Cabin in the Woods
Thanksgiving
WE HAVE ELECTRICITY
The trip to the cabin for Thanksgiving, was starting to become a monotonous routine. Scramble to load the truck, pick up Denise, load up the final items, head out, top up the truck's gas tank and head out to deal with long weekend traffic.
The trailer lights had been again worked on, this time, they made it to Hatzic before crapping out. Not impressed. We did have a plus side to this trip. AIR BAGS in the truck suspension. We now had a way to adjust the height of the back of the truck. If the tongue weight was too much, we could adjust the air bags to keep the low beams low. This way we wouldn't have ever second car flashing their high beams at us, thinking we had ours on.
This trip was totally different. We only had two people flash their high beams at us. One when we were coming over a rise, so it was understandable, they would think it was our high beams. The second was your typical a**hole from the lower main land flashing as we were almost on him.
Here is my plug for the Firestone air suspension system. IT IS FANTASTIC. Bill at Fountain Tire in Mission did a fantastic job of hooking up the airbags, and they worked very well. The ride was so stable that we didn't even notice the trailer on the back. In fact, I had to keep looking back to see if it was still there. That was a first. This trip may not have been the heaviest load we took up, but it was the most stable. And the trip was smooth to say the least.
Rain didn't let up all the way up to the cabin, so we were a bit worried about the driveway being slippery, muddy, or even washed out. When we got there, it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be. However, when turning the truck to back the trailer into the laneway the truck AND trailer started to slide in the wet ground. I decided to pull into the grassy area where the container will go. This made us aware that the container would have to go in another area, or further back to give us more maneuvering room. I put the truck in 4 wheel drive and had no problems backing into the lane up to the house.
Unloading the trailer proved to be more fun. This required boots. Every time I jumped off the trailer with a heavy load, I would sink deeper into the mud hole I was creating. Some of the heavier crates we had brought up, would have to wait until, hopefully, the rain would stop.
We were excited to get into the house since we had been notified a few weeks before, that we had our electricity connected. That meant we would have light, and the ability to fire up a 1500 watt heater if needed. As it turned out, it WAS needed.
The fan/light combo were to be connected to 3-way switches. One at the kitchen door, and one at the bottom of the steps to the loft. We had trouble getting it to work, until D changed the batteries in the remote control for the fan. As it turned out, the switch on the steps did nothing. We did have light, and a fan (until we put the scaffold up and blocked the blades).
Denise in the glow of our newly connected light and fan.
As usual, we brought the Honda generator to life, to get some heat in the place. The first thing we hooked up was our new space heater. The portable refrigerator was next. Everything was going to have to be run off the generator until I could get an outlet wired into the panel. That was Project One for me.
HEAT. We brought this and another heater to keep us warm until the wood stove could be set up.
The fan and light Timberline Electric hooked up before we arrived.
THE SCAFFOLD
D. had two goals for this trip, assemble the scaffold so we could put the stove pipe in, and cut the tiles for the hearth. We bought the scaffold for two projects, finish the insulation and drywall for the gables, and put the chimney in. We wanted heat from the wood stove. Would it be enough heat to keep the place warm? We wouldn't find out until the last night we were there.
The scaffold was a huge score we got at Princess Auto. Several weeks before the Thanksgiving trip, we got a flier in the mail which showed the scaffold, outrigger wheels and safety cage all on sale. We managed to save approximately 400 dollars on the the whole package. I had un-packaged the parts to ensure we had everything before we headed up. All parts were there.
Some assembly was required, and we managed to get it set up with about 7 inches of clearance under the ceiling beams. It was close. Even with the outrigger wheels on, standing on the scaffold was scary to say the least. It was shaky, so D used a strap to tether it to the beams on the gable. This helped make it solid. When I climbed to the top level, I tethered the guard railings to the beams, this let me work without shaking the scaffold. It was now steady as a rock.
We had to formulate a complex plan on how to get the chimney in place, connected to the chimney stack, THEN tile the hearth and get the stove on the hearth and the hearth in place. There was a HUGE catch. The stove was almost 400 lbs, the hearth was approximately 500 lbs with the wood, concrete board, mortar, and tiles. Shuffling the hearth around the scaffold, propping the chimney up in position, then lifting the stove onto the hearth, and finally moving everything into place, after moving the scaffold. 900 lbs of shuffling, for two people in their 50s was a no-brainer. After all, the Egyptians moved rocks weighing tons, across the desert. Rookies.
Denise assembling the scaffold
Strapping the scaffold to the beam for stability
While I was connecting the plug to the panel in the basement, D started the assembly of the chimney pipe, using the handy dandy sketch drawn on the invoice by Trennis, from Starland. From a few photos I emailed to him, and an estimated dimension of the height, he managed to be bang on the sizing of the pipes for our build.
D was still a bit puzzled as to how we were going to get all the weight of the chimney to balance on the weight of the stove while moving it and the hearth into place. I had run it through my head for a month and had it figured out, for the most part.
THE CHIMNEY PIPE MASTER PLAN
The game plan was to assemble the chimney pipe, in place, while the stove sat on two sheets of concrete board. This way, if we had it connected, we could actually use the stove until the hearth was finished, then we could put it in place, under the stove, and reattach the pipe, with the stove being at the right height.
We found that one of the pipes was a slip pipe. It would slide inside one of the other pipes to allow some flexibility in the length of the overall pipe. The trick would be to hold the chimney above the slip pipe in such a way that it wouldn't slide down away from the chimney, where it was to be screwed in.
As the pipe came together, I rapped a towel around the pipe, to prevent scratching, and strapped it to the scaffold to keep it from sliding down. It worked.
My method of keeping the slip pipe from dropping while I screw the top into the chimney.
D. assembling the chimney
D. assembled the pipe on the ground and started to assemble it on the scaffold. As it grew higher, it was obvious that I would have to climb up to the top, and pull the top part of the pipe, up, and into place, then screw it to the chimney. A couple straps helped secure the pipe to the scaffold for support. As it turned out, I was just tall enough to use a long screw bit in the drill to screw the pipe flange into the chimney. It worked.
In order to move the stove out of the way, and then raise it onto the hearth, while in position, we needed to adjust the pipe for the height difference (4.5 inches) So we loosened the strap on the slip pipe, and while I pushed up on it, D would shove shims of wood under the pipe to raise it above the stove. This is where it would sit until the hearth was done.
Securing the pipe to the scaffold until I screw it into the chimney.
The chimney pipe in place. Note the straps holding it to the scaffold.
D giving the pipe some dimension. 19 ft of it. Note the boards raising the chimney pipe to the proper height, before the hearth goes into place.
Having popcorn next to the fake fire given off by the electric heater.
The next task was all Denise's. Build the hearth by cutting the tiles and using the mortar we had brought with us. That would take the next two days. In the mean time the pipe would sit on the boards resting on the stove.
I quickly hooked up one plug in the main room to give us a place to plug in the electric heater. We used the generator to keep the fridge and second heater up in the loft, going.
The first night we were concerned about whether we would be cold in the loft, or not. Sure heat rises, but there was very little of it coming from two 1500 watt heaters. One stayed on the main floor, one was about 4 ft from the cots where we slept. I wasn't taking any chances, on the first night. I slept in my clothes, had a thick fleece jacket on, and my camo hunting coat, with a touque for my head. By 2 am, I had shed the coat and was sweating profusely. I was hot, NOT warm. By 5am I had the fleece off, but I kept the touque on. Surprisingly, the floor was warm. The next day, we were told the temperature had dropped to -5C. WOOOHOOOO We weren't going to freeze to death.
The second night, I wore long johns and my fleece to bed and was never cold. The temperature had dropped to -10C. Yet the temperature inside, according to our broken thermometer was showing about 45F or about 5C. I say it was broken, because it didn't feel less than 60 or 15C. Going outside was a different matter. I was chilly. Some frost was on the ground and the mud was starting to harden up in the cold. I was hoping it would freeze so I wouldn't break a leg hauling the last of the crates off the trailer, should my feet get stuck in the mud.
Showing 45F, it felt a lot like 60F (15C) even when the outside temp was -10C
D hard at work building the hearth for the wood stove.
Note the heater going in the back ground to keep the mortar warm.
After several days, the falling leaves started to camoflage the mud hole I fell into.
On the last trip, I had started to rig up the wiring in the washroom, hoping we could have light, and bring the composting toilet up from the basement, so we wouldn't freeze our asses off. This time I used the proper wire to redo the switch and connect the plug in the washroom. That would be plug number 2. This is where we ran the heater in the loft after the second night. No more generator, everything was now run on the power from the house. We did have one incident where the 15 amp breaker in the main room tripped when D fired up the microwave, coffee maker, fridge and heater at the same time. It was understandable. Now we could separate the load to two different breakers.
WHEN WILD ANIMALS ATTACK
On the second night I was waken by a clicking sound in the main room, or, at the kitchen door, or the window. At first I thought it was some animal sniffing around for scraps now that someone was in the place. I nudged D and she played dead. After all, it is usually the guy who gets eaten by the marauding bear, or wolverine, while the wife slumbers. Personally, I think she was faking it. It has been known to happen.
I searched around for my flashlight and headed down from the loft. Passing the window at the bottom of the steps I looked out, expecting to be grabbed through the window by a feather footed Sasquatch. Nothing, I was now on the main floor, and still heard the clicking noise. It was coming from the main room, near the kitchen door. I walked over, checking my back for sneaky bears who may have already broken in from the basement. I fully expected to see a porcupine, or raccoon, or even a bear sniffing around the door. My gun was upstairs, next to my 'sleeping' wife. I shined the light out the window, nothing. Through the door, nothing. I took a few steps back and heard the sound again. This time it sounded like it was coming from the walls toward the corner of the main room, behind a sheet of plywood. I looked behind the plywood, just as my light went out. Great, I've seen this in monster movies, I get eaten just as my light dies. Earlier in the evening I had my head light in use, wiring up some lights in the basement, so I got that and listened. Again I heard the noise, but there was nothing around. I decided to go into the basement. If I'm going to get it, I'll get it where the blood can be hosed out the front door. Surprisingly, nothing grabbed my legs as I walked down the steps. I looked around and found no eyes reflecting the light back at me. Then the noise started again. I pinpointed the source as being on the main floor, about 6 inches from the east wall.
I walked up the steps and moved into position to check behind the plywood again. The only thing that had been back there was an ant trap. One of those red and white hockey puck units the ants go into and take the poison back to their nests to die. This time, however, it had moved closer to the plywood than the last peak. THE MONSTER WAS INSIDE THE HOUSE. I shut the light off and waited about 2 monster proof minutes then kicked it back on, in the direction of the trap. There it was. Teeth bigger than its mouth, a tail longer than its body, evil black eyes. A mouse. For whatever reason it wanted whatever was in that trap. Lucky for us, I had another trap available to me. A mouse trap that would catch him alive. I set the trap with some cheese, and went back to bed.
A few hours later I heard the 'clink' of the trap. I had won. The mouse was all mine. I would deal with him in the morning.
The next morning D got to the rodent first and asked me if I was going to kill it. I told her I was going to take it to the wood pile, and have a talk. (That is an Autoliv joke) I don't think she believed me since she came with me for the releasing event. For the record, the little bastard made it back into the house two nights later. I'll be back.
The mouse that lost.
THANKSGIVING AT BRENDA LEE'S HOUSE
I don't know if I ever covered this but we have ONE friend in Burns Lake, who we knew before we moved. Brenda Lee was our neighbor in Mission until she sold her house and moved to BL about 3-4 years ago. Taking full advantage of the housing boom in the area, she sold her house and headed north to parts unknown, with no job prospects, and no friends there to help, with the exception of her nephew Lorn, who lived an hour away. A gutsy move to say the least. Like a true survivor, she got a job, learned all the tricks to living in the frozen tundra and survived to pass life knowledge on to us.
Originally we were going to move to Ontario, but we tripped over this Cabin in the Woods while Denise was visiting Brenda Lee. A trip up to the Cabin would be a total insult if we didn't go visit Brenda Lee. As it happened, she invited us to Thanksgiving dinner. Reminiscent of get-togethers we had in Mission, this was again a great time.
We were blessed with the company of Brenda Lee's nephew, Lorn, his wife Ashley, and their son Sawyer. Although we don't see or communicate with them like BL does, we do live with their life adventures, through BL's posts on Facebook. They came to enjoy the company and food.
Lorn and Ashley have been living in the area a few years longer than BL and showed HER the ropes, so to speak. Lorn and I chatted about everything I would need to know to get through a winter in the frozen tundra. I scored some great advice regarding tires, snowblowers, chainsaws, heating the house and a multitude of other subjects I had numerous questions about.
Lounging before Thanksgiving Dinner
Lorn and I
The feast provided by Brenda Lee
The gang. All except BL
D pouring non alcoholic stuff
POSITIONING THE HEARTH AND STOVE
Once the hearth was finished, it was time to perform Phase Two of our stove assembly plan. I had rigged up two 2x4 legs and placed a 2x8 plank between them to hold the chimney pipe up so we could get the stove out of the way for the hearth. Then place it on the hearth and get it back into position. Several obstacles slowed us down. The main one was getting the scaffold out of the way. Once the pipe was on the 'bridge' I had made, I climbed up the scaffold and removed the straps holding the pipe. I then removed the straps supporting the scaffold to the beams. I then climbed down and moved the scaffold carefully out of the way and around the fan.
The next trick was to get the stove out of the way and remove the concrete boards it was sitting on. This was where the hearth would go. We wiggled the stove out of the way and pulled the boards out one at a time. The next trick was to move the hearth as close as we could. THIS was a major feat. At about 500 lbs, we couldn't lift it. We could barely push it across the floor, but using leverage, we managed to get it close to its final position.
Then we had to get the stove onto the hearth without breaking our backs. D removed the bricks to lighten the stove. We used the orange moving cart and strapped the stove to the cart. Then I tipped it back to get the front of the stove onto the hearth. To keep from scratching the hearth with the moving of the stove, we used cardboard to slide it into place on the hearth. NOW, how to move 1/2 a ton of metal, wood and tiles across the floor. I got the crow bar from the basement and D lifted the edge of the hearth with the moving cart, while I got the crowbar under it. I lifted and rolled the whole unit, inch by inch, into position then we adjusted the stove's location so it was under the pipe.
While D moved the 'bridge' I held the whole chimney pipe, in a bear hug, until she could locate it onto the stove. With a little wiggling of the stove, and the use of a level, we had it in place. I screwed the last screws into the slip pipe and the job was done.
The bridge holding the pipe off the stove.
The bridge
The partition wall I made for our shoes. The concrete boards will be mounted on the back of the wall and tiles will be mortared on giving more heat dissipation.
The hearth, stove and wall in place.
D's First fire in the stove.
D taking photos of the fire she built.
A LITTLE BIT ABOUT THE BLAZE KING
Why the Blaze King? Why was it our choice? We were going to be living in an area where temperatures could drop to -40C for weeks at a time. We wanted something dependable, and something that would heat our place with ease, and for long periods of time. Catalytic stoves were going to be the way to go. A normal stove has to be stoked 5-6-7-8 times a day depending on the wood, size and damper position. I didn't want to have to get wood all day long to stay warm. That might be fun in Boy Scouts but not in my 60s. Brenda Lee had one so we started there. She had the Princess model, which was a bit bigger than the one we chose, the Sirocco 30.2. Since she had to heat 2500 ft and we only had to heat our main floor and loft of about 600 ft, we didn't need a large one, just one that would stay heating if we had to go to town for the day.
Surprisingly, Blaze King made the claim that this unit could stay lit and heating for up to 30 hours. I found it hard to believe, but BL said hers stayed lit all night. Good enough. The next claim was that it would heat 1100 - 2400 ft of space. Since we weren't going to be heating the basement with it, that left 600 ft to worry about. Well within the specs. The third thing that we liked was the capacity. It had a 2.9 cu.ft. firebox. So we could cram it full of wood and not worry about it for a long time. I was hesitant at the price, but nothing elsewhere could match the claimed heat output. PLUS we had someone who could vouch for it, Brenda Lee.
Reading the manual, is like doing the run up to a Saturn V rocket before launch. It was confusing at best. Flip this, open this, do this, DON'T DO THIS!!!! So I let D handle it. She was great with instructions, so I let her fire it up for the first time.
Be Prepared!!!!! When you light this thing up for the first time, FOLLOW THE MANUAL. When it says that the first time will cure the finish, read "It will stink up the place'. It did. It actually sounded so complex I didn't want to touch it. Once D got the fire going, something was amiss. There was smoke everywhere in the house. I went outside to see if there was anything actually coming out of the chimney, fearing there was a bird's nest or something blocking the way for the smoke. Even though I didn't see anything when I was putting the pipe in the chimney. D pointed out, that if it was working correctly, there wouldn't be any smoke coming out of the chimney. As it turned out, there was a white smoke coming out. I assumed it was working, but where was the smoke coming from? After a while the smoke cleared, the smoke alarms stopped screeching and we settled down for a nice toasty evening (Our last at the Cabin).
It wasn't until we got home and I was chatting with Brenda Lee online that the mystery was beginning to unravel. I told her it was complicated and she gave me a YouTube video to watch. This was a cute skit from Blaze King regarding one man learning how to use it. I watched it and then it occurred to me. I did not hear a click when the bypass lever was closed to activate the catalytic thingie.... after looking at the photos I could see that the lever was not fully down. I have since made small queue cards to help with the steps.
Starting a New Fire
1. Open Bypass (lever on right, to the front)
2. Open Combustion Air Control (turn to high)
3. Empty Ashes if required
4. Build and light a fire
5. When the Catalyst thermometer (on the top of the stove) reads in the active zone, close bypass
6. Run fire for 25-30 minutes
7. Adjust air control to required temperature.
Warming my feet by the REAL fire. Our first fire in the stove.
Some of the other 'odd jobs' we worked on was an address sign for the house. We were told you can't get any services if you don't have one. So Denise found some numbers at the Restore, and I made a board she could use. She installed the numbers, I put a finish on it and mounted it on the front of the house. A team effort.
Our new address sign
Another project was to make the metal railing for the other side of the steps leading to the basement. I got as far as cutting the wood, and sizing it on the existing railing. A small book case will be made in the future to fit between the metal fence railing and the steps.
The frame for the fence railing. First we will remove the wood then add the wire fencing, THEN, a small book shelf to the right.
The connector for the generator
The fitting for the generator plug
The junction behind the washroom for the vanity conduit
The washroom conduit
The plug for the washroom composting toilet
My makeshift bench with electrical parts.
