2014/2015 Ice House Build

[trav102]

Have been building a ice house these last few weeks and figured I would post on here the progress and tips if you are building yourself. I had been searching online for a deal on a frame for some time and while this was smaller than I wanted, it was a great deal on hsolist so I had to pick it up. 10'+ 3' V x 6' wide. Started out by grinding down frame painted it with that roll on bed liner stuff from Menards to protect from rust. Here are a few pics of what I started with.

[trav102]

After painting frame I put down 3/4" Treated plywood for the floor along with the special coated self tapping screws to fasten down. Then I built 2x2 walls with 2x4's around the windows and door and also for the rafters. Special Note: It is near impossible to find straight 2x2's at Menards! haha Read online it is best to use 3" screw for framing together. I do however regret doing this in the winter, pain to battle the snow, ice and cold!

[trav102]

Windows are in, ended up going with Thermastar by Pella windows from Lowes. Put in 3, 1 on each side and one in the back. Not too expensive and have read good reviews on them. Tarped off the roof at this point also, having trouble getting the roof dry from all the melting/freezing and snow!

[trav102]

Ordered all LED trailer lights on hsolist. Found great prices at e bey Best prices I could find on LED trailer lights. And with all my previous bad luck with trailer lights decided to go with LED's hopefully will not have to replace them... EVER!! I guess I can't put in URL's!

Will keep pics and progress updates coming. This has turned into more of a project and a lot more money than I originally planned. Hope to have completed for a fishing trip by the end of the month! But we'll see.

[trav102]

Have now moved on to siding. My options were between the pole barn siding at menards and smooth aluminum siding which I preferred but found was very expensive. Obviously vinyl siding is a major no no for ice house because they become very brittle when cold and offer essentially zero strength.

So I had shopped around and found aluminum sheets to be priced well over $100 a sheet and that was just for white! I had originally wanted smooth red colored siding but after shopping around a bit I found a much better deal. Ended up going to Garelick steel in Minneapolis and got painted "off white" .050 4x8' sheets of aluminum for only $51 a sheet. By far the best price I have seen. Needed 9 sheets of it.

I read on another forum on here to use Loctite PL to glue the siding on. Permanently attaches the sheeting to the house and allows you to not have any screws showing... However after trying to glue on the first two pieces I found that it is very hard to keep the sheeting from sliding off.. Anyways I am now screwing it on and gluing. You will never get this stuff off except in pieces! Anyways I strongly recommend gluing and screwing, saves a lot of time and hassle compared to just gluing.

To deal with this ridiculous cold we are having I have also built an enclosure out of tarps and put in my 200,000 BTU construction heater to allow all the wood to dry as well as the glue. Keeps it nice and toasty in there compared to the -11 degrees it is outside!!

Below is a pic of the enclosure built around it. Finished up all the siding last night and will post pictures of it later on. Wasn't sure about the "off white" at first but it turned out looking quite sharp!!

I am now just waiting on my Diamond Plated Aluminum order for all the trim and then I will be moving onto the roof!

[icehole10]

I'll give you credit for doing this in this lovely weather. good luck on the rest of your build, and I look forward to the pics!!

[trav102]

Yes it has definitely been a challenge with this weather that's for sure!!

Order all the diamond plated aluminum for the outside trim today from Discount Steel in Minneapolis, gave a pretty good price to cut all to size and bend for all the corners plus to trim around all the windows.

Will hopefully have some more pics to upload by the weekend!

[trav102]

Not much progress to show today. Lots of wires!! Can't believe how much electric can be in one smaller house! And I still have a little more to do!!

5 Exterior LED Lights (2 switches

10 Interior Recessed LED Lights (2 switches)

2 12v Outlets

4 (maybe 5) 110v outlets

Stereo + Speakers- 2 interior and 2 exterior

Exterior generator/power supply hook up

Cable hook ups for the "eventual" TV

etc. etc. More wire in here than in my house!

Plan on connecting to Power Supply box/converter from Fish House Supply HSOforum. Hoping for my diamond plated trim to show up for the exterior and do the roof and ext. lights this weekend and we'll be on to insulating!

Also ordered the furnace today, decided against the direct vent wall mount for a few reasons. For one it would take up a lot of wall space and also for a good Empire 15k BTU wall mount they are running upwards of $800 with shipping and from Fish House supply I found a 18k BTU direct vent forced air furnace for considerably less than that. Have also been heard from another guy on this forum that the wall mounts deliver uneven heat, whereas the forced furnace makes a more even heat rather than layers i.e. cold on the bottom and real hot on ceiling... Only downside is that it takes power to run, but is a trade off I thought was worth taking. Now the only things left to order is the wood for the interior and the stereo system and I should be good for my hopeful deadline of the end of the month!!

[drewbop]

It's always nice to have a deadline that forces one to get things done! Good luck on your build, I look forward to seeing the finished product

[Hawg]

Ground everything 4 times as much as you think you need to. Ground every light and signal separately and together. And run a ground from the back tail lights to the front so your plug and a shorty to the frame in the front is even more redundancy. IT'S ALWAYS THE GROUND. You'll be happy you did.

[eagle_3464]

Hawg, does that mean your earlier brake light problem turned out to be the ground after all?

[Hawg]

I haven't paid much attention to it since I put it on the lake close to home. I did grind down my ball for better ground and have been putzing with the truck connector because last outing everything went very dim, that's a ground for sure. Once I got lights back the brake was still a problem so I'm still thinking the fixture itself. I do know I have a slight ground problem with the truck because even running a ground to the plug from the house was not much help but I'm convinced I'm grounded now. It's such a pain to work in the cold!

[Hawg]

Trav, I might have missed something but why is your frame only reinforced with cross supports only 1/2 way?

[trav102]

Trav, I might have missed something but why is your frame only reinforced with cross supports only 1/2 way?

To be honest I am not sure.. It is not big enough to put in a spear hole... However I was thinking of putting in a hatch for a built in pop cooler!

[trav102]

Ground everything 4 times as much as you think you need to. Ground every light and signal separately and together. And run a ground from the back tail lights to the front so your plug and a shorty to the frame in the front is even more redundancy. IT'S ALWAYS THE GROUND. You'll be happy you did.

Thanks for the advice, I will have to run a few more ground wires!

[trav102]

Made a bit of progress the last few days. Have put all the diamond plated aluminum on the outside and around all the windows. Also finally have the roof completed. Had my 200,000 BTU construction heater going in the tent I built around the house, and to say the least there was no worry about getting it up to the 40 degree min. temp they say for the glue. Must have been over 90 in there even with it being 14 degrees outside! Finishing up some misc wiring inside and now onto putting in the door and finishing up the exterior lights.

[Fowlmouth]

Nice looking house so far man. Why'd you wait till ice season tho to build it? You could be out in that bad boy right now!

[trav102]

Nice looking house so far man. Why'd you wait till ice season tho to build it? You could be out in that bad boy right now!

Thanks! Well I wasn't really planning on building one but when I found a frame on hsolist a few weeks ago I might as well try and get it done! Hopefully get it done in the next week or so and have ready to hit the ice for the last leg of the season!

[trav102]

Not much progress to show the last few days. Finished up some wiring, installed all of the exterior lights, 5 LED porch lights, 1 by each winch and the propane tanks for when packing up or checking tanks, and then 1 by the door and the rear of the house. For trailer lights went with all LED's and surprisingly they all worked when I tested them!!

Also started with insulating now. Decided against the spray foam and to use rigid foam board, 2" on the ceiling and 1 1/2" on the walls. Decided to go with this route mainly because I didn't think that the benefits of spray foam were worth the extra cost. The foam and board have the same R-Values so there is no gain for heat, really the only advantage is structural, however being that I glued the siding on and am going to put pine tongue and groove on the interior I really don't see how it could get any more solid. Hoping to have completed or at least enough to use by the end of next week!

[trav102]

Been a few days since my last post... Been at the cabin ice fishing the last couple of days.

Have finally gotten the insulation fully finished, like I said earlier I went with the Rigid Foam board from "the save big money store". 1 1/2" for the walls and 2" for the ceiling. While at the cabin I also picked up all the tongue and groove pine for the interior. Ended up splurging on Grade 2 pine so it should all be top notch. As I am sure many of you know I wouldn't waste you time looking for good quality tongue and groove around the cities, in all my experiences it is definitely worth the drive north for the quality difference.

Hoping to get the pine up and cabinets by the end of the week and move on to finishing the wood.

[Hawg]

Foaming or heavily caulking the insulation edges helps more than people might realize. It's a small thing you'll never be able to do after this point. Also, I took about 30-40 pictures of the house wiring before putting up the wood, it's saved me lots of time and headaches when putting nails and screws into the walls for surface mounted stuff.

[38bill]

Foaming or heavily caulking the insulation edges helps more than people might realize. It's a small thing you'll never be able to do after this point. Also, I took about 30-40 pictures of the house wiring before putting up the wood, it's saved me lots of time and headaches when putting nails and screws into the walls for surface mounted stuff.

I did exactly the same things with my house. I think that the sealing the seams on the foam insulation will help prevent moisture from getting past the insulation.

[trav102]

[Hawg]

Those cracks and edges seem small now but they let a ton of moisture and cold threw. I believe 100% in foam now that I've had one, I might have debated for pink foam board before. It's not just structural, it's the tightness.

[Grainbelt]

Five years after finishing the interior of my house I had a short show up on the way back from deer hunting, probably a nail. Be sure to use some inline fuses to your batteries. It saved my house from going up in flames on the trip home.