Electrical Service - Removing Old Equipment

When the electric company visited a couple of weeks back, we discussed options for obtaining electric service.  They prefer to install above ground service where the customer's meter/breaker pole is 20 to 25 foot from the main service pole.  

There is an existing pole on the property but it is about 50' from the main service pole.  I'd already decided against using this pole for the electrical service for a few reasons:

1. The pole is on the wrong side of the drive for entering the property resulting in electrical wires running over the drive.
2. The existing meter and breaker box could not be used as the brass connectors are all incredibly rusted and are only for 100 amp service.
3. The existing location is a real eye sore as it is very visible and the new location would be in the far corner of the property.

I decided to leave the pole for now but remove all equipment from the pole.  Later, I might decide to remove the pole or just use it to mount a light which could be used to light up the area around the cabin.  After removing all the hardware, I leveled the ground around the pole and then stacked a few rocks around it to keep weeds and grass from growing right next to it.

The utility pole only had one line running from it to a small RV pole right in front of the new cabin location.  I was not opposed to leaving the small RV pole but considering I would be using a new meter pole, I'd have to rerun all the wiring to it so I decided to remove it too.  Luckily, the wiring from the meter pole to the small RV pole was only about 6 inches below the ground so I was able to pull it up by hand.  This cleaned up the area even more and will open more options for installing the cabin.

I've kept all the equipment as I might try to use the breaker box, the metal outlet boxes or some of the other equipment in the shed later.  For now, I'll just put them in the shed for storage.

Cabin Preparation - Preparing the Cabin to Move

The cabin was placed on my parents land as a place to stay overnight when out at the land working or hunting.  The following picture is of the cabin being delivered back in 2009 or 2010.

Initially, the cabin was just a place to get out of the elements and stay the night.  A generator was placed in a storage building outside the cabin to power lights, a few outlets, and a window AC unit.  It stayed this way for quite some time and we ate meals at the picnic table, used the AC to stay cool inside on hot days, and my wife and I even stayed the night in the cabin on two or three occasions to go hunting.  

In May of 2014, we decided to put up cattle panels around the cabin so it would not be damaged by cows which were added to the property.  This gave us a little more flexibility as the dogs could stay with us overnight.  We could then let them out at night without fear of them running off.  It also kept wild animals from getting right next to the cabin at night.

In 2015, electricity was added to the property for a future house build.  The electricity was run to the cabin and there was no longer a need for the generator.  I did not use it a great deal in 2015 but my parents did as cleared the land for the addition of their house.  Once their house was finished in November of 2015, the cabin became more used for storage than anything else.

Today, after winding down after Christmas morning, we decided to remove everything from the cabin.  We loaded all the contents into my truck and my dad's and moved it to his shop.  We then disconnected the electrical lines to the cabin and a water line he had running in to a sink.  We still have the fence in place and will remove it on the day they move the cabin as we don't want cattle up on the porch causing damage.

Aside from removing a few tree limbs at my property, I think we are ready to have the cabin moved.  I called earlier in the week and they said that they could get it done the second or third week in January as long as the weather is good.  I'm ready.

Cabin Site Preparation - Installing Piers 2

I'm still in shock over what we have been able to accomplish.  As we make progress, I start to realize how long this would have taken with my plan to do it myself with hand tools and renting an auger.  

When we left the day before, we had 12 of the posts complete leaving only 12 more to do this morning.  I arrived a little early to meet the electric company as I'd called them to evaluate adding service to my property.  They gave me a few options and stated they would send me a plan by email in a few days.

Shortly after the electric company left, my dad arrived and we started up on our third and final day of work.  After refining our plan over the past two days, we made quick progress digging the holes and installing the piers.

All of the piers are at least 20" in the ground but the posts along the front are deeper (~24").  The back holes were hard to get deep because we kept hitting really hard clay.  However, I though was that if we could not dig any further with the weight of the skid steer on the auger bit, the hard packed clay should be enough to hold the cabin well.

We moved at a rate of four posts per hour which was pretty good.  It was hard to get the 8" auger centered exactly so I ended up using a post hold digger to clean out the holes and line them up so all the posts were installed in a straight line.  Our pace slowed incredibly on the last hole when we encountered two very large roots.  We suspect they were part of the trees we removed as the back of the cabin is now where the trees were at but we were able to remove enough that the bottom of the post was on a firm footing.

We stood back and admired the work for a while and then decided to start putting up some of the tools we had laying everywhere.  My dad leveled out the land a little more and I started using a small disc he had to break up the top soil where he had driven the skid steer.  I was able to drive between some of the post but not all of them.  Where I could not go, I used a small rake to level out the ground around the piers.  As I finished leveling the ground, my dad threw out some rye seed he had in hopes that it would sprout and help hold the loose dirt in place over the winter.

The following pictures show the state of the land as we were leaving at the end of the day.

Cabin Site Preparation - Installing Piers

My dad and I made incredible progress yesterday on preparing the cabin site.  I'd taken off three days to work on the land not thinking we would get as far as we did.  After working on it yesterday, my dad volunteered to keep working on it with me and push through to get more done.  

After working on the land yesterday, I took my dad out for mexican food and margaritas and then we stopped by Lowe's.  We now have a total of 12 pressure treated piers which we will cut up to become piers for the cabin foundation.  The piers are 6"x 6" and are 8' long.  The goal is to end up with 24 piers with six running down each of the skids which run underneath the cabin.

The skids which run underneath the cabin are 4"x 4".  The 6"x 6" piers will provide us with a solid structure but also with some flexibility.  Since they are larger than the skids, it will be easier for the moving company to put the cabin in place.  This also makes it such that any slight variance when installing the piers does not make the foundation questionable.  

Before digging the first hole, we needed to put a few corner posts in the ground to layout the cabin footprint again.  With the tree stumps removed and the ground leveled, we were able to move the cabin back a little further from the road which is great.  It took a little time to measure out the footprint and ensure it was square with corner measurements but we were able to get it done.

The skid steer has an 8" auger bit which was used to make holes for the piers.  I'd originally thought I would dig these by hand or rent a post hole digger.  The skid steer made quick work of the holes.  What is even better is that my dad would lift the front wheels of the skid steer placing all of its weight on the auger bit.  We went deep enough that it would not dig anymore which should give us a much firmer foundation than I would have been able to accomplish with any hand held option.

We worked out the location on the four corner posts first.  We took our time working on the holes and putting in the post such that they were square.  We relied upon my pictures (posted here previously) of the cabin skids to ensure that the piers would land immediately under them.  This obviously meant that the piers are not at the corners of 16' by 32'.

With the corner posts all firmly in the ground, we stopped to eat lunch.  When we resumed, we ran sting to ensure the rest of the posts across the front and back would be in a straight line, of the same height, and then used a level to ensure they were perfectly level.  My dad would dig the holes with the skid steer, I'd cut the post and put it in place, he would hold it level, and then I would back fill with concrete, or gravel depending upon the post.  Regardless of if the post was put in place with concrete or gravel, they all had 2" of gravel put in the hole before the post was added to keep the bottoms from rotting.

At the end of day two, we had the front four piers in concrete, rear four in concrete, and four along one side in gravel.  You can tell from the picture below that we were able to level the land some but there is still a fair amount of elevation change.  This will place the front of the cabin a little high but will at least ensure that there will be plenty of water runoff so we don't have water sitting around the bottom of the cabin or piers.

My dad and I were completely exhausted at the end of the day.  We pushed ourselves really hard over the past two days.  I was starting to get easily frustrated and the two of us started making small mistakes as we were no longer as quick witted as the beginning of the day so we decided to stop.  We went back to his house, at some chicken, and just sat on the couch for a few hours to recover for another day.

Cabin Site Preparation - Stump Removal and Ground Leveling

My dad and I started work today on removing tree stumps and leveling the ground for the cabin.  My dad met me at the land with his New Holland LS180 skid steer which incredibly impacted what we were able to accomplish.  We arrived at 8:30 and he immediately started work on the stumps.

The stumps were rather difficult to remove as the roots had all grown together.  As he dug up around them, I cut a few of the larger roots with my chainsaw.  Ultimately, the answer was to just keep digging deeper around them with the skid steer and essentially slam the skid steer into them until the roots broke.

The largest tree was as expected the hardest to remove.  We somewhat expected it would break loose and leave most of the roots underground.  However, it did not and in the picture below you can see that the skid steer was used to dig almost three foot deep before the stump could be removed.

To my surprise, by 9:45 all the trees were removed and he was able to level out the land a little with the bucket of the skid steer.  Needless to say, I was shocked at what was possible with his skid steer.  

We spent the next few hours loading up the stumps and root pieces and dropping them off in the fenced area we call the garden.  We now have a burn pile there which we will burn once the wood all dries out.  For now, we have done way more than I imagined.  The project is really starting to look good now.

DPMS Oracle AR-10 Build (Part 1)

I recently purchased a DPMS Oracle AR-10 which is somewhat of a budget model AR-10.  I'm not an incredible fan of tactical looking weapons but the capability and limited recoil of the AR platform is impressive.  My young son and daughter could shoot this without the complaints on recoil.  

I could have purchased a more expensive model but I don't particularly like the handguards on most ARs as they are too tactical.  With this particular model, I can upgrade it to suit my exact needs.  Additionally, I can select components which are as light as possible to make this gun easier to carry around.

The first upgrade planned for the rifle is to switch out the standard grip which is a hard plastic.  I removed it and weighed it on a small scale and it weighs 2.0 oz.  The plan was to find one better for the about the same weight (or less if possible).

I found a Magpul MOE K2 grip and ordered it.  Unfortunately, it arrived and I found it does not fit the back contour of the lower as I wanted.  The grip continues up the backside of the rifle and there is a gap.  While I liked that it weighs only 1.8 oz but it simply will not work.

I swapped the Magpul out of an Ergo grip which was on my AR15.  It fits much better so I put the Magpul MOE K2 on the AR15.  I weighed the Ergo grip and it is 2.2 oz.  It weights a little more than the stock grip but it is so much more comfortable.  I don't know that I could justify switching to something else now for .2 oz loss.

For reference, the stock hardware was .3 oz so I used the Magpul bolt as it was .2 oz.  Its crazy to weigh the bolt but I had it all out so why not.  

L.T. Wright Go No Show (GNS) Knife

This is an LT Wright GNS or “Go No Show” knife which measures 9.5” overall with a 4.5” saber blade.  The handle is a polished natural canvas and is really comfortable.  The blade is made of 01 tool steel in a saber grind which is one of my favorites.  The knife gets shaving sharp and holds and edge really well. I really like the knife but find myself not using as it is a little longer than I prefer for my uses.

Cabin Site Preparation - Removing Trees

We spent the majority of both Saturday and Sunday of this weekend removing the three trees at the back of the proposed cabin site.  The trees were cut down rather quickly but then dealing with cutting up the trees and stacking the wood is what took the longest.

My wife and I celebrate progress temporarily in the picture below before beginning the process of cutting up the downed trees.  

The tree to the left above is the largest of the two and is rotten in the middle.  I was concerned about dropping the tree in a decent location with all of the rot but it worked out well.  The rotten middle is shown in the picture below.  The center was rotten to some extent up to about 12' high were a large limb broken off in years past.

It is hard to tell from the picture but I believe the medium size tree which was cut down was about 45 years old based on the grown rings.  I've not looked it up personally but my mom indicated the trees were all cedar elms.

In the end, we had the beginnings of a large stack of fire wood, four stump seats, and the bulk of the large rotten tree left to cut up but we called it a weekend.

Cabin Site Preparation - Establishing the Footprint

My grandfather passed away and we attended the funeral yesterday.  Today, I took some time to be alone out at the property.  I sat around and enjoyed the day some and then worked on establishing the footprint for our cabin.

As previously indicated, the cabin my parents are providing is 16' wide by 32' deep.  Along the front side, there is a porch which is 16' wide by 6' deep.  The cabin will face in an east/west orientation for a couple of reasons:

  1) This allows us to sit on the porch and admire the view of our land.

  2) The east/west orientation minimizes sun exposure to the cabin as best possible.

Today we visited the land with a few wood posts and some string to determine a good location for the cabin.We laid out the corner post as best possible without going through all the effort to get it perfectly square.  At this point, we were mainly looking for a good general location and to see how the cabin would line up with the trees on the property.  

The following is a little difficult to see but this is viewing the proposed location from the front of the cabin.  The two posts up front are 16' apart and you can see the back two corner posts in the background.  We really want to keep the pine on the left side of the picture.  Unfortunately, this means the cedar elm on the right side will need to be removed.

The land has much more slope to it than I expected.  With the string six inches off the ground at the back, the front is 31" off the ground.  I'd like to find a way to change the grade of the land some to minimize this a little.  The cabin has 4"x4" skids and then the floor so 31" is just to the bottom of that structure which means the floor would be more like 40" off the ground

At the back of the cabin location is a group of tree trees which have had their roots all grow together.   The cabin is somewhat centered between the road which comes into the property and the cluster of trees.  There is about five foot between the front of the cabin and the road.  At the back, there is two or three foot between the cabin and the trees.

The largest of the trees at the back is rotten through the middle and needs to be removed.  I intend to remove them all including the cedar elm on the right in the picture above.  I'm not quite sure how I will remove the stumps.  If I need to leave much of them in the ground, leaving the cabin about 2-3' away will help a little as the ground shifts from the decaying roots.  

When I remove the trees, I'm going to leave a decent sized stump which can be get it out of the ground.  I'm not sure if I will dig around them and cut the roots with a chainsaw, burn them, or what but I'd really prefer them out of the ground.  Leaving them there would just be asking for problems with the cabin foundation later.  

To finish out the day, I used an axe to remove the tree on the left side of the proposed cabin footprint.  The tree was about six inches in diameter so the job was not difficult.  Surprisingly, the tree had about 40 growth rings so it has been there much longer than I expected.

Electrical Service - Existing Cabin Electrical Setup

The cabin is currently wired for electricity.  I took a few pictures of the electrical equipment today for planning purposes.

The exterior electrical box receives three 4 gauge wires from the electrical meter at the front of the property.  There is one 150 amp breaker in the panel.  In this picture, the front of the panel is off.  However, when it is in place, you can access the switch and easily turn off all power to the cabin.

This is the interior breaker box which is almost immediately directly behind the exterior box.  The panel has room for eight different breakers but only four are currently used.  One is used for the lights, one for the plugs around the walls, one for a dedicated plug for a window AC unit, and the last for a dedicated plug for a fridge.  

I'll need to decide if I will mount the electrical meter to the cabin and how I want to create circuits for items outside of the cabin.  I'm not sure that I need many circuits outside the cabin but I want to plan for additions later.  I might want to add a large light, run a power line to the shed, or who knows.  Better to do it right the first time than keep doing it over again in the future.

Atlanta Heater

I purchased this 20,000 BTU Atlanta heater from my grandad when we were holding his garage sale before moving to the assisted living facility.  He had used the heater for several years in his living room.  I had the heater in the garage planning to use it when working in the winter.  However, I've now decided to switch it to propane and use it in the cabin.

This weekend, I completely disassembled the heater and cleaned it really well.  It was full of match sticks and cobwebs.  I figured it would be best to clean it real well before putting it back into use.  The final product looks pretty good except one of the radiants is broken and held together with a piece of wire.

The plaque on the back clearly shows this is an Atlanta J-20 heater.  The remains of a label beside the plque indicate a certain type of corrosion resistance but I can't make out the name.

I expected it might be difficult to convert the natural gas heater to propane but the plaque on the back indicated exactly how it was done.  I've not worked with a heater of this type before so the only trouble was finding the location of the orifice.

While the heater was being run on natural gas.  You can see the orifice at the lower right of this picture.  It is the black orifice for use with propane.  I had to add the adapter on the left side so that it would connect to a propane hose I have and that was really all I needed to do.  The total cost was just $2,49 for the adapter!

The last thing I did for the weekend was connect it to the propane tank and light it up.  I wanted to make sure it worked well before calling the project done.  Sure enough, it lit without any trouble so now I'm going to pack it up until the cabin is ready and then I'll install it.

Grandad's Cast Iron Pan

Earlier this year, we helped my grandad move out of his home and into an assisted living facility.  As part of the preparation process, he started giving away many of his things.  In the laundry room, my uncle noticed a set of cast iron pans.  The two were roughly the same size except one was a deep pan and the other was shallow.

My uncle decided to keep the shallow one and gave me the deeper one.  The one I received was covered in a very thick layer of grease (not seasoning but grease) and rust in the very bottom but I did not care.  Since the pan was rusty, I decided to restore it completely which was harder than I expected.

The rust was not too hard to remove.  However, the rest if the plan had a thick coating or grease which did not want to come off.  As I removed it, I noticed some of the pain had what appeared to be paint.  Since there were areas without paint, I just removed it all to bare metal which unfortunately took a couple of hours.

Last night, I seasoned the pan last night using Crisco.  I heated it to 350 for three hours.  I put some oil on it ti start with and then each hour after that, and then wiped it off at the end.

The pan has a slight bronze look which is normal.  This is because I took it to shiny metal but it will darken with us.

Measuring the the Cabin Footprint

This weekend, I stopped by my parents property and took a look at the cabin which we will soon move to our land.  Part of the reason for the trip was to measure the footprint of the cabin.  

The cabin floor is mounted to four 4" x 4" skids.  I'll need to create a level area which supports the cabin using these skids.  I've not yet determined the approach I'll use but I wanted to measure the distance between the skids so I have the information for when I start the ground work.

My measurements are all from the rear left skid of the cabin.  

The distance from the edge of the left skid to the far right skid is 15' 5".  This is roughly 15' from the center of one skid to the center of the other skid.  If you measure 5' in from the outside skids, you are at the innermost edge of the center skids.  This should make it fairly easy to measure out the footprint.  Now I just need to decide how many footings to create and what to make them out of. 

Deer Stand Window Repair

I planned to replace the lower window sill on two deer stand windows today.  However, I only had time to replace the main window.

The original lower sill was installed with a quarter inch of caulk underneath.  I expected the 2" x 4" frame under the sill to be even with the metal but it was not.  As a result, after pulling off the rotten sill, I had to strip off the caulk, and then cut the metal so that it was flat with the lower window frame.  The job took much longer than I was expecting.

Unfortunately, the job was not done at that point.  I cut two new pieces of molding for the sides of the window opening.  When I installed the one on the left side, I realized the water had penetrated in and rotted part of the 2" x 4" frame.  I made it work anyway as in the end it is a deer stand but it bothered me as I'm a perfectionist.

After installing all the wood, I caulked it all.  Several hours later, I stopped back by and put a second coat of paint on everything.  

While I was at it, I installed a latch and lock on the stand. Since I don't expect to hunt there a great deal this winter, I didn't want it be wide open for someone else to sneak over and use.  I've no reason to believe someone would but why risk it when you can just lock it up.