes to septic systems.  If I was going to live there for an extended period of time, though, I would give a lot of thought to installing a sawdust toilet.

Outhouse

The shower will be somewhat of a multipurpose wash tub/shower consisting of a 35 gallon galvanized tub and a shower curtain on a galvanized conduit ring suspended by magnets on the metal ceiling.  I’m elevating the tub on a 32″ square cedar deck to keep the trap and much of the discharge plumbing inside the cabin.  The traps I’m using for the shower and sink bear mention since they are waterless and cannot freeze. The HepvO waterless drain waste valve uses a one-way elastomeric membrane to allow the passage of waste water into the drainage pipes.  These traps have an added advantage in that air can also pass one-way through the valve eliminating the need for a traditional vent stack or even air admittance valves. The only winterizing I will have to do before winter is to drain the supply side plumbing.

Rock pile

On a non-building related note, the rock pile next to my cabin, which is also the largest one on my land, is being taken away. It’s been somewhat of an eyesore, and years back I was tempted to have the pile buried but never wanted to pay to have it done. It turns out that weathered field stones are now sought after for landscape rock. One of my neighbors asked if he could buy them, but I was happy enough to get rid of them that I traded them for the removal and some other cleanup on my land.

Kitchen with temporary plumbing

The kitchen will be a work in progress for a while longer.  The cabinets, countertop, sink, and cooktop are in, but the plumbing probably won’t be installed until spring.  As a temporary measure I’ve modified an old galvanized steel cooler to serve as my kitchen faucet and water supply.  It works fairly well even though it does have a low flow rate.  I can even add water heated on the cooktop or wood stove to it if I need warmer water for dishes.  For the waste water I have a 5 gallon bucket hidden under the sink.

A question I’ve already been asked is: where’s the refrigerator?  I tried to find a refrigerator that was solar friendly, under the counter, and reasonably priced, but couldn’t.  The closest I could find was a Coleman Stirling Power Cooler.  It’s very energy efficient and runs directly off 12VDC, but it only has a 26 quart capacity and is in the shape of a cooler.  What I really want someday is a Steca PF 166 refrigerator/freezer.  The Steca would have six times the volume of the Coleman and wouldn’t use much more power – they claim it can run off a single 70 watt solar panel.  Since neither of these can be readily installed into a standard kitchen cabinet, I decided to make space for the refrigerator in the storage room, which is also where the 12VDC power outlets are.

I also passed on a range in favor of a simple two burner propane cooktop.  I didn’t plan to do much baking at the cabin, and I would have hated to lose the cabinet – I need all the storage space I can get.  For the few times that I might want to bake something, I plan on getting the Omnia Oven that lets you bake on a cooktop.  It’s only $50 or so and gets good reviews from the boating community.

The microwave oven that you see in the pictures will probably end up going away.  Since my power inverter is only 300 watts, I can only operate the microwave when the generator is running.  The plan is to eventually rely solely on the solar panels and not have the generator up there at all.

Here’s a closeup of the temporary water supply and disposal.  I can’t help but think there’s a Jeff Foxworthy joke for this: “You might be a redneck if your plumbing is a five gallon bucket under the sink”.

When this whole project started I planned on buying gray painted containers to have a gray cabin when I was finished.  When I ordered my shipping containers I was told their standard color was now tan and I could only have gray if I ordered five of them.  My plan was to eventually paint them gray, but that just hasn’t happened.  The “tan” was starting to grow on me until this, which now raises the question: do real men have yellow hunting cabins?

Finished gaps between containers

This is a task that has spanned more than a year and a half.  It’s not that it had to, it’s just that there always seemed to be something more pressing to do.  I did finish the interior portion of this in April of 2010 right after I had the interior container walls removed.  That worked OK for the first winter, but I really needed to finish it before this winter to avoid any cold spots on the few metal wall remnants that are just behind the drywall.  There was a small amount of condensation on them last winter, and I’m sure it was due to the cold air reaching deep into the gaps.

The most common method I have seen to seal the gaps between containers has been to weld steel plate on the outside.  Not being a welder, I wanted to figure out something that I could do myself.  I also had new containers in a decent color that I wanted to keep as original and attractive as possible.  My plan was to use a combination of backer rod, spray foam, and caulk to seal everything up.  The picture above shows the finished product on the back side of the cabin, and I must admit it looks better than any welding job I could have done.

The first thing I did when the walls were removed was to install some foam backer rod between the containers.  I recommend getting a variety of sizes since the gaps can vary.  I tried to place the rod at a consistent depth using a marked plastic drywall knife.  This was in place by itself for a couple of months in the spring, and it did at least keep the bugs out of the containers.

The next step was to seal the inside gaps with some Great Stuff foam in a can.  As you can see in the picture below I didn’t have to be too careful since it was going to be covered with more spray foam in addition to the drywall.  You can see the metal wall remnants here that come right up to the back of the drywall.

A few weeks ago I was able to finish the outside gaps.  After some research on foam insulation and mice, I felt it would be prudent to include some sort of barrier in the gaps just in case.  I decided on a layer of coarse steel wool over the original backer rod I had installed from the inside.  I don’t think mice would have made their way through the foam, but it was only a few dollars for the steel wool and 30 minutes more time.  Better to err on the side of caution when it comes to mice.

After the steel wool was in, I added another layer of Great Stuff foam.  This was the hardest part of the project since I had to keep the foam at a consistent depth for the final layer of backer rod and caulk – I had to continually scrape away the foam as it expanded and dried.

I then placed another layer of backer rod on top of the foam as a base for the caulk.  The rod was probably unnecessary, but I thought it might help me create a more consistent base.

The final finish was a layer of OSI Quad caulk.  While this is great caulk, I found it a bit harder to get a smooth finish than others.  It’s also a pain to get off your skin.  Here’s a closeup of the finished gap on the backside of the cabin.  I could have gotten a better color match with the caulk, as Quad is available in hundreds of colors, but I would have had to special order an entire case.  Since I only needed four tubes, I used a stock beige color which actually looks OK.

Lap siding over framed openings

The siding is finally up, and my cabin now looks less like a tar paper shack when the doors are open.  The siding has been one of those easy things to postpone since it didn’t improve my comfort when I was there, and the container doors completely protected the walls when I wasn’t.  This is one of those bigger bang for the buck improvements since it was relatively cheap and only took a day to complete. BTW, the pictures here show the siding with just the pre-primed finish.  I plan to paint the siding a tan that matches the containers in the next couple of weeks.

Siding being installed

The siding I used was LP SmartSide Precision Lap.  The Precision Series of SmartSide is a treated strand (OSB style) of engineered wood siding, and seems to have an excellent reputation among those who have used it.  I would personally stay away from LPs SmartSide Foundations lap as it’s a lower quality fiber substrate.  SmartSide is easy to cut (unlike fiber-cement siding), comes pre-primed, and has an attractive wood grain finish.  I was also able to use my Paslode framing nailer to install it, which saved a lot of time.

SmartSide is reasonably priced at about $8.50 for a 3/8″x8″x16′ board.  It only took ten of these boards to side all three openings of the cabin.  I also went through about five tubes of OSI Quad caulk, although some of my side gaps were probably on the large side.  One thing I did splurge on was about $150 worth of Azek PVC trim boards to act as the interface between the metal containers and the wood frame wall.  I wanted something that would never shrink or warp to to tie these two parts together and keep the bugs out – the Asian lady beetles around here can squeeze through almost anything.  Some of the pictures on my Exterior Walls post show these unavoidable gaps between the container and framing.

There is one thing I am concerned about with this siding, and also the wall behind it.  While one would think that the container doors would adequately protect the siding, there is no ventilation when the doors are closed tight.  Heat could build to higher than normal levels, and humidity could get trapped behind the closed doors in that small space.  As a temporary measure I have been leaving the windows in to the cabin open a small amount to dissipate any excessive heat or moisture, since the cabin itself does have a minimal amount of natural ventilation.  My long term plan is to add some ventilation ports to the the doors so they can vent on their own.

On a non-construction related note, here’s a pic of my north field.  The colors must have peaked a few days before this as last weekend the trees were mostly green.  Fall has always been my favorite time of year, and I only wish it lasted longer.

View of the north field

Finished Wood Stove and Hearth

Just a quick post about some changes I made to the heating system since my Wood Stove and Chimney post last November.  After some very cold nights last winter (< -10F), it seemed that my Jotul 602 was having trouble keeping the cabin warm enough.  I was worried that I might need to get a larger stove, and even started perusing Craigslist to see what might be available.  I also spent some time researching potential fixes on various forums when I found the answer.

The problem was the double wall stove pipe from the stove to the chimney.  I had originally installed it because I read that they created a better draft and required a smaller heat shield.  In January, I installed a 22 gauge single wall one piece adjustable length stove pipe from Selkirk.  The heat output from the stove after switching to the single wall pipe was dramatic.  The Jotul 602 had absolutely no difficulty keeping the place warm after that.  This was even with some questionable wood that I picked up from a local seller – this year I’ll be using some well dried elm from my own property.

The drawback to the single wall pipe was the need to scrap my existing heat shield – a couple of custom 3′x4′ galvanized steel panels – for a larger one.  I was fortunate to find a reasonably priced solution when I visited a friend with a wood stove in his home.  His heat shield was constructed from steel studs affixed to the wall, to create a one inch airspace, with 1/2″ cement board screwed onto them.  While his was nicely tiled, I think I’m going to leave mine plain for now.

I’m already looking forward to my first fire of the season in a few weeks.

July 2011

This past weekend was my third trip to the cabin this month, and I’ve made some good progress on the interior during that time.  I’ve finished the bedroom, textured and painted most of the walls, installed about 3/4 of the laminate flooring, assembled some more Ikea furniture, and got a small start on the kitchen.

I have started to feel a bit like a prisoner in the cabin this month though since I’ve rarely been able to get out and enjoy my land, and it’s not just because of the work I’ve been doing.  The mosquitoes are about the worst I can remember.  There’s been way too much rain lately, and I have areas of standing water in the field and in the woods.  This and the higher than normal heat have made for a perfect storm for mosquitoes.

My plan for August is to finish the walls, floor, baseboard, and kitchen, and to get the rest of the furniture in place.  I hope to start some pressing outside projects, like the front wall siding, come September and October.  I prefer saving the outside work for the cooler months when it’s not so oppressive in the sun and there’s fewer mosquitoes.

The last picture I have to share is of the “micro bedroom”.  While there are two beds (bunked) and a wardrobe, there’s only about 18 square feet of open floor space – about enough room for one person to get dressed at a time.  I personally don’t feel it’s too small and, in fact, the lower bunk is my youngest son’s favorite place to curl up and read a book.