Letter for town written, walls done.

I finished up the letter for the town, had it reviewed by Dad and Barry, so I think I am ready to move forward with it.  Now to just fill out the building permit form and finish the tiny home designs, which I will be bringing with me.  I hope to finish at a minimum the electrical and plumbing (I expect those to be the biggest concern of the zoning board), but would like to finish all of it.  Since it is being shortened (no loft), I can actually put a real pitched roof on it.  I know 3/12 is sufficient, 2/12 will do if it is sufficiently slick (2/12 is roughly what the AC cover I made for Andy had, and he said the snow slid off it slowly but surely), but I also don't want to end up trying to put siding on a 10 foot wall again.  That was obnoxious on the shed.

Here are the wall plans.  There shouldn't be any surprises, just classic 2x4 16" OC studs. I decided a 7' wall should be tall enough.  I can hang a ceiling fan and not hit my head on it.


Tomorrow I will be heading up and checking to see if the weight limits are still on the road and starting to pick up the junk that blew around all winter, since there is a chance that they will come up and look at the property.

Next up is to finish the plans, I hope to have the electric and plumbing done by the weekend.  I have it all in my head, it is just time to get it out for other people to see.

Ill for the last few days, but work has progressed

Around Wednesday, I came down with something that really kicked my butt, between Thursday and Saturday, I probably slept 40 hours, impeding my progress on pretty much everything.  I felt better today though, and went up to check on things and start getting things documented.

My repairs on the trailer paint job from the rust converter appear to be holding.




In addition the creek is starting to lower a bit to normal.


The dandelions are coming up.  That means it is time to get the mower ready, which I haven't even touched yet.


The yard is just starting to turn green too.


It won't be too much longer before the trees start to bloom either, the buds are beginning to swell, though I am not sure if you can see it in this picture.


Just for curiosity's sake, I went up and measured the bumper on the trailer that I was intending to cut off to put the extension on.  It is the exact length of the extension that I was going to put on...  It is 14" long, not including the tube bumper.


The main reason I was intending to cut it off is because the bumper itself was in a terrible state.


The extension itself is welded on quite well and seemed solid when I poked it today.  So now I just need to determine which is stronger, a 2x6 or 2x4 tube steel.

I also took the plastic off the windows, so my shades are open for the first time since last fall.


I also updated the subflooring diagram, and will be working on the plumbing and electric next.


I am also working on the formal write up of my argument for the variance, which I hope to have completed today.

Driveway delayed, variance begun.

I went to the gravel place, and they said that they couldn't haul any gravel up there until the spring weight limits are gone.  Right now the road has a 5 ton weight limit.  He said they are almost always gone by May, but it will probably be earlier this year.

I also went up to the town hall today, and apparently the process for getting a variance is as follows:

1. Fill out a building permit application.
2. Meet with the town selectsman, who will say that they can't approve it until the zoning board approves it.
3. (Normally one would be getting the septic approved at this point, but they are ok with me waiting on the septic until the variance decision is made)
4. Call a meeting with the zoning board.  Normally they will visit the property and I can show them what is going where, and so on.
5. Basically give the zoning board my motivation/reasons/etc for the variance.  From there they will either pass it or not.  I believe this is just a majority vote of the members.  

This weekend, I will be updating all my plans (since the length and design changed, my electrical/wiring diagram is out of date for example), documenting everything so that whatever they might question I can answer, plus it makes me look more prepared.  

The end of the nice weather, better than half refurbished.

Today is the last day of the really warm weather, tomorrow the temperature starts to plummet again.  Despite two days in the 80s and sunny, there is still snow up there.


I also managed to get better than half the trailer done before I ran out of paint again.  I think I will buy two cans this time, since the front was the worst part, which I am just now reaching.  The central crossmember was especially bad.


Most of the cross beams are done now.  Even with the crappy cell phone camera, you can still see where I stopped...


So the short version is that the rust converter was not worth the time.

Tomorrow I will be stopping at the gravel place on my way into work, since I never seem to get to it during the day.  I also intend to head up to the town clerk and start the paperwork for the variance, and at least figure out what the process is.

Just shy of a record high.

It was very warm today, we were two degrees off the record high of 82 in Keene.  I didn't get too much done today, but I did get the back half of the trailer completed, until I ran out of paint.  I only bought one can since I expected to only be doing touch up work, and that is used up, so I stopped and bought another one on my way home.  The picture is kinda crappy since I took it with my phone.


Unfortunately the front half is the worst part, so we shall see how that goes.  It has been a bit slow going with the hand drill and wire brush, but since the wire brushing required is pretty minimal, it will probably be fine.

I also got Barry up there during lunch today.  The slab was in fact reinforced with rebar, placed approximately 2ft apart, according to his metal detector.  It took a while to get it calibrated, since there a lot of random staples and the like on the slab, but after some sweeping and desensitizing it, he found metal in the slab in pretty regular intervals, which indicates rebar was used to reinforce it, not wire mesh.  That is good news finally, just in case I need to erect some walls and a roof to pacify the town.

Beautiful warm day.

Today was nice, up in the 60s and sunny.  I actually went up to work on the property to do work for the first time in a while.

The driveway was clear, and reasonably firm.  I was able to get the car up without trouble.  I took the car since the truck's inspection is out of date (expired in March).  The windshield cracked over the winter.  It has a new windshield in it now, but they didn't want the truck on a lift (it torques the truck a little) until next week.


The creek has been very very high the last several weeks.  I briefly looked at a hydro-generator, a powerspout (http://www.powerspout.com), but apparently even despite the head, I am not sure I have enough volume to be able to do anything more than charge my phone.  I might get more out of it in the spring (like right now), but most of the year the volume just isn't there.


The snow hasn't all melted off up there yet, so the first thing I did was finish shoveling off the slab, at least where the trailer is.




I haven't gotten the electrician up there yet, so I used my cordless drill to do the wire brushing.  I didn't get very far before the batteries gave out (the first one was nearly dead already, I haven't charged it all winter), but I did get the bulk of one side wire brushed and painted.  I also picked up the first new cross beam, but sadly Ace only had one in stock.




By the time I was finished, the slab had melted off the thin layer of ice on the bottom and was starting to dry off.  It was only around 3 when I left, so I am hoping it is completely dry tomorrow.  Barry is going to bring in his metal detector to see if we can tell how the concrete was reinforced, whether they used that wimpy wire mesh stuff or full on rebar.  I am assuming rebar, especially since the tie downs for the old trailer were rebar laid in the concrete when it was poured.

I recently hit another snag, a potentially fatal one.  The town of Sullivan updated their ordinances last month (essentially the town laws) and have outlawed any primary residence under 700 square feet.  Since my tiny home is only 208 square feet, I might have a problem.  The selectsman thankfully recognized me and told me when I went up there to fill out the paperwork for my property taxes, and mentioned I might be able to get a variance (essentially an exemption), but gave me a booklet to make sure none of the other changes bode ill for my plans, which I will read tonight.  I plan on going up and starting the paperwork for the variance very quickly.  My main arguments will be:

1. I am hoping to get grandfathered in since I started the tiny home project last year when none of the ordinances existed yet.  My blog is proof if it is needed.
2. The tiny home is not a permanent fixture and that I will be building a full sized house on the lot eventually.
3. I am rehabbing the lot, taking what was a crummy lot and making it nicer, raising its value.  The lot has been overgrown and has been an eyesore for several years.  I plan on knocking down the old foundation and filling it in, I will be putting in a real driveway very shortly, etc.

If they need a hearing, I might bring Barry with me; he is familiar with these kinds of processes as a zoning board member in Westmoreland, which is the next town over.

If the town rejects the variance, then things get interesting.  I will then have to start looking for loopholes (ie get it considered as a seasonal or non-permanent residence), alternative plans (build the garage on the slab first?  The slab is 28x40, plenty big enough) and those kinds of things.  Regardless of the outcome though, even if I end up selling the lot, I will still probably build the tiny home, get the driveway started, get the electric fixed, and probably a few other things.  The lot was listed for over two years when I bought it, and I don't think I would want to wait that long for it to sell, so hopefully it doesn't come to that.

In addition to all that, I finally got around to fixing my old glasses.  I picked up some JB Weld at Ace, unfortunately all they carry nowadays is the putty stuff, the liquid and hardener style wasn't available.  The putty kinda sucks for my application; if I wanted bazooka bubble gum, I would use bazooka bubble gum...  We shall see later tonight whether or not it works.  The frames are stainless steel, which it should work good for.  

Mother nature wins again.

So I went up to the property today with the snowblower.  I only got the end of the driveway and around the mailbox done.  Apparently the ground didn't refreeze like I thought it had, and snowblowing was an exercise in frustration.  A few feet into the driveway  the snowblower sank into the mud.  So I pulled it out, moved over a few feet, started to go again, and it sank into the mud.  Snowblowers don't work too well when they are buried in mud.

In the end, I only got about the first five or six feet done, but hopefully with the nice temps and sunshine coming this week, it will be melted off by weeks end.  I was able to drive my truck up the hill, but turning around didn't work so well, I ended up sliding part way down the hill sideways.

Updated designs

I started to make a bill of materials for the loft and draw an isometric view of what it would look like in both the up and down states, and came to a stark realization: I won't be able to lower it, it would crush my TV and monitors.  That coupled with the large amount of weight I expected it would add to the house has led me to go into a different direction.  What I am planning instead is a platform that swings down from the wall.

The original platform design:


I also updated the floorplans, and cut a foot out of them.  The plan is that this will allow me to not have to extend the frame, the only welding left is to replace the broken crossbars, which won't hold up construction until I am ready to install plumbing and electric.  Instead I will probably bolt in a pressure treated 2x6 or 2x8 since I won't be building too far over the edge.

The updated floorplans.  I haven't decided which I prefer yet.  The only difference is that one of them has a little less counter space and has dedicated space for the table.  The other the table would fold out in front of the door.


All the "rain" the other day was snow up at the property, only a couple of inches though.  I shoveled off the bank at the end, and we shall see if tomorrow's precipitation ends up as snow or rain as predicted.

Mother nature is taunting me... and changed her mind

Despite several consecutive weeks of record-breaking warm weather, all precipitation being rain, and a surprising amount of sun for spring time, winter has returned.  For several weeks in a row now we have seen both 60+ and single digits within a couple days of each other.  And lately, the snow has returned as well.  Sullivan almost always gets more, and this was our "no accumulation expected" from last night...  It was about 3".


We are supposed to get another major storm on Tuesday;  8-12 on Tuesday, and another 2-4 on Wednesday.  Since I am leaving Thursday for Aunt's and Uncle's for my trip to KY, I may not get all of it cleared.

I wanted to have the gravel and maybe the trailer and electric done before I went down, but that is not looking good at the moment.

Mud season begins

Despite the fact that I can't shake the little voice in the back of my head reminding me it is only February and that winter will return, it looks like mud season has begun.

Thanks to the warm days of late, The driveway is now impassable (at least with the car, I haven't tried the truck yet).  The mud in the driveway was deep enough that my car was scraping in spots.  I guess it is time to call the gravel guy I wanted to call last year.


Soup at the end of the driveway.


Deep ruts.  The ruts from trying to drive my car up it are now serving as run off creeks.


The other paths that I cleared are also bare.  That means once the driveway is passable I can call the electrician.




What I did clear on the slab is also barren.  I think I could easily get the trailer out for the welding guy.


Even the path to the shed is mostly clear, which gets the least sunlight


It looks part of my restoration last fall didn't take.  I noticed that it was only the part I did with the rust converter that had this problem.  The part I did with the wire wheel was all good.  I will have to do some touch up this spring.




As you might expect, the creek is ridiculously high.  We have been getting rain, and it is warm and sunny (when not raining) so everything is melting off at a rapid rate.


This is almost knee deep.  It is the deepest I have seen it, outside of the flash flooding a little over a year ago.  Even compared to that, this is pretty close to as deep.


I did go up and visit the welder today, he is closer than I thought, only about 5 miles north of the property.  Unfortunately Google lied to me and said he was open today, but that wasn't the case, so I will have to try back some other time.  I did notice that he is portable, he has a big van, so he might come to me to do the work, instead of me taking the trailer to him.  We can work out those details after I get a hold of him though.

Nice warm day.

I went up to snowblow the last little bit from the snow marathon, and most of it had actually already melted.  When I was up there yesterday, the snow was melting faster than I was clearing it.

For starters, I am not sure who did it, but thanks for pushing the banks back.  These banks were approaching the point where the snowblower would no longer throw over them.


They also push stuff back on either side of the mailbox, which I finished clearing out.  I don't get mail up there yet, I haven't forwarded everything since my PO box doesn't expire for another couple of months, and since I am not consistently up there enough to clear, I haven't switched everything over.


I got all the normal clearing done, and a little extra.  Among the extras that I got done this time is a path to the electric panel so I can call the electrician and get him out there.


I also did a path to the creek.


The creek is quite full, as you might expect from a 40's and sunny day.


I also made a loop around the trailer, with hopes that I might be able to bring it somewhere to get the welding done before May.


Each time I have cleared up there I have cleared a little bit of the ice that has built up from not clearing it right away.  In a few spots, I am finally through it.


All this came at the expense of the snowblower though, the slope has never been kind to the snowblower, and this time the tire came off the rim.


I started working on the bank on the side of the shed.  The metal seems to relocate the snow quite well, but the ridge cap doesn't seem to be as big a fan.


I found the shovel to work the best.  I will be finishing it up today.  The good news is that I will probably only have to do this once for the winter.  Unless we get another few nor'easters in a short time span, this should hold it until spring.

Ahead after the second leg of the marathon.

Happy Valentine's day.  I had a nice moonlit feast under the moon and stars... with a 5HP MTD snowblower.  It ate more snow than I did though.  

After the second round getting 8 or so inches of snow, I spent the last couple of evenings snowblowing.  It is all done though, (sorry, my camera was left at home).  I even got a path to the electric panel and the creek cleared as well.  Tomorrow's snow has been downgraded to 1-3, so I may not even bother clearing it.  

I have been feeding the snowblower a lot of carburetor cleaner, but I have noticed that the various cleaners behave very differently.  The mechanic in a bottle stuff worked the best (as I mentioned in the previous entry) but I am noticing that the STP cleaner is inducing some very strange behavior.  With the mechanic in a bottle, the snowblower ran best with 1 click of choke, and sputtered a bit with 2 clicks.  It ran with no choke, but you lost some RPMs and power.  With the STP cleaner, the machine runs noticeably poorly at first when it is cold, but once warmed up, it runs like a brand new machine with 2 clicks of choke.  One click runs, but with significantly less power, and no choke is worse still (and borderline unusable, it stalls nearly immediately whenever the engine bogs).  It produces the most power and throws the best with the STP and 2 clicks of choke, but that was not the desired outcome.  I will admit that despite running with extra choke, it was nice to be able to use 2nd gear for pretty close the whole driveway though...  Something I will have to ponder going forward, since I am not sure which is better for the snowblower (and minimizing the amount of time it takes me to clear).

While I was talking to Tim today, he brought up something I hadn't thought of.  I have a nice metal roof on my shed that sheds the snow quite well (no leaks yet) with its 6/12 pitch.  However, on the side of the shed that is facing uphill, I am having a lot of build up that is now pushing against the side of the shed.  A very crude paint special illustration (right side is the problem):

I am not sure what I can do about it, and as long as it doesn't push the shed downhill off the pilings I am not sure it is an issue.  It does mean that the siding is absorbing a lot more moisture than I would like it to, especially since it is unfinished T1-11 (I never got to urethaning/sealing or painting it), but I am admittedly mostly concerned about it pushing the shed since it isn't attached to the ground and is only held on the blocks by gravity.  So far there have been no problems though.  I guess time will tell.  I will certainly keep an eye on it.

Survived the first leg of the snow marathon.

We have a bit of a snow marathon going on.  We got 6-8" yesterday, and are supposed to get another 8-12" tomorrow, and then another 5-8" on Thursday.  The snowblower wouldn't survive trying to do all of it at once, so I will be snowblowing a lot over the next week.

I started it last night, just enough to get my truck parked.  It took around an hour, and since I was parked on the road, I left my four way flashers on.  That turned out to be a big mistake, since apparently my battery, while only a year old and a 750CCA battery, puked.  To add insult to injury, my jumper cables are in my car, since that battery is not large and is very old, and has started to struggle a bit in bitter cold.  Thankfully Anx was still up, so we stopped at Walmart and I have a second set of jumper cables now.  Interesting side note, Anx's car is a Dodge Charger, and the battery is not visible from the engine compartment.  The jumper posts for it are on the fuse box.  Needless to say, the truck will be getting a new battery sooner rather than later, the car can wait until next year.

Today went a lot smoother.  I have been running carburetor cleaner through it, which has helped quite a bit.  In case anyone is interested, the Mechanic in a Bottle from Home Depot seems to work a lot better than STP fuel injector cleaner.  While I am still running it with a single click of choke, I can change the throttle of the engine without it stalling out.  It still is lacking in horsepower, but it didn't stall out when bogged as bad as before.  Maybe by the end of the winter it will be running good.

The entire driveway is done.  I didn't break any shear pins this time either.  There is still a ~4" layer of ice underneath the snow, which is why it doesn't look well cleared, since it started to come up in spots, but it is good enough.  I still needed 4WD to get my truck up the hill, but I don't think the Nissan will have any issues.




Not sure how this happened, I must have parked in a snowbank or something...  This is stiff plastic, so it doesn't bend back readily.  I will have to do something with it, it sounds awful when driving down the road.


I tried to clear in front of the mailbox, but I think it is so densely packed that I will need a metal shovel to get through it.  I will need to do this soon, my PO box runs out next month, and I really don't want to renew it.