October 2018 Progress

Progress this year has included finishing the plumbing, building the bathroom, finishing insulating under the roof and adding more windows.


I finished the supply and drain piping to the kitchen sink and bathroom toilet. This was also my first time using PEX pipe. I did well so far - no leaks! That is my super-insulated cooler under the sink. A proper kitchen counter and cabinets will hopefully be installed next year.

I am using a 12 volt RV pump in the basement for my potable water supply. The hoses to the pump are temporary; I'll secure them better one of these days!

The pump works fine and I finally have running water!

I cut a hole and installed the awning window in the bathroom. Now there is light!

I covered the inside of the bathroom walls with sheet rock. The walls are movable at this stage. I can move them out of the way to give me room to work when I finally hook up the shower.

I even hung a bathroom door.

I installed the first of two windows in the lofts. Now I have some light up there and can see what I am doing!

This is the view looking west from the kitchen end of the cabin. I have moved the rolls of insulation up into the lofts since I took this picture.

This view is looking east toward the kitchen, bath and wood stove. I picked up a couch at Ikea which converts into a bed.

This is the current view of the outside of the cabin, with my daughter in front.

I hope to get most of the walls insulated before the snow flies!

Rear soffit done

I took vacation last week and headed up to the cabin. The weather was great with daytime temps in the 70's and night temps in the 50's. The best thing is there were no bugs!

One major goal was to get the rear soffit installed. First I built a framework of 2x4s to nail the soffits to. I cut screening and stapled it to the underside of one half of the soffit. Then I nailed both halves of the soffit I place. Two of the soffits were 12 feet long and the remaining one was an 8 footer. Once the boards were secure, I reached from inside of the soffit to staple the other side of the screen in place. It came out nice.

I figured out where I wanted my 120 VAC electrical outlet boxes and started running some 14 gauge wire through the walls until I ran out of wire. The kitchen and bathroom will get 12 gauge. All the wires will run to a future breaker box on the west basement wall. I still have to run my 12 VDC wire. I picked up a second 250 watt solar panel which I had ordered at HD.

I stapled up pink Styrofoam spacers between rafters, in preparation to adding insulation batts.

The color of the foliage improved in the week I was there. I like the light from the full moon reflecting off the metal roof.

September 2017 progress

I continued working on the plumbing drains, especially under the kitchen sink. I ran out of 90 degree elbows for the vent line, so I will finish that next trip.

I replaced my old black chimney pipe with some new ones from the same manufacturer that made the class A stainless pipe on the roof.  The new pipe is better made and has a telescoping section of pipe. This will allow me to remove the pipe for cleaning from the inside without having to move the stove. I built a test fire Saturday morning.

I painted the boards for my rear soffits. When I put up the front soffits, I painted them after they were up and had to deal with paint dripping on my head. I learned my lesson!

This is a view inside the cabin looking west from the kitchen area.

August 2017 Progress

I took a few days vacation last week and drove up to the cabin. It was nice to get away and enjoy the peace and quiet surrounded by woods!

I worked plumbing the soil stack. The hardest part was routing the pipe in a U shape to hook up to the pipe headed out to the septic tank. I kept measuring, cutting pipe, dry fitting everything and marking the correct angles until it was all hooked up. The last piece I installed was the long sweep 90 fitting. I had to cement both ends and then attach it to both connecting pipes before everything hardened.

I traced the outline of my new kitchen sink on the plywood counter and cut out the opening. My jigsaw battery gave out halfway through so I used my handsaw the rest of the way. The double sink fits nicely. I had purchased a plumbing kit to hook up a double sink. I tried it out, but didn't like how it fit. I'll return it and hook up the drains the standard way. I still need to determine the height of the drain pipe above the floor.

I also hooked up my solar panel and charge controller for the first time. It was just a test run, but everything seemed to work well. The charge controller was putting out 14.5 volts to my battery. While my marine battery was charging, I also hooked up my Ryobi battery car charger and charged my power tool batteries. I rested the solar panel against the cabin at night so any deer walking around at night would not step on it. Eventually I will build a stand for the solar panel. I took measurements of the battery and charge controller, so I can build a battery box on the east side of the cabin. I will size the box for 3 batteries, vent it and put 2 inch rigid insulation on the inside of the box.

Each day around 6 pm, I would go down to the lake and cool off from the day's work. I even did some blueberry picking on Friday!

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.

YouTube channel for my tiny house

I finally figured out how to create my own channel on YouTube and have added some videos of building progress. It is called Tiny NH House. This is the link:

Tiny NH House

Winter 2017

It has been too cold and there is too much snow to work on the cabin this winter. We have about 30 inches of snow right now. I am pleased that the metal roof sheds the snow so well. Here are some pictures of the cabin in the snow.