First Night in the Tiny Off Grid Cabin

Well, the first night in the tiny cabin/house is complete! Thanks to finishing installing the woodstove last week. -14c outside. 24c inside at bedtime.

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..besides having to climb into the loft ( ladder/steps to be built) things went well. It was warm and cozy all night. One thing I will be doing in the future..crawling under the structure to attach rigid insulation..the floor was really cold and while high in the loft we were warm, the floor was very cold and cold air was streaming in between the gaps..

..mattress..finish the walls..and a whole lot more to come..but easier now that we can heat the place up while we work. Exciting times!

 

Jøtul Fire in the Tiny Cabin

Cool. Successfully tested the Jøtul 602c wood stove and insulated piping install. The whole process went much faster when I was assembling the inside parts. We were determining the level for cuts to build a hearthpad and all of the lengths fit fine without cuts. We decided to light it up and see how things looked.

..needs a couple of pieces. New collar so a regular pipe will fit. Kludged together for testing pipe wise. Also needs a new pin for the door.

New metal roof next year. The whole section extending out is going to be removed.

..and heat in the tiny cabin. Ran the Jøtul, no smoke or drawing air issues. Once the new collar arrives we can finalize things and can now move to building a hearth pad and starting the shiplap install. Fun!

 

Tiny House Lighting V2

Well, finished off v2 of the lighting. We wanted to change out all of our temporary connections for more secure spade connections and connect our control panel for inside the tiny house and control the lighting..all done and ready for v3…in 3 more days. The title is not click bait when you actually have a zombie light connection on the control panel!

 

Fall Turns

A record breaking zucchini!

8 years is up and our battery bank is toast. Long live the new Trojan T-105’s!

The first night with lights in the bunkie.

I would do a better job of describing the rest if WordPress would show me my uploaded and placed images. I am betting bike shots. A melon grown from our company pile, harvesting day and curing or veggies. 120lbs of potatoes. Great garden year and still harvesting lettuce, Bok Choi, kohlrabi, carrots, beets and Swiss chard after an early frost. Followed by 3 weeks of warm weather. Killed the tomatoes. We had harvested many and canned many too but there was a late batch coming on which would have made it based on the weather afterwards. Oh well, still a great harvest for the mostly new garden.

..and the tiny home/Bunkie/home office work keeps pressing forward. Wiring and insulation is in. Lights roughed in and usable via a fuse bar and a neat control panel.

 

Winter Wood

..not that I want to curse things and get craploads of snow or anything..but it has been a fairly warm ( for the area ) and snow free winter so far. There, I said it. Let it be shown that in no way, shape or form am I complaining about the lack of both cold temperatures and ice based demondry ( aka snow). As a result the woodpile seems to be stacking up well against the elements..yes the pun was intended. We are roughly 1/2 way through the wood burning season and are nowhere near the 1/2 way point in wood usage..which might be a problem come end of wood burning season as we have plans for the area where the wood is actually stacked now ( not the picture, the rest of the wood bank on the side of the house)..but then again, I will take the warm(er) temperatures any day of the week..we can always move the unused pile to the new wood area further from the house.

..and for the record there HAS been storms but followed by warmer weather and rain.

 

Banking Wood in Perfect Weather

..no bugs, rain or heat..a good time to cut split and stack the wood up near the house. The final 2 cords are done, now it is only a matter of burning it!

 

Power in the Bank

1/2 of the battery bank (4 of 8) were officially toast so we bit the bullet and upgraded part 1 of our power system and got some replacement batteries…AC225’s…these 6 are actually almost 2 times the capacity of our ancient trojan batteries. To make sure we keep them fully topped up we will also be installing our additional solar panels and upgrading the panel to charge controller wiring with some proper low gauge braided wiring too..over the next couple of weeks.

..been raining like a banshee around here as of late, the old beaverdam @ the stillwater cannot even be seen..higher than spring water levels…scary high.

We will keep the old batteries charged up and beside the new bank until next spring when they will move into boler for portable power…or emergencies in case anything goes awry..as they tend to do.

 

Our Place Just Became more Dutch

Our old double wind turbine had some wind issues last year. As a result of high winds ( or being cheap ) one of the 2 little windmills was lost. Cleaning up the shed I uncovered it and remounted it..and actually was playing around with it.

…yes, I need alligator clips.

Depending upon the speed the power responds as it should..by wildly varying. In the past I simply put it up to get it out of the way but I may hook it up to a charge controller and the ‘security system’ for power..we do get wind here but being 10 feet off the ground is not helping catch much wind..not to metion it is a very small wind turbine

 

End of Year for Chopping Wood!

We are really hoping that this is it for the wood until the fall..it is such a magical time of year between the time when woodburning ends and before blackfly season begins (usually lasts about 3 days hehe). I held off on getting a wooden handled maul and settled on a free replacement..you can’t argue with the free(kin) price thats for sure! groan.

…by all accounts I think we have enough wood to last us until after next woodburning season ( so read next April)..and that is not even counting the cord-cord.5 (hehe) that we cut last week. We might have enough but we are going to clear out the wood and chunk the remaining stuff we cut down so that we don’t have to deal with it during black fly season which is scheduled to start any day now..I can tell because last night the spring peepers started chirping….and Loki started barking at them. Whenever she barks in the middle of the night I get up and flash a flashlight on the coop to see if something has finally decided to sneak attack the chickens..last night she started barking 3 times and I realized Loki has never really heard ( being a former city dog) spring peepers before so the noise was foreign to her. Hopefully tonight will go a little better.

 

They Don’t Make Them…

..like they used to. Dang, this is the 2nd maul I have broken in 3 years..I am only splitting around 4 cord a year too for the love of frink!

the fiberglass snaps at the head..good thing that it did not happen mid swing…could have done some real damage.

A* celebrates the end of the splitting for the day..we have enough for 2-3 days but I need to get something ( else ) more reliable. The maul has a 5 year warranty so it won’t cost anything to replace..but I want one with a wood handle and I think I have a maul head in the shed.