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Finally starting my '09 fish house project!


SapperACE

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My brand new "Shack Rack"/"Polar Palace" fish house shell is almost complete! Now its time for me to start finishing the inside.

I have some ideas for the floor plan, and a list of "must have" stuff. I am always looking for good ideas though. Feel free to chime in with any good ideas, pics, or opinions. I will post pics of my progress throughout the summer as I'm finishing this baby.

My next step is a floor and insulation. I plan on spray foaming the floor, and using sheeted foam for the walls. I would love to spray foam the whole thing, but I don't want to spend a $1000 in 1 shot. Thanks for looking, and for any ideas. DSC00014.jpg

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I just got my order in for my frame Friday, its going to be a long 3 weeks until its done. I am getting as much of the building stuff together as I can now. Write down everything you want so in the heat of building you don't forget little things.

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looks nice! How big is the house? What are you going to do in the inside? One thing i would do before you finish the inside is, mount outside lights on all sides. It is very nice to have when it is dark out and you need to go get something, Or when you need to back into a spot at 1:00am and you can't see behind you just turn them on and it lights up everything.

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What are you doing for the floor? Carpet, Tiling, etc.

If you can try to get some rubber roofing or something like it. It works great to get rid of the ice and snow from drilling the holes. The only problem is that it can get a bit slippery when it is wet.

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Thanks for all the suggestions and questions so far. I'll try to answer them the best I can.

The size of this house is 8' x 12' foot on the square with a 3' V. So the total length is 15'. The whole shell cost me just under $6000. This included the following:

-A "shack rack" frame complete with single winch operation, coil spring solid axle suspention, paint, LP tank holders, hitch jack, and galvanized wheel wells. (all brand new) This thing pulls 70mph down the highway no problem with my 1/2 ton pickup. If you're looking for a frame and you don't check these out, you're cheating yourself. Top notch quality and engineering, and cheaper that most 8' wide frames out there. Plus its the simplest to operate and the wheel system takes up 1/2 of the room inside the house.

-all steel studded welded frame for the shell that is stronger and lighter that wood.

-smooth aluminum siding with diomand plate trim all around, and a huge diomand plate rock gaurd on the front.

I like the idea of lights on the outside. I was planning on doing that. I am also putting a ton of LED trailer lights on it. I just picked up the main tail lights today in Mankato.

I am gonna have a TON of wiring to do in the inside as well. I will be wiring all of the normal 12v stuff including interior lights, cigarette lighter plugs, a car stereo, and of course my forced air furnace. It will be totally wired for 110v also so I can power stuff with a generator or any other 110 source, run my on board batt. charger, TV, and AC in the summer. My brother is an electrician and an avid ice fisherman so nothing will be over looked electrically. We have done 4 houses before this so we have figured out alot of that.

For the interior, I plan on having a dinette that turns into a bunk, plus another set of bunks. It will be all T&G pine, with an oven/stove up in the V. I will use indoor/outdoor carpet and catch covers. I like the idea of the rubber floor for convienience but like carpet for comfort. My last house had carpet and that forced air furnace dried it out in no time flat.

Keep the questions and suggestions coming, and I'll try to keep the pictures coming!

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great looking house, i have a 16' with bunk in back love it. as far as your carpet may i suggest the premium pontoon carpet you can get a fleet farm. have installed it on 2 pontoons 7 is much better thatn standard indoor outdoor wax stuff. i put an apartment size full oven in & works great for pizza's & when the kids want to bake brownie. way to go now you have me thnking of ice fishing instead of open water! good luck on the project.

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I don't usually get too crazy with 12v stuff. I have always put in 4 lights on the ceiling that you can turn on and off individually with their own switch, and I wire them to turn all of them on/off with a master switch. I use a standard 110v light switch for the "master" light switch. I also have always put in a car stereo system, and a few 12v plug ins to charge the cell phone and what not. I have also used forced air furnaces in the past, so those have to be wired in as well.

On this house, I'm gonna go nuts wiring it 110. Im going to have a plug on the outside that you can plug in a 110 power source (extention cord from campsite of generator). This will power all the 110 outlets. I plan on having about 6 of them. I also have an inverter that I can use to power the outlets with 12v. Lastly, I'm going to wire in an on-board battery charger, like in a boat, so I can charge my battery while I run my generator.

I know that was a pretty broad description. If you ask me more of a specific question, I'll try to give you more of a specific answer. I am no expert though. There are alot of people on here that know way more about this stuff than I do. I'll try to help as best I can though.

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one thing i did that i like is i ran 2 battery gauges, one on the battery for the heater and one for the accessories. I wired the gauges to a momentary switch. so all you have to do is push the switch and it powers the gauge and then tells you how much life is left on the battery's.

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Gauges are a great idea. Putting on that switch is an even better one to save battery life. I might have to steal that idea.

I just got the floor in, and I will be sending it off to be spray foamed soon. I used 5/8" plywood, and self tapping screws to secure it. It went pretty good. Had the floor in in about an hour.

I'm forced to go up to Ottertail fishing tomorrow so I won't get much done this week. I know I got it pretty rough. I will post some more pics soon though.

Thanks again for all the advise. I hope everyone can keep it coming!

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when I built mine 8x14 square 2'V (8x16) with 16" wheel wells in the house I put in a two bench table that the backs of the benches fold up into a bunks and the table sets down we sleep 5 guys on 3-28" by 7' upper bunks that fold away and and one 6'x8' lower bed, we finished it late last year(Feb), this year we add electricity and snap in holes (8 of them)carpet and under the floor insulation and fix one mistake replace cheap indoor paneling with fiberglass board paneling the cheap stuff warped terrible just from the condensation of 2 weekends, all steel frame was great the door shut and stayed shut gonna add computer fans to push heat down to the floor to keep carpet dry our problem is we have 2 guys one day and 6 the next so we need the beds it would be nice to have less beds and more storage but i like having the guys there better it more fun when fishing slows keep pics coming I enjoy watching and getting Ideas,

I almost forgot we have a 4'x7' removable hole in back wall so we can hook another house to this one making it bigger when we make a Mille Lacs run

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Just got back from Ottertail, and a week of R&R. Caught a ton of nice 'eyes up there by the way... (this new house might have to visit there this winter)... Now I gotta get back to work. Like I said last week the floor is in, and I gotta get to wiring. I will try to post some pics this week.

I'm looking for someone to spray foam my floor right now also. I live in the Mankato area, so if anyone knows of a place, I'm trying to find a good one.

Bullhead,

Your house sounds pretty cool. I'd like to see some pics of that thing. I have never heard of putting wheeled or perminent houses together like you mentioned. Sounds way over my head though.

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Just got back from Ottertail, and a week of R&R. Caught a ton of nice 'eyes up there by the way... (this new house might have to visit there this winter)... Now I gotta get back to work. Like I said last week the floor is in, and I gotta get to wiring. I will try to post some pics this week.

I'm looking for someone to spray foam my floor right now also. I live in the Mankato area, so if anyone knows of a place, I'm trying to find a good one.

Bullhead,

Your house sounds pretty cool. I'd like to see some pics of that thing. I have never heard of putting wheeled or perminent houses together like you mentioned. Sounds way over my head though.

A while ago on hear there was a thread about the FM ultimate fish house. He got his spray foamed in Mankato. Check the yellow pages.

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Triple B,

I actually was inspired by the FM ultimate fish house thread to post my building progress on this site. There was alot of really good info shared in that thread, and I took alot from it.

I am going to check around this week for places that can do the spray foam for me. I think you're right about the yellow pages being my best bet. I'm just hoping someone will be able to do it with the shell already on the frame.

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