Friday, July 28, 2017

Spring 2017 Progress

Well the snow has melted and the weather is warm, so I am back to work on the cabin.

This is year 3 of building. My goals for this year are to install plumbing, run electrical wiring, install 3 more windows, install the soffit on the south side and insulate the cabin.

In late May, I pumped 300 gallons of water from my well into the water storage tank in the cellar. This was the first time I did this and it worked surprisingly well. I bought a small bilge pump and wired it up to my marine battery. I used 100 feet of potable water hose to run from the well to the tank. It took me about 3 hours to fill the tank. I plan on buying a second IBC tote this fall to bring my capacity up to 600 gallons for dry spells.






This was my first attempt at installing vent and drain piping. Once I got the requirements for vents clear in my mind, I sketched out where the vents would run. I purchased a 2.5 inch and 3.5 inch hole saw to drill the holes in the walls. That was fun! The Ryobi drill kept trying to break my wrist when the hole saw jammed. That drill has a lot of torque!



Cutting the PVC pipe was easy with a miter box and hack saw. I cleaned up the ends and chamfered the ends with a rasp. The cement sets up fast; I only had 5 seconds to align the pipe once I pushed the pieces together. I dry fit each piece of pipe and made alignment marks with a pen so I could realign the fittings properly when I cemented them together. I had to nail down the under-layment in the bathroom before drilling the hole for the toilet flange. Luckily the larger hole saw was just the correct size.








I polyurethaned a piece of plywood and set it where the kitchen counter will eventually go. I'll temporarily install the kitchen sink in this plywood counter.