Tiny house connected

Why the 4x4s are protruding: The 4x4s are part of the floor support for the second story of the house. We purposefully designed then to protrude from the house. This is not some kind of adobe stick roof design throwback attempt but rather a structural idea. By leaving the 4x4s extended we will be able to tie our roofing beams into them. We will through bolt the beams and the 4x4s thus creating a fully connected house. This could either make the house a stalwartly solid unit or be a terrible idea the causes the house, particularly the floor, to creek when the wind blow agains the porch roof. 

retro posting: raising the first rib

     I have been asked countless times, " how id you get the big beams up." Here is is the how we did the first one. I climbed a tree, Hung a climbing harness in the tree, and ran a rope through a pulley on the harness. We took said rope and connected it to a truck a few hundred feet away via several redirecting pulleys. We connected the other end to the first timber rib.
     We lifted the rib to an angle so it would not just pull flat along the ground. Once we tipped the rib we placed blocks behind it so it would not slide.
All set. Rope attached to truck, Truck in gear, pulling forward. As we moved the truck forward the pine bent lower and lower. I thought the plan had failed. I parked the truck where it was and when I went to examine the situation I discovered that the rib now felt like a 2x4. It was essentially spring loaded by the bent tree. Allowing the spring of the tree to do the work we simply positioned the rib where we wanted it and lifted the holding blocks out of the way. We nailed some angled boards to the rib to keep it from tipping and the first rib was in place.

   The other ribs actually had to be lifted eight inches at a time due to the angle being incompatible with our new found spring loaded tree. This slow raising of the other ribs was definitely an exercise in trust and cooperation. Building this house has been one of the best forms of marriage counseling. It has taken communication to a whole new level.

Roof work

     Looking up throughout the "vent" where the chimney will go you can see the roof is coming nicely. We used radiant bubble insulation under the metal roof. The bubble insulation is placed under the purlins so as to create an air space that allows the radiant barrier to do its job. We did not place insulation under the overhang outside the house as we did not feel it was essential to protect the air below the roof.
       The bubble insulation is rated to R-11. Considering that most 2x4 walls are filled with R-13, I feel R-11 is a great value for such a thin layer of insulation. We do still plan to put standard insulation in-between the roof trusses. The standard insulation will be rated R-30. This will bring our combined roof insulation to R-41 plus the radiant barrier that reflects heat. All together it should be a well insulated roof, keeping out heat in the Summer and keeping in heat in the Winter.

other foundational thoughts

So, it is a terrible picture. This is a picture taken under the house. Here we are looking at the front Southeastern corner of the foundation. Visible,  aside from the glare of the sun, is the cinderblock and wood beams. Between the beams and block we placed tar paper to help mitigate the little bit of moisture that could wick up the block and into the wood. We also put a fair amount of sand under the house to act as additional thermal mass. We had the sand and it seemed like a reasonable place to put it. It also makes crawling under the house more comfortable than if it was bare gravel. We will place a vapor barrier over the sand. Lastly, We reinforced the concrete foundation with 2 inch tubular steel. We had an old carport that was destroyed in a tornado so we used the steel to angel brace the foundation and tie it all together. We also used rebar in the foundation but thought the added steel would be a nice addition.

Here is a picture of the house prior to the second floor being studded and roofed.

Inside

Here is a photo of the house in a stage of partial completion as seen from up the hill. It really is tucked into the wood nicely. We cleared the understory and fire ladder to allow for good air flow through the forest as well as excellent forest floor walking area. 

 And now for the first photos of the inside of the house. This photo to the left is taken from the corner of the living area where the wood stove will sit. The photo is looking into the kitchen area, South, The french doors will be just to the left of this photo and the stairs will ascend in the right of the photo frame, where the boards are leaning.

This photo looks out at the kitchen and living area as well. The window on the West wall denotes the location where the stairs will start. The wood stove will be placed just to the right of the red broom handle. The 4x4 beam in the foreground of this shot is a door post into the bathroom, which I am standing in. 

This photo is looking North. The air compressor ( which we have used for exactly 12  finish nails into the windows, all other nails where hand driven) is about there the wood stove will sit. The opening on the right of the shot is for the french doors. The 4x4 post denotes the entry into the bathroom. The bathroom will have a small step up which will help delineate the space. We used poplar for the subfloor and all of the sheeting on the outside of the house has been free oak and pine from the sawmill. The blue tarp hanging down from the second floor is hanging through the hole where the chimney pipe will go. I have left an area open in the floor for easy access as I am yet to get under the house and do plumbing. electrical, etc. . . 

second floor update

 The second floor is almost done. We have to a few windows to install and the stud work to support said windows. The roof is coming along nicely. We have all of the roof trusses up as of this past weekend. The pictures hearer show all but two trusses up. The photos also show the house before the North wall was built. More photos are to come. I often get distracted with building and forget to stop and take photos of the progress. We are using metal roofing and a radiant barrier on the roof. We nailed wide purlins in place to stabilize the trusses before placing the radiant barrier down. Once the radiant insulation was in place we nailed purlins on top of our wide purlins. These top purlins will allow us to screw the metal down while still maintaining an air space between the radiant insulation and the metal roof. This air gap is important in order for the radiant barrier to work properly, according to my reading.
The main floor is wrapped in tyvek. The windows are in and it is starting to feel like a real house. My next post will have the first photos of inside.

foundation

      I thought I would take a moment and write a little about our foundation. Many tiny houses are built on trailers thus reducing the foundation issue and in most cases eliminating the need to have the structure inspected by a local code enforcer. In our location there are no building codes. We have a health inspector that would come out to inspect a septic or field lines. We also have an electrical inspector that would come out if we were connecting to the grid.
     Our little house is built on one course of cinder block sitting upon two slabs of four inch cement that is laid over gravel filled mountain stone. Half of the foundation is laid over undisturbed sandy loam and sandstone. The other half was about a foot lower and so we compacted soil and small rocks to bring it up level. All of the rock and mountain stone was pulled out of a low exposed area about fifty feet from the house. Inside the foundation we poured a thin coat of concrete in most of the area to act as a barrier. We will still lay a vapor barrier but felt the extra thermal mass of cement would be nice under the house. All of the block is cement filled and we placed threaded rods into some so as to connect to the wood of the house. Inside the block we placed ridged foam in a hope of insulating the foundation and holding temperature inside better.
     As you can see in the photos we had to shim the bottom boards of our house to make it all level. This is mostly due to my lack of experience with pouring a foundation and making it level. We will  have piers about eight feet out from the house on the East to allow for the deck beams to rest level.

Second floor

       This past week has proved to be productive. Partly due to the threat of impending rain and partly because we made a conscious effort to build on multiple days. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring the camera for a daily snap shot. The photo to the left is our progress as of the end of the week.  The sub floor is done, save a small strip that will allow access to the crawl space. The second floor has half of the studs done. Yes, we are building the second floor with traditional framing as opposed to timber framing. Building the timber ribs was fun and interesting but there is no way we can safely raise ribs on a second floor. Not to mention we ran out of cured oak for the process. So, standard stud walls it is. We are using saw mill cut pine from the mill five miles away. 2x4x8s are 2.40 a board and that beats Lowes by a mile, not to mention it is locally sourced, cut and milled. Additionally, the wood from the mill is true cut as opposed to the "standard" lumber from the store that is labeled 2x4 but is really smaller.
      We were able to build a jig and finish half of our roof trusses this week. We lifted them into place with a reasonable amount of grunting and ladder climbing. The metal roofing and reflective bubble insulation was picked up this week and we will hopefully install it in the next couple days.
     Yesterday, amidst the rain, we burned four large piles of brush. Most of the brush was from clearing the site for the house. We also burned a large amount of brush from our recent clearing in the forest surrounding the house. The burning really helped to clean up the surrounding area and removing the downed brush from the forest will make room for our hazelnut planting this Fall.
    Below are several more pictures of the house in its current state, taken from different angles. The second to bottom photo is taken from the lower field and gives good perspective on how the house sits up on the hill.

Final rib

The final rib is upright and secured to the others with 4x4 beams. The 4x4 beams will serve as floor supports. They are lag screwed into the main 6x6 beams and extend out of the house. The extension of these beams will allow for connection the ceiling rafters to the front porch. The interconnection of all beams in the house help with stability and structure of the design. 

Stepping back to look at the structure. It is so rewarding to see the house with the actual end walls in place. It gives a real sense of the size and shape of the house. Standing up on the second floor joices gives an idea of the view and how the house is built into the edge of the forest. 

Third Rib

The third rib is up, square and level. We have begun "mocking up" the future porch by laying a beam out to a pier. It is shaping up as planned and we will be ready for the second story soon. 

It is nice to see the lumber pile migrating into use as portions of the house. We are most of the way through the pile and will be in need of another run to the lumber mill soon. Considering the lumber mill is 4.8 miles away this should not be too much of a time suck. 

The sub floor is in in the bathroom as well as in part of the main house. We have left a access door into the crawl space so as to allow under house adventures and plumbing/ electric work as needed or when. It was nice to stand up on the future second floor and look down. It was also nice to catch a glimpse of what the view will be from the bedroom. 

The above photo shows our shameless use of lag bolts to hold the timber frame together. We did use angle bracing ( cherry in this case) to help keep the frame in square. While mortis and tenon would have been beautiful and is an honorable craft. It is not a craft I possess and so in the interest of stability the lag screws are countersunk into the frames, hidden but there. 

beginning: tiny timber house

Construction has begun on the timber framed tiny house. We have tucked the house onto a terrace in the woods and most all the supplies have been hand carried to the spot due to limited access via vehicles. We are using 6x6 oak beams. The photos to the left show the bathroom area up and framed. The footprint is 200 square foot. The total will be a 400 square foot house with kitchen and bathroom on the main level and laundry, bedroom, closet and sitting are upstairs.