First Day Of Construction!!!

The Crew

Kurt, Hunter (myself), Jay, Bob, and baby Kev.

     We have all been good friends for many years chillan at the famous "rezzy" in our home town. It seems like every day we find ourselves doing something down there whether it be fishing, hiking, camping, or just going down there for a nice refreshing swim, the rezzy has never lost its uniqueness. On a good day we catch four or five fish each a day however good days do not always show up. But after a long day of fishing and getting into no good we always longed for a sick spot to chill, camp out, and have a good time without having to worry about the cops, or adults kicking us out of our campsites. However we have found the one! We have found a perfect spot where we are isolated enough not to be bothered. Next was deciding what to make there???

First Day Of Construction!!! click here

      We chose this spot about 10 Min's through pretty rough terrain from one of my buddies houses. 

Its location is prime because you can actually see the Rezz from it. The is a rather large river about 30 feet away which comes in hand for fresh water, rocks, and some good mud to mix up and use in its construction. There an abundant amount of good timber for building as well as firewood.

(Kurt in the pic)

Laying it out.

     We started laying it out. the initial dimensions we had in mind were 16x11, however after running into a couple problems we have taken a couple feet (about 2 or 3) off the entire length between the altercations necessary for our fire place, and leaving some overhang for our roof.

Pretty good for one day of work.

     After the first day of working on our hut we (Kurt and I) have made an surprisingly strong structure that could support my weight ( i weigh 200 lbs) plus some and still not budge. I was surprised at its straight because we haven't even put any of the supports on it yet. To the right of the screen we laid the two 16' logs on top of 2 vertical logs about 6'3, tied them both a tree for extra support (there is another tree about 11' behind the one shown). Next we found two 5' logs with a "Y" to allow more support. We sharpened the bottom of them and drove them into the ground about a foot. We then Lashed the logs together and later drove a couple nails into then=m for extra support.

The Fireplace!

     After about 8 hours of hard work carrying a lot of large rocks and buckets of mud up to the site from the river this is what we have built. This fireplace is what will make this hut. In the video it stands about 5'5 but we have a few more feet left to make it taller then the roof. since it will be exposed we will use concrete to prevent our mud mortar from washing away.

     (Kurt and Jay)

Before the Mud!

After the mud and a lot of work!...the first fire in it to dry the mud out.

The Roof!

     Our main design had a flat roof allowing the chimney for the fireplace very simple, however because we are making a Gable roof we will need to make some changes. We chose a gable roof for a number of
reasons; first the use of only organic materials is not 100% waterproof and we are not looking forward to getting wet. Then we thought of adding a tarp under all of the intertwined sticks, leaves, and packed mud to ensure it is waterproof however the tarp would only create puddles of water and would eventually leak. Our design is flawed because the pitch of our roof is very small. The pitch of the gable roof allows snow to slide off (last year we got 3' of it) not allowing the excess weight to crush our hut. We ordered a tarp 15x20 allowing a few inches or more for the over hang, to tightly secure the trap to the Gable roof.

     After a lot of thinking and consulting with some knowledgeable teachers at my school we have decided to keep the frame in place, and to only shorten the roof as well as the wall making it flush with the face of the fireplace. There were some options to keep the roof over the fireplace however they all would have only caused problems. We thought of using a straight metal pipe and put it through the tarp however we figured 1. the tarp would melt and 2. there wouldn't be an easy way of patching the hole. Another idea was using a pipe with a 45, or 90 degree angle in it running it from the top of the chimney out the back gable end. However this bend in the pipe can lead a loss of draft while the fire is smoldering and cause a Carbon Monoxide build up in our hut and sadly not allowing us to wake up. After hearing that i am defiantly picking up a CO detector for about $15 even though we are keeping the chimney straight. 

we later moved the roof forward a couple of feet towards bob.

We put in some large logs for extra support, they were about 6" in dia and we drove a a 10" nail into the log securing it.

Just wanted to see what it would look like with a tarp on.

The tarp above is going to be the roof. We are going to drape the sides down the walls to keep out the water. Just a few holes we need to patch.

The Ladder

Still Building!

We have only been working on this since saturday April 28, 2012 but we are making progress very quickly, hoping to having it completed by summer. So please keep checking back to see new updates on our cabin. Thanks Hunter