Buying a piece of property out towards Trapper Creek and was looking for some ideas on what type of foundation would work best for the cabin I plan to build.
Our property is located on a ridge with some good sized trees and the ground seems to be pretty good but we'll know more after everything melts. Was thinking about using pier blocks but I am open to any and all suggestions.
No road but I can get to it in about 10 minutes by wheeler and even faster by sled. It is no more than a mile from the road and is located in Kenny Creek subdivision in Petersville.
The piers are important... and Sonotubes are hard to match, but the real trick to your foundation is going to be the floor system you put atop the piers.
Look at the "torsion box" as the correct answer and build from there. Floor squeaks and springiness can very easily be engineered right out of the equation... and it is cost-efficient +P.
I are not a dirt engineer, somehow I managed to get in a position to tell folks how to not have their chit burn down and how to placate the fire marshal, should they heed my advice.
For what little it's worth, my take on cabin foundations is it's a balance between what is ideal, and what you can practically pull off in a remote location both in terms of how difficult it is to get the tools and materials on site, and how difficult and time consuming it is to do the work. Also remember that in addition to supporting the weight loads you need to consider wind loads. While pier blocks are quick and easy, they aren't going to give you any support for wind loads. But after putting in three sono tubes in rocky soil for a new deck this summer using a post hole digger and mixing up 18 sacks of concrete in a wheelbarrow, I can attest to the appeal of pier blocks.
The piers are important... and Sonotubes are hard to match, but the real trick to your foundation is going to be the floor system you put atop the piers.
Look at the "torsion box" as the correct answer and build from there. Floor squeaks and springiness can very easily be engineered right out of the equation... and it is cost-efficient +P.
I Googled torsion box and came up with lots of links for building furniture and some other small things, have you ever seen a foundation built using a torsion box?
Originally Posted by Sitka deer
And, torsion boxes are easy to insulate...
Funny, I was thinking about this last night, building a double layer floor and insulating in between them. This torsion box thing could be the answer to my foundation question.
On another note, we will be able to get some of my buddies heavy equipment on site to help with the build. He's got a mini excavator that we will use to dig the hole for the outhouse and holes for whatever pier type foundation I decide to use.
He's already been out to the site and said getting his equipment out there won't be a problem.
I've did a number of cabins by ,boat,wheeler,trackrig, it all depends upon the soil(being on a ridge i'd say go this route) a good easy and strong one is to use-used/tired rim's off a tractor trailer, screw jacks from Greer and cement its tuff and u can adjust them ,they don't burn and no digging!
On another note, we will be able to get some of my buddies heavy equipment on site to help with the build. He's got a mini excavator that we will use to dig the hole for the outhouse and holes for whatever pier type foundation I decide to use.
He's already been out to the site and said getting his equipment out there won't be a problem.
If you can get heavy equipment to the site, can you get cement truck to it. If you can I would suggest a footings and frost wall to create a crawl space.
The piers are important... and Sonotubes are hard to match, but the real trick to your foundation is going to be the floor system you put atop the piers.
Look at the "torsion box" as the correct answer and build from there. Floor squeaks and springiness can very easily be engineered right out of the equation... and it is cost-efficient +P.
I Googled torsion box and came up with lots of links for building furniture and some other small things, have you ever seen a foundation built using a torsion box?
Originally Posted by Sitka deer
And, torsion boxes are easy to insulate...
Funny, I was thinking about this last night, building a double layer floor and insulating in between them. This torsion box thing could be the answer to my foundation question.
I have built a number of small cabins and outbuildings with torsion boxes and used them as beams to straighten sagging cabin floors. I would suggest it would save money, time, energy, and reduce the materials needed to build the floor.
I can probably locate drawings I made a long time ago with a couple good designs.
Pay attention to the wind loads as 458Lott mentioned...
The only thing I will add is that you will likely regret any foundation system that doesn't allow you to 'adjust' the level of your structure as necessary.
On another note, we will be able to get some of my buddies heavy equipment on site to help with the build. He's got a mini excavator that we will use to dig the hole for the outhouse and holes for whatever pier type foundation I decide to use.
He's already been out to the site and said getting his equipment out there won't be a problem.
If you can get heavy equipment to the site, can you get cement truck to it. If you can I would suggest a footings and frost wall to create a crawl space.
There's a big difference between running a tracked mini excavator down an RTV trail, and being able to drive a cement truck to the site. Not to mention closest cement trucks are likely a solid 2 hour drive, if not 3 hours each way.
Even if feasible, I'd look at what the increase in cost for building a crawl space (of limited benefit in a remote cabin IMHO) vs. spending the money on increasing the floor space of the cabin by building it longer or wider, a big benefit IMHO.
Cabin will probably be no bigger than 20x24, it's just the 2 of us and our 2 pups so we don't need a huge cabin. Besides, I need to leave some room for a shed big enough to park our sleds or wheelers in just in case I have to work on them and the weather is nasty outside.
Adjustable pier blocks are pretty handy in some applications. Screw in metal piers are another option. Home show in Anc. next weekend - might be some good info if you are in the area.
Even if feasible, I'd look at what the increase in cost for building a crawl space (of limited benefit in a remote cabin IMHO) vs. spending the money on increasing the floor space of the cabin by building it longer or wider, a big benefit IMHO.
I have a hidden trap door opening in the cabin floor to access the crawl space and the space serves as storage and secure place for tools, fishing, hunting gear and other small items that could be stolen while I am away for extended period of time. Wood burning stove is the only source of heat so I store canned goods and other perishable items if I am away for a few days in the cold months. Should I put in in-door plumbing the craw space would help in the installation. In addition, the concrete crawl space is a plus for resale versus a pier system.
For my specific purposes the additional cost is worth it. IMHO
if you want this as something that will last for generations to come and to be handed down in the family over time (hopefully a long time) do it right once and enjoy. as mentioned wind and snow and the combination of the two along with the deep frost does present some challenges but they can be accommodated. when designing for wind, the devil is in the details if you will. the load paths and connections have to be done correct or while it may look impressive, it will be a waste of time and money. look through a Simpson catalog for ideas on proper wind design and how the connections required to make it all work including the hold down details from roof to foundation. another item i would suggest is when you place your roof trusses i would go with half of them as a "Room in attic" truss and the other half can be a scissors truss for a vaulted ceiling over the other half. the room in attic type truss will give you a loft area for either sleeping or storage with not much more addition work than erecting the trusses you would be putting up anyway. i did this for a buddy of mine for a cabin on his property and he was most pleased with the affordability of the design and results. i am sure there are tons of ready made plans out there that will give you what you are looking for. also since this is not going to be a huge cabin, just go with 2x6's as the wall framing for the extra insulation properties and strength for the snow loads on the roof. it really will make a difference in the performance.
I did a little research on the helical piles. They look like a great specialty product for the right soil conditions, right loads and with experienced contractors installing them with the right tools.
But for building a remote cabin where you are unlikely to run core samples in the soil to find out what you'll be setting them in, it doesn't sound like such a hot idea.
Around here they put them in with a rig you could easily pull behind a wheeler. Not sure about up that way. Looks like there is a place in wasilla that does this kinda work. I'm sure they wouldn't be cheap. If you can get a mini in there and have friends that don't mind work, maybe the sakcrete/sonotube route would be best. Just don't burn out your labor on the foundation.
Granted I am not a soil or foundation engineer or even close.
I do see lots of foundation plans of all types in plan review at the office. And I see them implemented.
I'm a firm believer in a concrete foundation generally speaking and in our area with bell less piers too.
But what I see in Alaska every trip we make, makes me really think that blocks would be one of the very best ways to go, and keep a big jack on hand for adjustment as needed.
Would be interesting to try to apply mobile home type anchors to help with wind loading, as it seems 30-40 mph winds are just a breeze up there, around here we'd be complaining about high winds...
If that doesn't work out, I'd be thinking hard about seeing if you could get pier and beam footers in place, but I'd sure be scared of variable permafrost issues and such, though I have wondered if one could not drill piers deep enough to get into the permafrost and if that would solve a big problem.
Still think the blocks might be the best solution though.
Neighbor down here is an installer. His posts are the foundation under the addition we're currently doing. The machine is about the same size as a small Bobcat. It has a short boom and drills helical posts into the ground until reaching a gauged pressure. He welds on a bracket and you build from there.
Neighbor down here is an installer. His posts are the foundation under the addition we're currently doing. The machine is about the same size as a small Bobcat. It has a short boom and drills helical posts into the ground until reaching a gauged pressure. He welds on a bracket and you build from there.
Homer has very little permafrost. Petersville has lots. I would avoid metal posts for that reason.
No problem to the metal at all. It conducts heat into the permafrost, hence those radiators to keep moving the heat out. The chances of landing in a permafrost lens is fairly high. When it melts it leaves a big hole...
Hey neighbor! I made my own concrete for the last cabin I built, brought the Portland cement in by sled in the spring. I screened the aggregates from the nearby gravel bar. I use 12" PVC piers 9'+ deep. No heaving at all. My buddies cabin on sonotube piers heave, so I use PVC.
Those radiators are often filled with ammonia as a passive radiator-coolant-type system.
Short of getting that elaborate, a gravel pad over rigid foam board is a frequently-used method. Then wood pads to support heavy beams on top of that are proven ways of dealing with foundations in perm-frost country.
Neighbor down here is an installer. His posts are the foundation under the addition we're currently doing. The machine is about the same size as a small Bobcat. It has a short boom and drills helical posts into the ground until reaching a gauged pressure. He welds on a bracket and you build from there.
Homer has very little permafrost. Petersville has lots. I would avoid metal posts for that reason.
Good point....thoroughly enjoying Global Warming here. Those Chinese sure are nice people.
Neighbor down here is an installer. His posts are the foundation under the addition we're currently doing. The machine is about the same size as a small Bobcat. It has a short boom and drills helical posts into the ground until reaching a gauged pressure. He welds on a bracket and you build from there.
Thanks for that link. I've been kicking around options for our place up in Caribou Hills...
if you want this as something that will last for generations to come and to be handed down in the family over time (hopefully a long time) do it right once and enjoy. as mentioned wind and snow and the combination of the two along with the deep frost does present some challenges but they can be accommodated. when designing for wind, the devil is in the details if you will. the load paths and connections have to be done correct or while it may look impressive, it will be a waste of time and money. look through a Simpson catalog for ideas on proper wind design and how the connections required to make it all work including the hold down details from roof to foundation. another item i would suggest is when you place your roof trusses i would go with half of them as a "Room in attic" truss and the other half can be a scissors truss for a vaulted ceiling over the other half. the room in attic type truss will give you a loft area for either sleeping or storage with not much more addition work than erecting the trusses you would be putting up anyway. i did this for a buddy of mine for a cabin on his property and he was most pleased with the affordability of the design and results. i am sure there are tons of ready made plans out there that will give you what you are looking for. also since this is not going to be a huge cabin, just go with 2x6's as the wall framing for the extra insulation properties and strength for the snow loads on the roof. it really will make a difference in the performance.
Not my cabin, but I love the idea of a vaulted ceiling and loft for a smaller home. You can do some much with that area. If there are school age grandkids involved, they love loft areas to get away from the "old folks".
Hey neighbor! I made my own concrete for the last cabin I built, brought the Portland cement in by sled in the spring. I screened the aggregates from the nearby gravel bar. I use 12" PVC piers 9'+ deep. No heaving at all. My buddies cabin on sonotube piers heave, so I use PVC.
Whereabouts in Petersville is your cabin? Our land is in the Kenny Creek subdivision and is one of the closest lots to the road.
Some good suggestions here and I appreciate all the helpful info. I know a few other folks that built cabins out that way and will be bending their ears this summer/next winter.
Hey neighbor! I made my own concrete for the last cabin I built, brought the Portland cement in by sled in the spring. I screened the aggregates from the nearby gravel bar. I use 12" PVC piers 9'+ deep. No heaving at all. My buddies cabin on sonotube piers heave, so I use PVC.
what you used for the form shouldn't make any difference in the chance of it heaving. it's the frost depth. i would suspect that your set of piers were deeper than the frost depth in your area opposed to your buddies piers may not have been deep enough. depending on the size of the structure you will be supporting and the distance between the supports required, another issue a person could run into is inadequate soil bearing for the particular load. a 12" dia pier doesn't have much of a foot print to distribute the loads into the ground. what would be nice is if a guy could bell out the bottom of his piers prior to pouring to give the pier more footprint to bear on. belling it out to 18" to 24" in dia for about 8"-12" in ht before transitioning back to the original bore dia would go a long way in both bearing capacity as well as increased up lift capacity for your wind loads (think of it as the pier being dovetailed into the soil some 10 ft below. my .02 anyway.
Be a good time to get a foundation in and allow a winter to shift/settle.
Correct, we are going to sit on the land for a year or so before we commence with the construction of a cabin. But I do plan on cutting some trees and such this summer when we select the actual spot where the cabin will go up.
There are some pretty large trees on our lot with ample spacing where we won't have to cut too many of them down.
Hey neighbor! I made my own concrete for the last cabin I built, brought the Portland cement in by sled in the spring. I screened the aggregates from the nearby gravel bar. I use 12" PVC piers 9'+ deep. No heaving at all. My buddies cabin on sonotube piers heave, so I use PVC.
what you used for the form shouldn't make any difference in the chance of it heaving. it's the frost depth. i would suspect that your set of piers were deeper than the frost depth in your area opposed to your buddies piers may not have been deep enough. …….
Won't matter if there's permafrost. Permafrost is generally a lot deeper than any piers an ordinary individual will install. Anchoring piers in permafrost requires some method to deal with conduction of heat from on top. Even 30 foot columns properly designed for permafrost can be subject to heaving. Insulated pads are the simplest and most economical way to build on permafrost. You need to be able to adjust the building as it shifts.
admittedly i have not gotten into any foundation design work in a permafrost region. Southern Canada has been my most northern experience in terms of actual projects worked on so i reserve the right to be totally out of the loop on design methods for those regions.
The ridge where the property is located is east facing, towards the Talkeetna's and is not steep. I believe the previous owner said the ridge is a bit more than 400 feet above the water table and we could put in a septic if we wanted (I do not).
Not sure of the tree species, am thinking maybe cottonwood but not positive on that.
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.)
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.
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
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.
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.
Neighbor down here is an installer. His posts are the foundation under the addition we're currently doing. The machine is about the same size as a small Bobcat. It has a short boom and drills helical posts into the ground until reaching a gauged pressure. He welds on a bracket and you build from there.
Thanks for that link. I've been kicking around options for our place up in Caribou Hills...
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
Not knowing the remoteness of the location, it could get pricy.
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