Cordwood Shed Build (part 5)

Last week I was trying to get the cordwood wall finished up and the new to me window framed in.. Progress is unbelievably slow but I'm working mostly by myself. This is not exactly a one man job, cordwood requires friends.

Progess on the wall.....slow as always!

Got the window all framed in. I still need to finish caulking and put the vinyl stripping on the edges, but it's in! I used some really ugly brown caulking on part of this hanging project because I had run out of the white color caulk. It is going to have to be removed and re-caulked because it's absolutely hideous with this white vinyl.

Getting soooooo close to done with this wall. I added a green Mason jar....because I can, that's why. I mean Hell, they are called Mason jars, right? You can't go wrong with this one!!

Fortunately, if the jar cracks it won't effect the structural integrity of the wall, and if it cracks badly I can easily replace it with a piece if wood. No worries here!

My ugly construction mess. I was putting the tools away as I went, but every time I put something away I would need it again!

Getting all ready for more Mason jar masonry....

The salvage door I bought along with the window. Floor needs pouring before this piece is insalled.

Getting the jars all mortared in....

Looking pretty cool! And I am almost done with this stupid wall!!

Ya know....if I had the rest of my life to finish building this, and alot of buddies to help I might do more of this cordwood stuff. As in an entire house!

It is a TON of work and it takes forever. It is labor intensive and back breaking. But it's turned out really, really cool looking. The structural integrity of this is also good, the wall was 'earthquake tested' and flexes really well without cracking at all. Yay!!

Just about there!!

I plugged up the holes at the bottom of the loft with correctly sized 2x4 lengths. I also took the opportunity to use a few screws and secure the cordwood wall to the loft framing. There was no real need, but it makes me feel better knowing the wall is just a little bit more anchored.

I still have a couple more pieces to add, I ran out of mortar this morning. After that, I'm going to hang a 2x6 header on top of the loft joists to kind of protect the top of the wall from water, and also as a footing for the siding that is going to make up the loft area walls.

This job is going to need some chinking where my mortar mix was too wet or the pointing was bad or a piece of wood shifted with wet mortar, but I consider that to be finish work that comes later down the road.

Floor and walls first, we'll worry about sealing and insulating and all that fun stuff later. I'm not looking forward to hand pouring a cement floor but that's the next step and needs to be done soon. Earthen floors sound romantic and all, but I don't want to live in the dirt any more than I do already.

Cordwood Shed Build (part 4)

I know I haven't posted much about the shed lately. I haven't forgotten or given up on the project, but haven't had a ton of time to work on it. Here's the latest and greatest with the shed project!




The window was framed in. It looks great, but doesn't sit quite straight because the main poles are warped.






Mixing mortar. I have found that for my mixture with 20% sawdust, much more water is needed than it says on the bag. The sawdust soaks up a bunch of water.

You don't want soupy or slurry mortar when it's mixed. It should be the consistency of a snowball when you grab and pack a handful together.




I have been using dishwashing gloves. WAY better than the rubber dipped gloves, and no more concrete burns on my hands. These have been a real lifesaver!








Progress on the wall has been slow and steady. One bit at a time...

My method and mortar mixture have both improved by a lot. Using finer sawdust instead of shavings is helping a lot, and I haven't seen any more cracks in my mortar work. My pointing work is improving little by little, too.






Another day's work. Gobble thinks he's helping, but really he is just getting underfoot and starting to irritate me.


I have purchased another salvage window for the big back wall of the shed, and a solid core door for the front. They should work great for this project.

There is more lumber on site. It's all ready to be used for framing, and I'll get to that and have at least the window framed in before I pour the flooring. I don't want the window being somehow broken just sitting around and would feel more comfortable with it out of the way .

Hardscrabble's Main Solar System

I'm posting about our solar systems today, so everyone can see where our electricity comes from and how easy it is to set up yourself.

First we have the solar panels. These are sets of (3) 275-watt panels wired in series. There are two sets of panels (6 total) powering the main system. That gives us around 1,150 watts of peak power coming in.

All panel wiring comes to an emergency shut off box before going in to the charge controller.

The panel wires come in to the charge controller, which moniters how much power is coming into the system and adjusts everything accordingly. This component is crucial, it keeps your batteries from getting overcharged and tells you how much power you are producing. It is also programmable to do a whole lot of other cool stuff, like equalizing your battery bank.

From the charge controller, the power goes back outside to the batteries. Here, you see (2) 6volt T-105 golf cart batteries. They are wired in series to give us 12volt of power.

In addition to the solar system wiring, there is an auxillary 12v pump and DC lights wired to the batteries.

From the batteries, we have wires coming into the back of our inverter. The wiring used is the size of battery cables and can be difficult to work with. From the front of the inverter there is a power squid. There is space at the back of the inverter to run your own house wiring from it, if you so choose. No way I was ripping out the walls here to do that, though!

This setup allows us to charge phones, run lights, charge the cordless drill, run a fan, watch movies, ect. It isn't big enough to power a vaccum or the air conditioner or power tools.

For everything the solar system can't handle, there is the generator. This one is a Harbor Freight special, and has been amazingly faithful considering its source. She just got a spark plug change last weekend and is still running strong.

The generator only gets regular use for the air conditioning in summer. Less regular uses for it are the vaccum (we have hardwood floors so mostly just sweep it), charging batteries during long winter storms, running the table saw (or Skilsaw...or the Sawzall, you get the idea.)

Hardscrabble's Tiny Solar System

Here is our small DC solar system.

This is a 45 watt solar array that powers the electric fence for the time being. First, the panels on the shed roof. Very dusty, I'm going to have to do something about that!

Next, the charge controller. This is a cheap 3-amp charge controller, about $20 from Harbor Freight. Not the best quality, but it's been in use over 2 years without issue.

Charge controller goes to the battery. This is just a regular deep cycle marine battery.

In this picture the solar panels are not hooked up to it, because apparently charging the battery while the electric fence is hooked up is NOT a good idea. The battery gets charged once a month or so unless something shorts the fence out, then more frequent charging is required.

This DC electric fencer is wired directly to the battery.

Currently, the electric fence is the only thing this system is running. I do have plans to run one or two DC lights off this system, but have no plans to hook an inverter up to or overuse such a small system.

This setup will give you basic DC lighting and power on a small scale.