Shooting shack construction underway!

[Ian]

I may be in over my head, we'll see. In between my other five-year projects I decided to start this one since a whole lotta phone poles endedbup at my house and are very much in the way.

Plan is an 8x12' cabin made from 8-10" diameter poles, supported by dry-stack limestone piers, a simple gable roof of shallow pitch topped with about a foot of dirt. "Green roof" I think it's called. Norwegians been doing it this way for many centuries.

So far I got most of the pier rocks needed dug out and hauled down the steep hill to the left and three of the piers done. Huge footer stones are buried about a foot deep and almost flush with the grade on three corners. The poles have to be winched up a steep embankment about 100' down to the right, very time consuming but I don't want to cut trees and tear up a bunch of land to make a road to the shack. When I'm done I want it to look like mobody was there and only a narrow foot trail to lead in/out.

It doesn't look like much yet but I have about two days in it already and am getting close to finished with the piers.

 

[462]

Evidently, you don't get earthquakes too often.

 

[Pistolero]

Geez. Wouldn't $150 worth of shingles be about 400 times easier to do and require 10% of the roof
strength to support the weight? Besides lasting longer, most likely. The walls sound like they will be good, although
notching and spiking will be a good bit of work. But the price of the raw materials for the walls and foundation
are "right".....my favorite price.

8x12 = 96 sq ft, add maybe 20% for slope, and you have about 120 sq ft. Shingles at Home depot run from
$28 to $32 for the good to better grades, for 1/3 of a square. You need 1 1/4 squares so 5 bundles is 1 1/3
squares, enough for wastage, at $28 is $140 and the better grade "Lifetime Warranty" ones would be $160.

Bill

 

[Ian]

Sod roof is for thermal mass primarily, for appearance as a close secondary factor and fire resistance a distant third. I cannot express how much I despise asphalt shingles. Corrugated galvalume would be my second choice.

We do have seismic activity here but it is so mild most people have no idea it even happens. Sonotube or filled cinderblock piers would be easier to work with and possibly stronger, but rather ugly.

I've always wanted to build a log structure and did do several small sheds when I was a kid out of sap-cedar poles, but this is my chance to do it "for real". There are many log structures in the Scandinavian countries with dry-stack stone piers supporting them and sod rooves which have stood for 600 or more years, hopefully this one will last my lifetime at least...if I manage to do it right.

 

[JonB]

Your description sounds like it'll look interestingly primitive.
Soil Roof for sound reduction?

 

[creosote]

Won't see it on Google map eather.
Nice.

 

[Spindrift]

Very cool project! With the log structure and soil roof, it should provide quite good shelter from the heat.
This is where my grandfather grew up, in western Norway. No idea when the cabin was built, the roof is still Ok, though

 

[creosote]

You must have some mountain goat blood in ya.
That would make a good post card picture, .......painting, ....

 

[Brad]

Ian doesn’t do anything the easy way.
Going to be interesting to see the finished product. Can’t wait to see “grass” grow in your climate.

 

[Cherokee]

Should be a nice all-weather shooting shack and blend right in with your surroundings. I like !

 

[Missionary]

Good morning
I like it ! If I was not 5000 miles south I would not mind coming by and lending a hand . A sod roof log cabin is one fine "shack" to be making.
I would look into a mule to drag them poles up the hill.

 

[Pistolero]

Going to put in a sprinkler system for the roof?

Enjoy your sod roof. Tin or shingles would be my route, because it is so much easier. IMO, shingling is plenty hard
enough work, can't even imagine the amount of work to do the sod roof, and the structure needed.

Maybe cooler if you can use a sprinkler, an evaporatively cooled roof might be a good thermal improvement.

 

[fiver]

grass keeps the roof in place.

I would look at something else besides grass down in your area.
you have to have some open ground cover plants that are native to your area somewhere on your place.
i would use them and the actual soil [slightly amended] so once it's done it's on it's own and can take care of itself.

 

[Ian]

Spindrift, that's the real thing there! I'm looking to do something similar, halfway between a cabin and a Stabbur.

The roof will mostly be a rock garden but I did collect three kinds of grass seed last weekend to I'll throw some in the dirt and see what happens. We have some durable, native ground cover plants here but none of them are indigenous to this particular patch of property. Not much grows here except bluestem ("bluegrass") and blue grama which you can see in the photo. Prairie dropseed grows in sparse clumps under the cedar trees but doesn't like full sun. Blue grama will probably be the only thing that lives on the roof in the long-term, it requires less water than any of the others and can handle full sun. The goal is actually to have the roof look just like the area of ground where the building will sit, Creosote has the right idea.

 

[fiver]

I could send you some thistle and dandelions.
all you gotta do to keep them up is spray some herbicide on them once in a while and pull them out now and then like your trying to get rid of them.

 

[Winelover]

If he needs more, I can send those, as well as, Johnson grass. Seven foot tall, Johnson grass, will make it disappear.

 

[Pistolero]

Probably too dry for kudzu.....

 

[462]

Ian,
When I saw that "log" just laying on top of the rocks, I figured that your area was not prone to them.

 

[358156 hp]

I'm concerned a bit about the shallow pitch roof idea though. A halfway decent snow load could take your roof down before you know it

 

[freebullet]

I have some spare poison ivy you can have. It will grow with similar care as fiver described...but provide additional entertainment 12-24 hours later...& last for weeks. Have almost enough to fill a box, could fill the box rest of the way with spiders & ship it out...no charge.