Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Alaska Cabin foundation suggestions

Be VERY careful thinning cottonwoods unless you thin ALL of them... They like to fall down on cabins and removing just some leaves the remaining trees more open to the wind and far more likely to blow down...

Do any private residences up there use permafrost cooling tubes?

I've only seen them on larger buildings. Hydraulic jacks are handy for small structures. (And the radiators only help minimize problems anyway; things still shift.)

tag

What mile is that?

I opened the picture in it's original location and you can zoom in. As best as I can tell the yellow sign says little globe creek and I think the number 420. So if that's the case, I think it's somewhere around Fairbanks.

That's off the Elliot Highway north of Fairbanks.

Search on google "Conex Cabins" then click on images !

lots of great ideas for a shipping container cabin

I have property near the Deshka Landing and may go with something like this ....

http://weburbanist.com/2009/12/01/c...-home/21-holyoke-family-container-cabin/

The caveat with conex cabins is by the time you add the structure to support the roof (conex roofs cannot support much snowload) add structure for insulating the walls etc, you've essentially built a cabin around the conex.

But something like this might be worth considering

Crossfireoops North!

that pic to me looks to be taken facing north

lots of areas look the same, but it looks like my old sheep training run where the pipeline crosses Goldstream creek.


as to "do any folks use pipeline methods for private residences?"


on the south side of farmers loop in fbks, there's a house built upon that technology.

old pard of mine did it, he retired from pipeline work and headed south as many have done

Yup, That just about sez it all

oops seems my amigo had already pretty well identified that spot

it doesn't look like much, but with 90# on your back, it's a ball buster at the bottom

It was suggested to me by the previous owner to use railroad ties for our cabin foundation. That's what he uses on his current lot and he's much lower and wetter than what we are.

I'm also building a shop by our house and will probably use them for the foundation unless I decide to go with concrete.


Thoughts?

Ties or treated timbers is what I'm familiar with in permafrost country. The new school, built 6-7 years ago, 200-300 feet in length, sitting on high-pressure ammonia-filled columns set 25 feet into terra-frost, had shifted by 2-3 inches in the first year. If you have permafrost, pads are the best way….and insulate the building from the ground the best you can.

Oh, another anecdote: our school got a nice new welding shop. It was built on an old runway which was built up off the tundra a good 6-8 feet and had been in place for better than 30 years. A more stable piece of ground one could not find in that country given that it had been hammered by thousands of planes landing. Trenches were dug in that hard pack for footed concrete walls, insulation was laid and in-floor heat loops were installed before a concrete floor was poured. It's a small building, around 1000 sq ft. In the second year of heat in the floor, the floor receded enough so that first, the air compressor hose would slide under an interior wall, a couple months later a 2x4 would slide under (laid flat), and by the beginning of the third year, that same 2x4 would fit under that wall on edge. At least the wall had some integrity. A building you can jack as needed is a smart way way to build. Pads and beams/glue lams are not a bad foundation on questionable ground.

I don't think permafrost is going to be an issue since this is on the side of a ridge and is not a wet property.

The folks we bought this property from built there's on flat ground and they used railroad ties for their foundation. He has only had 1 issue with 1 corner of his cabin shifting so it seems that this might be the way to go where we will be building.

Had TMP do 12 pilings for me last month. I'm getting started on then new cabin right now. So far, I'm pretty impressed with these helical piles. Dave did a great job...

I built a 16x20 cabin up the Little Noatak River back in 04 and it has done well. I jacked and leveled it as needed normally every 2 years. It has been left alone for the pass few years and this was the summer for major work on the place.

Aug 1 was the date. We had major sagging on the SE corner so it not only required jacking but I had to shift 3 of the post/pads about 2 inches to the west. I reset 6 of the 9 posts and all 3 on the deck. The next time I need to level her I am going with cribs 24 x24 on the 4 corners