I've done some woodworking--small projects, all--but, I've never done what I would call "construction". So, as with many other projects I have to get done up here, I embarked on something I don't really know how to do, relying on advice from friends, Google searches and YouTube videos: a wood shed.
First, I picked a location. Right next to our existing shed that holds the freezer, second refrigerator, and winter food supplies. We keep bird food in there too, along with other things we want access to with a short walk from the cabin door.
Shed location. This is looking south.
It will be (approximately) 7 feet deep, 12 feet wide, and built as a lean-to that is 7 feet high in front and 5 feet high in back. Of course, all good construction projects start with a detailed set of plans, drawn up with the help of a neighbor.
One reason to be thankful for dirt roads, I guess.
The plan is to set six 4x4 pressure-treated posts in the ground around which I can frame the shed. I have a manual post-hole digger, so started digging the holes as the first step in construction. I did okay on the two holes closest to the existing shed. But, the further I moved to the west, the harder the ground got. I finally gave up when I could not get more than a few inches into the ground. It felt like solid rock. So, on to plan B, which was to use pressure-treated 4x4 posts to build skids upon which I would then "mount" the shed. The trouble with that plan is the need to somehow anchor the skids to the ground. The common way to do that is with anchors that you auger into the ground and bolt to the skid frame. If I can't dig a hole, how am I going to auger the anchors into the ground? (It is important to be well anchored so the shed does not blow away in our 100 mph winter and spring winds.)
The answer came from a neighbor who offered to loan me his trenching machine.
A borrowed trencher and "test" trench.
An astute observer will note that a trencher is for digging trenches, not post holes. But, I could dig a short trench with the deepest part right where I want the post! This trencher could go 24" deep and that is what I was able to do with the first couple of holes. I'd simply dig the trench, set the post, check it for location and level, fill the trench in while blocking the space right next to the post with some 2x4s, and then put some Quickcrete in the remaining hole next to the post! Voilá.
A post hole dug with a trencher.
I could not get as close to the shed as I had originally planned, but this solution was too elegant to care. I just slid the wood shed location over a few inches.
Rick, trenching hole #4.
It was a lot of work to get a trench deep enough where the ground was more rocky. I had to settle with 17" or 18" holes on the far west side. But, I think that will be fine given we set the posts in concrete.
Destin, of course, is a big help. Especially with his love for fresh piles of dirt.
The bed of the Ranger makes a great work platform.
It was a bit of a challenge getting all the posts to the same height. And, really that is not the issue since the ground may not be perfectly level. The real goal is to get the top of the posts level with each other, the front posts about 7' high and the back posts about 5.5' high. Yeah, the wood shed grew some on the back end. I had three 10' posts for the front, and they were sunk into the ground anywhere from 18" to 24". And, there were three 8' posts for the back. I made a lot of measurements for trench depth and post height, and cut the posts accordingly. But, of course, they were not perfect and some needed anywhere from 1" to 4" cut off the top to make them level. However, with Lynne's help, they are pretty much exactly where they need to be to have a square and level wood shed when we are done. (What's an inch or two out of square going to matter, anyway?)
Here are 5 of the 6 posts set. (Note that the shed needs paint. Got to get that done somehow.)
To make these cuts and get the tops of the posts all level, I climbed on a ladder with the chain saw and made horizontal cuts. This is something my mother told me never to do. Chainsaws on ladders are a "no no"! Lynne gave me an earful when she came outside and saw what I was doing. Anyway, it worked and I'm still with all my arms and legs.
If you want to know how this wood shed turns out, you'll just have to click through for "More...".
Rick seems to have taken over posting blogs lately. I guess must be lazy, or maybe it's just that I blogged for ten long years in New Jersy on the now defunct "new" Jersey Girl blog. It's nice to sit back and have him take over that duty.
To start off this post I am using a photo of our bench in the little grove of aspens next to the house covered in our first snow from Friday morning. It wasn't much, just a skiff really, and was gone before you could blink your eyes. We went from wearing gloves and layers of clothing to just a t-shirt yesterday as temps were in the high 60's/low 70's with a bright blue sky. Colorado, ya gotta love it! This is not unusual for this time of year, as you can see in this past post. Three years ago, if you remember, we got snowed in while on vacation here. So, like I said, normal!
But, I am digressing as usual when I actually sit down at the computer and get started. Words just dump out of my brain sometimes. The REAL reason for this post is Bucky. A very beautiful 4-point buck mule deer that decided to visit us around dinnertime the other night.
He was right outside our bedroom window munching away when I saw him. So close to the cabin too! Here he is as seen and taken right from our window. (Solar panels in background, sorry, but they keep us in electricity. The other strange looking object in the photo is our aluminum canoe upside down.) And, normally this area is covered in sage and other native plants but it still has not recovered from being dug up when the solar panels went in earlier this year.
He was not bothered by us taking photos or talking just a few feet away from him inside the house. We knew he could hear us because he kept picking up his lovely head and looking right at us. Not bothered by us at all, he stayed for a good hour. (Love his "eyebrow" facial markings.)
Other animals around us have not fared as well I'm sorry to say. We are down by two more pack rats who choose to go into a trap other than the live one. And, we are down by two rabbits which makes me very sad. One was found not in the trap, but a little way away from it, just lying there (not alive). We don't really know what happened to him as he was unharmed in any other way. The trap was tripped. A heart attack? The other bunny made me even more upset. Bella is a bad bad girl. On one of our walks to the top of our driveway she saw something scurry into the woods. We were thinking squirrel and so was Bella because she was looking up in the trees. She persisted in her search for the animal while we continued our walk. We heard a commotion behind us and Bella came bursting out of the woods with a rabbit in her mouth. She had it by the neck and it did not make it. Too sad. How she managed to catch a rabbit we can't fathom. But she did, and she seemed to want us to be proud of her. Now if that had been a packrat ... whole different story.
Bucky was back the next morning. I went to let Destin outside for a pee break and just ilke he did with Big Boy Moose, he just stared straight ahead and refused to get off the porch. Bucky was in the driveway and not too worried, although he did bound off a little distance, stopped and turned around for another look and when Destin started barking his "big boy bark" and Bucky decided to take off.
He'd obviously been hanging around that same morning unnoticed by us at the salt lick because the game camera captured this video of him. He is welcome in our "yard" anytime.
A neighbor recentlly made the observation that the number of game shots he was getting on his game cameras had dropped significantly since hunting season started. I agree. Normally after a week, I'll have many hundreds of photos on a game camera. Most are triggered by wind, but there would be a few shots of deer, moose, elk, squirrels, birds and sometimes exotic creatures like mountain lions or cows. But, over the past few weeks, nothing.
His theory is that trespassing hunters are flushing the game off our property. My theory is that the animals somehow know it is hunting season and have gone elsewhere. Whatever the reason, scanning the shots from our game cameras has been pretty boring lately.
Still, I can be surprised sometimes as I'm clicking through the hundreds of shots. For example, the next two shots were "back to back" on one game camera.
There were a handful of projects that were critical to our plans for a safe and comfortable winter off-the-grid: an escape plan (the Polaris Ranger), sufficient wood for heating (we are working on it!), guaranteed electrical power (after all, watching TV may be all we can do), storage for food and supplies...
Yesterday, the backup propane generator became fully functional. That's probably enough news for many of you. But, for those who may be curious about more details, here goes.
The generator is a Kohler 14KW residential backup generator. We installed it on a concrete pad behind the small storage shed just outside the cabin. We installed a 500 gallon propane tank that will supply the generator as well as a second (backup?) fridge in the shed.
Kohler 14KW backup generator behind the shed (which I promise to paint soon).
The generator outputs 240VAC, and my inverter inside the cabin takes 120VAC on its AC inputs (typically, one for grid connect and a second for a generator), so there is a 240VAC to 120VAC transformer in the shed. We used existing wiring from a previous 6KW gasoline generator that I stored in the shed to bring the 120VAC to the cabin.
All that work got done a few weeks back, so we've had a backup solution since then, but it required manually starting and stopping the generator (which we have never had to do, so far).
Yesterday, we dug a second trench between the shed and the cabin for a "sense wire" run. This is a wire (two, really) that runs between the inverter inside the cabin and the generator and allows us to control the generator from the inverter, either manually or automatically.
We dug a trench between the shed and the cabin for the sense wire. It is covered back up in this photo.
The inverter is the electronics inside the cabin that converts the direct current (DC) battery power into alternating current (AC) house power. The batteries are 24VDC and we need 120VAC in the cabin. In addition to converting DC to AC, the inverter has the ability to take power in from the grid (does not apply in our case) or from a generator and use that to charge the batteries. And, it provides a number of generator management capabilities.
Here, John is wiring the sense wire into the inverter which is located in a utility closet in the cabin.
The inverter controls the generator with a relay closure. That is what the "sense wire" really is, just a wire that connects that relay to the generator. The generator is smart enough to sense the closure of the relay and knows to start automatically. The generator is set up to turn on and off automatically, and includes a starter battery (as well as a small battery charger, a fuel line heater, etc.)
The inverter also has a number of scenarios you can program to control starting (and stopping) the backup generator. These include:
Any time the cabin draws 33 amps AC for more than 2 minutes, the generator will start up to provide current above and beyond what the batteries are providing. This is mostly to protect the batteries from a quick discharge. I doubt we'll ever see this happen since our normal load is between 2 and 3 amps. But, I suppose if we ever had the water pump running (12A), and the vacuum cleaner (7A), and the microwave (10A), while the toaster was running (7A), it could happen. Of course, they would all need to be running for more than 2 minutes.
If the battery voltage stays at or below 24.0 VDC for a 24 hour period, the generator will start.
If the battery voltage stays at or below 23.6 VDC for 2 hours, the generator will start.
If the battery voltage stays at or below 23.0 VDC for 15 minutes, the generator will start.
(All the above are programmable.)
Finally, if the battery voltage drops below the Low Battery Cutout Voltage (LBCV) of 22.8 VDC for more than 30 seconds, the generator will start. This is the voltage at which the whole system "gives up" and cuts off and we lose electricity. This has never happened to us while living in the cabin, but I know it has happened over winters when the cabin was vacant. Interestingly, we have had no power outages while living "off the grid", yet when living in NJ, we had frequent power outages, some lasting as long as a week (superstorm Sandy impact, for example).
In all cases, once the generator starts it will run until the batteries are fully charged or 4 hours, whichever is less (or, until we turn it off manually). Given that it is capable of supplying about 50A AC in total, with about 30A AC (that's about 125A DC at 28VDC) for charging the batteries, the job should get done in less than 4 hours. (I typically want to provide sufficient current to bring the batteries to a bulk voltage of 28.8VDC, hold them there for 1 hour, then float them at about 26.8VDC for a couple of hours to get a full charge.)
For the engineers in the crowd, yeah 50A does not sound like much from a 14KW generator. But, a propane generator loses about 5% of its energy output for every 1000 feet in altitude. So, at about 8500 feet, the generator output is degraded by around 40%. It could do a bit better than 50A output, but why push it? The inverter won't charge with more than 35A in any case.
One final note to this post. While we had the trencher (loaned by a neighbor and also used to dig post holes for the wood shed, which you can read about in a future post), we ran two strings of conduit between the cabin and the new barn. I plan to pull a 15A run through one of them so that we have one AC circuit available in the barn. The second conduit is for "future proofing". My contractor insisted on it even if we are not planning to use it. As she said "once you have the trench in the ground, you should put lots of stuff in it that you might want in the future". The second conduit could be used for a second circuit, larger wire, or who knows what in the future. Good idea.
Conduit run to the barn (trench is already covered up).
The other day as we got back to the cabin after a walk with the dogs, Lynne started pointing toward the front of the cabin and placing her hands next to her head with her index fingers pointed upwards. I got the dogs into the cabin quickly because I thought she was signaling the presence of a moose, elk or deer with antlers. However, she was pointing to a Great Horned Owl that was sitting on top of a dead tree right in front of the cabin. We quickly grabbed cameras.
This is a shot of the owl looking away, so we see the back of his head.
It was getting dark, so mostly what we got were silhouettes of the owl. But, I tweeked a few photos so you can see a little of his mottled coloring.
Profile shot.
Looking toward me, you can kind of see his eyes and the white ring around his neck.
And here is a video where you can hear the two types of calls we often hear. The first is an "alert" call, and we've also seen that it can be a mating call. The final call is what we typically expect; the common "who who" call.
