2017 Fish House Build

[grasshopper]

So how much is that thing going to weigh? By the time u get that on the ice, you'll have to pull it off.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

7 hours ago, grasshopper said:

So how much is that thing going to weigh? By the time u get that on the ice, you'll have to pull it off.

5500# or less. We'll be on as soon as there's 10". 

[EricR]

This has been an amazing project to follow!  Thanks for posting.  Can't wait to see the final build!

 

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Busy as heck this week.  Nothing photo-worthy yet, just getting everything tidied up and squared away for spray foam Saturday morning.  Stay tuned...almost to the good stuff!

[grasshopper]

Once your done, post the weight. I'd  surprised if its under 6000lbs.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

7 hours ago, grasshopper said:

Once your done, post the weight. I'd  surprised if its under 6000lbs.

No question it'll be well under that. My last one was 5400# and this won't be much different. It should have come in closer to 5k, but I had to make a couple on the fly changes. 

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Yesterday was a huge milestone for us...the spray foam is now done, which means the challenging part of the build is behind us.  

In my earlier posts I said I wasn't going to necessarily endorse anyone or a manufacturer.  After watching the guys at Midwest Complete Comfort work their butts off yesterday, I'm going to go against that.  Jordan and his side kick spent 10 hours yesterday between the 3 houses, and I'd guess they didn't stop for more than 5 minutes total.  Anyone who has been around when they are foaming knows how hot it is (120-200 degrees), and the clean up is terrible work.  When they left, you could have eaten off the driveway or fish house floors....a true testament of a contractors pride in their work, in my opinion.  

For those who have been waiting on the skid/spear house, here it is:

This is a 4'x6' "mini-me" version of the big house.  

No frills like seats, lights, heat, etc...just a pike slaying machine   I don't know the weight, but it is really light...maybe 300-350 pounds.  2 of us had no problem easily tipping it on its side.  

And back to our regularly scheduled programming....

I'll try to get some pictures of it later today when the lighting is right, but one of the things I really like is that the way these houses were sprayed really minimizes the ripple/texture effect of the spray foam.  They started with a really quick/light coat of foam, which cools very quickly, and then helps keep the aluminum from expanding with remainder of the foam.  He did 3-4 passes over everything, and it really turned out nice.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

I didn't have a ton of time today to get going on the interior, but I wanted to get started.  The woodwork isn't near as dark as the photo shows.

This was the extent of what I was able to do until I get my window casings done tomorrow or Tuesday.  32 days from tomorrow I need to have this bad boy done.  I'm cautiously optimistic, as the remainder goes together quite quickly.        

[Datman7890]

Looking really good. Really like the stain on the wood. Different look from everyone else. How did they do underneath the house? Did you have it on a hoist?

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Something like this 

[slammer]

Lip rip  What do you use for a tow vehicle and how will that big house handle  down the road?

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

9 hours ago, slammer said:

Lip rip  What do you use for a tow vehicle and how will that big house handle  down the road?

I had a F150 Ecoboost, but I got a Duramax about a year ago.  A half ton will probably need air bags, but other than that, they tow them no problem at all.  I'm sure I had over 5,000 miles towing my last house across the state, in almost every condition we encounter in MN.  A 24' would be the upper end of the comfort (and safety) zone for a half ton.

A diesel is pretty overkill if the heaviest thing you pull (like me) is one of these houses.  When I bought this truck the aluminum body F150 had only been out for a few months, so they were still extremely proud of them.  It was under $2k to get into a diesel, so it didn't take long to have the math make sense.  If I could take the Duramax/Allison and stick it in my old F150, I would in a heartbeat.  Everything else about the Chevy sucks in comparison.     

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

I was fortunate enough to have two days to really go balls to the walls.  The walls are finished up to the V front.  

The cabinet face frames and bunks are done, about half are stained.

My front base cabinet with the furnace and stove was a real thinker.  I didn't account for my range vent with my framing, so I either had to overhang the range 2" over the wheel well, or move it forward about 15".  I absolutely didn't want to move it forward.  Because of the height of the stove/wheel well, I didn't have the clearance to maintain my 36" countertop height, so I jumped up to 42".    

The base cabinet has a 1x8 to allow all the furnace venting and returns to run below.  Two vents will blow straight to the back of the house, 1 will be on the 45 pointing towards the bathroom wall, and the 4th will blow towards the door.  My last house had a vent blowing at the front bunk, so it was always a bit too warm there.   

[Moon Lake Refuge]

How much of any sanding do you have to do on your cabinet seams?  Or have yours all lined up pretty well?

[YettiStyle]

Is that tin/steel trim around the windows on the inside? 

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

2 hours ago, Moon Lake Refuge said:

How much of any sanding do you have to do on your cabinet seams?  Or have yours all lined up pretty well?

I've learned to make sure everything is lined up and clamped really well.  You still end up with some sanding.  I use an orbital, so it doesn't take long.  I've also learned to sand everything, especially when staining dark.  The unseen glob of glue really throws a wrench in things.  

1 hour ago, YettiStyle said:

Is that tin/steel trim around the windows on the inside? 

The inside casing of the window is cedar.  There will be other pine trim on the inside.  

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

The hydronic system is all hooked up and running as of yesterday morning (minus the heat portion of it).  It's going to be sweet!  There is barely any sound whatsoever to the system.  I ran it for about 10 hours continuously to make sure there is no air in the lines, or leaks.  Running a 55% glycol solution, so I'll be good for about -40 for a flow point, and -70 burst protection.      

Once that was finished up, we were able to finish the drivers side wall.  I started getting some of the final electrical items done (thermostats, switches, hole lights, etc).  So far I didn't screw up any wiring, or have any misplaced nails

The cabinets are all stained and almost ready to get installed.  Later today we'll get the ceiling going.  It will have some cool features that haven't been done in a fish house yet.  

[vtx1029]

Looking forward to seeing all your cool tricks you have up your sleeve. Hopefully your hydro heat system will work great! What's the small tank with the green t on the top? Expansion tank? 

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

10 hours ago, vtx1029 said:

Looking forward to seeing all your cool tricks you have up your sleeve. Hopefully your hydro heat system will work great! What's the small tank with the green t on the top? Expansion tank? 

Correct.  An expansion tank, with an air release valve on the top.  

 

[Elm Creek Local]

Would it be worth pulling 20-30 miles down the road at pressure to see if any leaks pop up? Can't quite tell if those are Shark Bite couplers on your return, but those would be worth monitoring too. Looking good, can't wait for your feedback after it gets put to the test.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

57 minutes ago, Elm Creek Local said:

Would it be worth pulling 20-30 miles down the road at pressure to see if any leaks pop up? Can't quite tell if those are Shark Bite couplers on your return, but those would be worth monitoring too. Looking good, can't wait for your feedback after it gets put to the test.

Those are Uponor flow meters.  I had a very tiny leak show up on both sides of my Taco valve, but pulled it apart yesterday, and put it back together with teflon tape and tons of pipe dope.  Ran it another 24 hours and there definitely are no leaks now.  

Pulling it 3+ hours on the September 1st weekend, so if anything changes will pulling it down the road, that should help it show up.

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

My last update was 10 days ago and a lot has happened since then.  Not all of it photo worthy, but I spent 3 nights in a row working by the light of a head lamp until well after midnight.  I have 9 days from today to finish up, so the pressure is on.  

From my last post I got the shiny aluminum ceiling up.  This has a few functions; 1) cosmetic, 2) reflection for the recessed red lights, 3) housing for the interior lights, 4) reflecting heat.  

You'd think it would have been easy, but it was a major pain in the ace to install perfectly...

This was the trim board ready to install.  The inside of the trim board has LED strip lights, the exterior was routered for the tongue and groove.  The actual trim piece is where all the (central) interior lights are located.  

 

I ran into several problems, all caused by thinking it would be easy, and not planning for it.  My furring strips weren't where they should have been, which was the bulk of the problem.  The good news is that it all worked out, it just took an unfortunate amount of time.

I'm a huge fan of red lights for night fishing.  Super easy on the eyes, and red is the first color to disappear underwater, so it does serve a function.  

 

The ceiling will be all polished up in a few days once everything is done.  Tomorrow night all the materials will be cut and prepped for the lift bed which gets welded up on Friday.  Cushions are being sewn now.  Stickers go on next week.   

Tonight I fired up all the electrical, including the electric heat for the hydronic system.  Everything seems to work very well.  I'm about 90% done as of tonight, and should be pretty close to done by the end of the weekend.  I can't wait!  It's been a hot summer, and I've had my fill of mosquito bites!     

[Elm Creek Local]

I'm very interested how you designed the bed lift, would love to see pictures when its installed!

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Today was quite a day.  I enjoy almost everything about building houses, except when things don't go as planned.  The plan was to dedicate the entire day to finishing up the walls, trim, cabinets, bathroom, etc.  It didn't go that way.  This morning when I turned the hole lights on (as I've done 25 times), the entire passenger side was dim.  And then when I turned on the red lights, it caused the hole lights to turn off and then back on.  Never a good sign.

I spent an hour with my handy dandy electrical tester and pictures of my wiring hoping to figure out what was going on.  None of the nails (5,000+) were the cause.  Eventually I tracked it down to two errors.  The first was a screw holding the bathroom wall to a furring strip in the ceiling.  It was a bit long, directly above the wall, in the middle of the spray foam, and took out 4 circuits.  That sucked.  The second, I didn't see until after 2 hours of chipping spray foam from the first problem.  I had drilled a hole to run some coax, and it went about 1/4" too deep, and took out another 3 circuits.  Long story short, it was 1pm before I got to anything productive.  I'm really happy I found them, though.  That was a disaster waiting to happen.  I tested all the wiring after, and it's good to go now.    

About 4:00 we got started on welding the lift bed.  It went very well, and the side wall supports are done and mounted.

Tomorrow morning I'll get the two cross pieces measured and cut, and then there's about an hour of welding to have this done.   I think it'll be sweet!  At the top it tucks up tight to the ceiling.  There's 38" of travel, and at the bottom it's just a small step off the lower bunk to get into the top.  I'm hoping that it's like the Happi Jac (although without power), for $1500 less.    

[Lip_Ripper Guy]

Well, the DIY lift bed I had high hopes for is a flop (so far).  Everything was built perfectly, and measures perfectly (within 1/32" all around) after it was installed, but it binds like a mother.  Pretty much what a lot of people thought would happen.  Anyone have ideas?

The vertical wall supports are 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" x 1/8 square, the sliders are 6" tall, and 2" x 2" x 3/16", so there is a fair amount of clearance all the way around.  It just doesn't lift evenly without binding.  Might be headed for the scrap bin!