A-Frame MICRO HOUSE Built on a Budget!

morning guys and welcome back to the a-frame i know you guys have been waiting a long time for this and i apologize we just had to get all our materials and our ducks in a row to get this thing all started so we've got some plywood and uh we're gonna build our little knee walls it's pretty much overwhelming in the comments they said build a knee wall otherwise i guess we're not gonna have very much usable space in this thing so our plan today is to take the a-frame that we've already built off and then build a strong knee wall and there's some problems we're gonna run into that i know of is is basically the the roof is going to push the walls out so i'm gonna probably do some tie backs some something like that in order to in order to get everything secure and uh solid so that doesn't happen don's here there he is there's there's the the infamous the famous the infamous the phone is dawn let's get started let's get this thing taken apart we'll get them off the off the pad and then go from there actually we should measure first but uh yeah let's get started what i've decided to do is do a 39 inch knee wash a 39 and a half and that will allow me to incorporate the bottom part of this guy to give me a little bit more structural integrity on the wall so 39 inches above that and then this is about eight and a half so that'll give me that'll give me 39 and a half that would be 48 so 48 inch tall knee wall from the bottom of this thing all the way to the top and then my a-frame sits on top of that so it'll be a modified a-frame won't be exactly an a-frame anyways just let you guys know that this video is sponsored by zenger super bass we'll get to more on that later but first let's frame up some neat walls [Laughter] just like that we got an e-wall so this stuff i ended up saving old scrap skid wood so it's two by four skid wood you can see kind of got the groove cut in and that was uh i think they were transporting like pole logs or like utility poles and they put the strap between that thing to hold it on so that's what those are so they're not exactly the perfect 2x4 but for the price you just can't beat it so and they're all short they're all under four feet long so what we've done is we've actually cut um all all of the pieces at 35 inches because we're gonna have a single bottom plate and then a double top plate don't just marking them out there now we cut them all up and then we install them all easy like that stick frame so the plan next once we get the a frame up is to actually stick frame the top and then add some more structure to go from the point to the other to the top and and the reason why you do that is because you don't really want to hinge point in the middle of the wall which is kind of what we're that's what's leaning towards but there's going to be some steel in between the knee wall and the upper portion of the wall so it won't have a hinge point but that being said the a-frame itself is sort of going to support all the weight anyway so we want a solid back knee wall and the front i've got actually taking consideration the door so i'm gonna do some figuring for that get our knee walls up on the front because uh i don't want to cut it out afterwards i find the easiest way to frame a wall is to take your top and bottom plate measure and cut them to size and then take your tape measure run along the top and bottom plate measure your 16 inches on center mark those out with your speed square and then cut all your studs the exact same length and insert them into the wall either screw them together or nail them together and then all you have to do is stand your wall up and you have yourself a wall and just like that we've got an e wall we just got to put a little bit more wood on top we're going to do a double top plate in order to lock in the corners because otherwise they might pull apart right now there's only um it's only locked in just right at the very end so what we're going to do is we're going to lap them over and then that'll lock the corners in and then when we do our plywood we're going to lap them over again further increasing our strength in our walls because the last thing we want to do is go blink so that's what we're going to do that strong corner done it will be it will be it will be not yet it's wiggly it's a wiggly corner right now once we get our plywood on there everything attached should be strong strong like bull normally when you'd be building an a-frame cabin you would either use steel roofing or shingle materials and and that would be your roofing structure but since i have all these panels i kind of had to design the cabin around them so i made sure it was the same length and the same height as the panels that i had because i don't have any extras and they have to be pretty precise because it is a glass and aluminum frame there's no real wiggle room when you're dealing with that sort of thing using these glass panels possibly saved me thousands of dollars in material because i don't have to worry about the actual cladding on the roof so i don't have to spend any money on shingles i don't have to spend my money on steel roof so it's a great solution and it keeps stuff out of the landfill after all well that didn't take very long we've got our knee wall up i think about a half a day not bad so as you can see we're up about 40 inches which is slightly above countertop height if you're uh if you're talking about kitchens wise and i think once once we got that once we got up to this height we put our a-frame above us it'll give us a lot more usable space i think i'll be able to be about here before my head touches the ceiling i think we haven't quite got to that yet i think dawn you're looking forward to lifting those things up absolutely tomorrow yeah tomorrow you want to do it tonight come on we'll just throw them up no problem just you know sure they're going gonna be heavy the the front was especially heavy uh the the back three so should we do the really heavy one first or should we do the heavy one last probably last because or maybe second or third yeah i think seconds we get a technique yeah i think second is the ideal one because you're not quite sore yet and you've learned from the first light one so the second one we're gonna put up on the front because it's gonna hit it's heavy heavy heavy heavy this camera's heavy that was a lot of work but i think it's i think it it's it's it's going to be more functional and we've got some big plans for the front of it and uh well the sides and stuff like that we're going to make this thing look look like a million bucks it's actually made of plywood so it actually is not far off of a million dollars um price supply was insane but it's actually a similar price to osb now so we got a we got to rest up we got to eat our wheaties tomorrow morning in order to have energy to lift those things up because that's gonna be something interesting so stay tuned it's coming actually right now just like that it's the next day it's the erection day dawn are you excited for erection day always always it's always good when you get to erect something very very large especially on top of something well we did this before and it worked out okay because we just had to erect it on the platform but now we're erecting it on the knee wall which is about 40 inches tall which is going to be precarious to say the least but we've had a night to think about it we slept on it we've developed a plan and i think what our plan is going to be is we're going to put the really really heavy one up first we're going to put blocks at the end of the wall here and over here and then we're gonna set the a in the little basket and then we're gonna walk it up while we're in the little basket walk it up and then we're gonna secure it while it's standing up there but we're gonna do the big one first big go home but and if you can see the grade it kind of slopes it gets higher at the front slower at the back so once we get to the back we'll be able to actually tackle it from both sides that's my plan right now anyways sound like a good plan dog it's the only one so far it's the only ones of ours it's plan a it's plan a for the a-frame right we're on plan b no plan b on this project well we'll go to plan b if it doesn't work for plan a oh i'm sore already this video is sponsored by zengers super bass pro this power pack here is built like a little workhorse kind of like a tank the great thing about this pack is you can power anything you can imagine powering my compressor i've been powering my nail gun i've been charging my cordless tools i've been running the grinder three horsepower drill auger bit and this thing has been performed amazing what i like about this pack is that you can power up to six devices simultaneously you have everything plugged in you can possibly need it's got usb imports on the front so if you're charging your phone or if you're charging your tablet there are a couple ways to charge the xender superbass pro you can either charge it by solar they have solar panels you can purchase and attach to this thing or you can plug it into your regular outlet in your house the good thing about it is you can charge it up and it's ready for anything like if you have a power outage in your home or emergency situation you can easily power your refrigerator or any other high drain devices you can imagine like like a microwave or a um i don't know hot plate something like that but uh it's good for emergency as well as off-grid situation it's got a nice little handle here you can carry it or the back of it it's got a handle that you can extend and then you can wheel it around if you guys are interested in the super bass pro the link will be in the description below and currently there's an early bit of pricing of 9.99 let's let's let's just flop it over and then let's go up just i'm just pushing right up just sit here like tip the whole thing up like this that yep like take it at the end here oh okay i think you got some there we go okay actually you know what that's good okay you want me to come in uh not yet uh can you can you just lift up top there like just push yeah push that right okay can you push plan b on the a-frame is the uh sticks we're going to use to push up the top because i realize that we're going to run on a ladder before we run out of a-frame so we're going to attach the two-by-fours to the top and then use that as a lever and push it up i don't have the lever but more of a pusher we're gonna use it as a pusher stick well that's tall i might have over underestimated the height of this thing overestimated the height i don't know it's tall that's tall look how tall that is chapel's almost done three more to go that was a heavy one so we should be right on par with the uh the light light one should be that should be a cake walked on light one should be just a cake walk let's go it's crazy tall how hard can it be it's three more times quarter note recorder done okay i don't have much time oh you know okay come back come on three up one to go but this one has a unique problem is that we've got nothing to stand up on so we're going to do it completely different than the other three my plan is to stand up the one leg completely where it's going to go and then we will both lift the other leg up and i think i think it'll work what do you think don i think so you think that's a good plan it's as good as any we have right now so that's right just get her done get her up there we got all sorts of different problems once we got everything up because this thing is really tall maybe taller than i thought it was going to be so let's get this up and move on to the next problem only solutions here only solutions i acquired these garage door panels from a buddy of mine he is a garage door installer and he had a job where he was replacing five garage doors on an old fire hall that i guess was upgrading their glass and my original plan for these glass panels were to actually make a greenhouse for with them but instead i i determined well they have the uv tint on them which protect like keeps out all the uv so i can't i couldn't good faith use them for a greenhouse because it wouldn't allow my plants to grow so instead what i've done is i've i thought of a plan to use them for my a-frame normally these with these these glass panels will be stacked on top of each other like a garage door so they they're kind of like a tongue and groove system which one panel sits on top of the other panel and they create a watertight seal where i'm using them here is i'm not actually going to have them kind of up and down like perfectly up and down so what i'm going to do in order to combat the leaky issue is to silicone the joints between each panel now that we have the first panel up i'm going to secure it to the actual frame of the the building with these these are simpsons strong tie structural screws they got a little hex head on them and there happens to be a hole directly through the panel already i'm not sure what that was for but i'm going to use it to secure right through the panel and then i'll put some silicone on the screw to prevent it from leaking in the future you the inspector and the inspector coming yeah batman i figure it's already here i might as well use it there's a stiffener on the door and i drilled four holes in it and i added lag screws to the bottoms to support my first panel and then every subsequent panel won't need as much support because it'll rest on the bottom panel these glass panels are extremely heavy they gotta weigh about 150 pounds a piece in order to get them up what we did was we brought them to the base of the ladder and then slowly shimmy them up one side at a time dawn on one side on the other until we got them into place and then we locked them in together with structural screws and silicone at the joint my figuring on this joint is if i hold them apart and inject silicone it's polyurethane caulking inside the crack and then i squish both panels together that impregnates the uh polyurethane caulking inside the crack preventing it from leaking forever it's the same stuff they put eve trough together or they should use to put eve trough together and that usually lasts think it's 25 year 50 year caulking so that's that's the plan there uh and i'm not certain these windows aren't going to leak but if they do i'm going to go around each and every pane with the exact same stuff to seal it up nice and tight working off the existing panel we were able to actually add the additional panel on top and then we drilled two screws in the middle braces in order to attach more screws and then we screw directly through the panel on either end with uh structural screws in order to hold them in place and then once we get once we get up to the top we're going to add a big old ridge cap to kind of finish it off it's actually going better than i thought it was going to as you can see it's looking like something we just got a couple more things on this uh on this one side to do and then we can move on to the following side and we'll get the whole we're hoping to get all the glass up today and possibly work on the back wall i think don i think this is going to go smoothly let's hope so far so good so far so good let's hope the next two goes i find if you if you if you treat it like like sort of like a turtle race right yeah kind of slow and steady i think if you kind of rush it you run into problems really fast but if you go slow and think it out you kind of foresee the problems before you got a panel kind of half up in the sky and you don't know what to do because it's going to break or something like that so it's slow and steady i think that's why you see those guys on those big construction sites always standing around giving you guys a little bit of a pond update uh well as you can see it's filled up to almost its original level which i think it's uh partially due to the ground water and the springs that are below it and also partial due to the rain which uh yeah so anyways it's it's almost up there my brother and i the other day we actually paddled out to the middle of it we had our little dipstick and we checked it out and uh near the bottom it's about eight feet deep so that's uh that's pretty cool we're gonna we're gonna take that information we're gonna send it out to our guys over at linden fish hatchery and they're gonna do some calculations and determine how many fish we can actually put in here safely and comfortably for the fish so i think between 30 and 50 fish we can probably have in here i think they have some uh very hardy trout and we we had a couple of trout in here before with the with the other pond and it was about four or five feet deep and uh they they survived until my brother actually caught them so it's good to have them here because if you ever need a fish fry or something you just go to the pond you fish yourself out of fish you can have a shore lunch and uh there you go and what's really cool about it is the the footprint of the of the pond actually allows it to be kind of like a better hockey rink in the winter time so we got that to look forward to once this thing freezes over and uh as soon as ice is out we're gonna put some fish in this guy it's about coffee time got my little coleman stove got my little this isn't a coffee maker it's espresso pizzetti is the make the company that makes these things people have been asking no affiliation no sponsor they're just this is kind of a neat little thing i've cooked it on the induction range and i've cooked it uh on a fire and now i'm gonna cook it if i could get my coffee out i pre-packed it now i gotta get the thing out so i can put water in it sausage fingers i want coffee grounds in there you take that you put it in there and you take this you screw it on top and when all the water boils out of this part comes out of this part you got espresso it's like cool tool lunchtime edition we're just having lunch and husk send me a really cool knife this is a premium control knife i'm not sure what that means but i think it has something to do with the fact that it's got a hole in the middle of it you can hold your hand and this thing is razor sharp it's like try not to cut my hand look at that it's like a it's like a machete for for vegetables and fruit see if i can do that again without cutting my hand off all right sharp very sharp where'd my apple go so anyways this little guy here is a premium kitchen knife the link will be in the description below if you guys want to take a look at one of these guys anyways they're on sale half off right now if you want to check one out i'm not sure exactly the price but the link will be in the description check them out look how look how sharp that is i'm wasting most of my apples demonstrating how sharp i'm going to cut the dirt off there got my knife got my apple got my sandwich we're going to have lunch hey don why don't you like daytime coffee uh it's not that i don't like daytime coffee it's um usually it's more a weather thing or a seasonal thing so it's big daytime coffee's better in the winter well fall and winter yeah late spring or early spring i guess cool but um yeah not uh not uh not a hard and fast rule so so i just noticed we've got a little bit of the lag bolt ends coming over the top and i don't want them to get in the road of the panel so what we're going to do is we've got our our zenjer pack with our angle grinder we're just gonna zip those things off there's a couple little bits off of two of them so grind those guys off so they're not in the road and then we can carry on with the last panel is the last panel lighter dawn no [Music] coming this way a bit okay oh you're just a little bit less on the ladder careful because you should go backwards right okay well i'm sitting at the top of the a-frame this is possibly the most uncomfortable spot to sit there is if you can see kind of i'm right at the top the bottom to the top of this thing is roughly 13 foot 4 inches right at the top and that's from the floor all over the top and then we're a couple feet up above but it's a pretty cool view up here it feels like i'm a bird i'm up in the trees he got down down below he's down there so the plan with the ridge cap is i'm gonna have something custom made to fit from one panel to the other side uh and the reason because we're doing that is because we need a place for our chimney to go and this allows us to give us kind of a space between the two glass panels because we can't we're not gonna take a panel out in order to put our chimney through so that's our plan with that and because of the pitch you'd you'd have to take almost you almost have to take an entire entire window out in order to do it that's my solution to that the other thing i was thinking about while i was building this thing it kind of looks like a church doesn't it i was like no it looks like a church and then i was thinking i wonder if they named the church of latter-day saints because when they were building their church they had so many ladders so we're up near the ridge cap and in order to figure out this uh angle what i've done is i've actually taken a chunk of uh just a chunk of scrap wood and i've made a little point and what it does it sits on the cap just like that so it's a perfect it's a perfect fit and then what i'm going to do is actually take this to my fabricator and tell them this is exactly what i want there's there's no real guesswork involved it shows exactly the angle the exact distance exact everything and then you can just duplicate it because what i'm going to do is make a hat to sit on top of the ridge in order to cover this opening here and now when we originally did the the opening on the actual roof we butted it up right it was actually going to be right tight and then we wouldn't have had to do anything and then we thought about the fireplace and the chimney coming up through the uh through the roof so that's why we're going to actually put a cap so we modified it that's why we left the glass down below in order to give us a space up here for the chimney if that all makes sense so take this with me give it to my fabricator he makes a cap easy peasy some of you guys are asking how far the a-frame is from the main cabin well we're at the main cabin right now and i'm going to go to the a-frame i already kind of ran from the a-frame over here just to show you guys so let's go let's let's go let's how is this how's this for a little jog we got the houses going by this isn't the easiest to do so as you can see running on the trail running down the trail you should try this at home try running with a camera and then we're here it's not that far away there's dawn anyways that's how far the cabin the a-frame is from the main cabin which is not it's not far it's about like a 20-second run 20-second jog hope that answers your question i want to get your input on this and i want i want your opinions i want your thoughts on what we should do in order to finish the rest of this thing up i've got a couple of ideas rattling around in my head and uh i just want to go through them now so my plan on this uh on this a-frame is to do sort of like a cord wood cookie cut out i've got some of the old pine trees when i was planning on doing i was cutting little cookies into uh about an inch inch thick half inch thick and then sticking them to the front of the thing me like maybe even around here in order to cover that side and then what i was going to do is pipe in some mortar kind of like a cordwood cabin if you guys ever seen those you guys can look those up um it'll kind of look a bit modified chord because we're not going to be exactly doing chord would it'll be more of a cladding style and then i want to do a little bit of a bump in here so i can preserve the front of the cabin so if you look at the front of the cabin you can see the structural elements of the a-frame and i like that look i don't know if you guys like that look i think i want to keep that so i actually want to set my interior wall in a little bit further and kind of give that little bit of a reveal and then i've got some uh some old windows so i might add some some either diagonal windows i've got a couple circle windows left over so that maybe up in there near the top there maybe i don't know what you guys think you guys can let me know down in the comments below and then once i'm inside what's cool about it is the ceiling's done you don't have to do anything with it all i've got left is the uh the knee walls which are they're about 40 inches because i got about eight inches of below the structure and then i've got my back wall here um so i don't exactly know what i'm going to be doing here i might add a couple more windows i know i have a fireplace coming from uh mini cubic stove which is a favorite of mine it's in the mail it's being it's being mailed to me as we speak so the plan with that is to do kind of a center mount with about three feet off the floor and then what that allows me to do is actually run my chimney up through the panels and i've got a little cap being made for the top and that'll allow the chimney to go up and then seal itself through and then i've got a little bit left i actually got to clean some windows but uh they're not that dirty actually which is surprising because they've been outside all summer i got these panels sometime in the spring and i've kind of been you know envisioning what i wanted to do with them and i think it's turned out really good and as you guys can see it rained a little bit uh overnight and we don't have that much water in here there is there's a giant crack in the middle of the building but uh it hasn't seemed to be leaking and i want i want to be here when it's actually raining to see where the water goes i'm not sure if it just kind of shears off of it or if it leaks out the sides or if there's a drip edge i don't exactly know how it uh how the water comes out but i've got a solution for that in case it does rain i've got some some pro glaze they call it which is a window sealant and then what i would do is go around each individual panel to in order to in order to to ensure it doesn't leak in the future because once everything's finished in here i don't want it to be leaking the other thing flooring solutions i have um some cherry flora left over from the off-grid shop that i built i don't know if i have enough of it but i'm going to certainly try to see i'm going to measure that and make sure i have enough because i don't i don't want to start a job and then be like i don't got enough flooring to finish it but i could mill some stuff but anyways that's my plan i haven't really thought about furniture layout um obviously i need a new place to at least lay your head and maybe some place to relax maybe more of an entertaining sort of cabin uh just because of the sheer size of it it's really cool so anyways if you guys got a plan you know maybe you can send me a layout maybe on instagram if you guys want to send me a layout what do you think i should do rough rough dimensions are 12 by 9 9x12 and that's my floor space and as you can see with the knee wall i can actually get right right to here i can get right to the edge which i'm kind of my head's a little bit in the ceiling but it is really it is really quite spectacular well guys that pretty much wraps it up for today i hope you guys enjoyed this one bye for now see you on the next one say bye dawn

Channel: Kevin Builds (Modern Self Reliance)

Views: 117,082

Keywords: building, tools, hand tools, power tools, sawmill, cabin construction, how to build a cabin, tiny house, forest house, small house, log cabin, construction, cabin design, sawing, cutting wood, off grid, homestead, cottage, tiny cabin, self reliance, solar powered house, small home, axe, saw, balcony build, deck build, build, house build, tiny house build, tiny house design, lumber, framing, house on a budget, off grid living, off grid cabin, fireplace, drill, cut, wood

Id: gtE8AIiuclM

Length: 31min 55sec (1915 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 16 2021