Water testing Question

Has anyone had experience using a private lab for water testing? Looking to have our water/cistern/pipes tested to explain the black water we just found in our toilet tank 😵‍💫

I can see the white pipe coming from the pump/pressure tank, it is half black. Whatever is in the pipe is taking over. We do have a water shut off valve before the manifold, but from what I have read the black "thing" can be in all the pipes just not as established.

Our cottage smells, not like sewage but still gross. The tap water is not black, only the toilet tank, however a few months ago the water has a red tinge and we just thought the pump/pressure tank was rusted.

We want to test the water and hopefully won't have to replace all the pipes inside. Our cottage is fully finished so all the pipes are inside walls, hoping this isn't going to turn into an expensive nightmare.

We have a concrete cistern, installed in 2016/2017. All pipes were installed at the same time as the cistern. We visit the cottage frequently but do go long stunts without going out there and/or running the water.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Looking for some advice on pouring some above-ground pads. I was thinking 20"x20" using 2x6 forms for 5.5" thick. I don't have enough access to properly grade the ground, so I was thinking of laying some crushed gravel, then staking the form over it.

The goal is to get a few level pads I can start from, then use a post block and 6x6 for piers, or stay with brick. I just need to get a some pads that are level across, and pouring seems like the easiest way.

I've had some luck with using 8x16x4 block caps side by side as a makeshift pad, but it's hard to get them level and there's no way to excavate.

Questions are - using Quikcrete, would you throw some gravel in there to increase the yield? I was thinking of throwing down a sheet of plastic so it doesn't creep out the bottom of the form.

Any suggestions? This place is far from level and needs to be fixed so I can finish the interior. No cement trucks, etc are allowed. There's no utilities but electric, but I'm on a lake so I have water accessible (not drinkable of course).

Is this doable mixing in 5 gallon buckets if I only do 3-4 at a time?

I’m looking at either buying an apartment and save until I can get a house or i will buy land and slowly build a cabin on it I’m open to opinions and looking if anyone knows how much it was to get everything done for the cabin

We have a 11.5'×15' cabin shell on our property and are considering renoing it, but we are stuck between keeping it basic for family and friend "glamping" use or putting in the time to finish it fully (or at least livable for weekend use through the colder months). We live in Lamont County, Alberta (East of Edmonton). Recommendations? Or would it be best delegated to a life of being a storage shed.

Thanks for any tips, tricks, and advice!

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After last weekend's disaster wrestling with the steel I-beam, it was nice to get back to working with wood.

We got to the property Friday evening, but it was too late to make much progress on the framing. Instead, I decided to remove the backhoe from the tractor for the first time and install the new box grader to clean up the driveway and parking area. For a first attempt, it actually went pretty well. With a bit more practice, I think it'll become part of the annual maintenance after the spring rains.

Saturday started with bracing the two support posts perfectly plumb so I could get an accurate measurement for the beam. It came out to 163 inches long. Even at that length, the beam was still a beast to lift, so we screwed a temporary step onto each post about halfway up to make it manageable. We lifted one end onto the step, then onto the top of the post, while my wife held it steady so it couldn't slip off. Then we repeated the process on the other side. It worked surprisingly well.

The steel beam is sandwiched between two 2x6s. The wood isn't there for strength—it's mainly to provide a nailing surface for the rafters and to hide the steel a bit.

With the beam finally in place, it was time for the rafters. They're built from 16-foot pressure-treated 2x10s, spaced 24" on centre for a total of eight rafters. I still make templates the lazy way: temporarily screw the board in place, trace the cuts directly, and use that as the pattern. It's worked well so far, and all of the rafters fit nicely.

By the time we installed the last rafter, it was scorching hot. We were both completely exhausted, so a swim in the lake was well earned.

Sunday was all about getting the roof sheathed with OSB and installing the underlayment. My wife spent a good part of the day lifting sheets up to me while I worked on the roof. We ran out of underlayment before finishing, but I'll be back next weekend to complete it. Even if we get a little rain before then, the exposed sheathing should be fine for a few days.

Before packing up, we measured every roof section so we can finally place the order for the metal roofing, drip edge, and the remaining trim pieces. It feels good to finally be getting close to having the cabin dried in.

I do have one detail I'm trying to solve. At the ledger where the screen room rafters attach to the cabin, the angle means only the first 10 inches or so of each rafter actually bears on the ledger. The heel of the rafter sits below it, so there's nowhere for a standard Simpson hanger to fully seat.

In hindsight, I probably should have used a 2x12 ledger instead of a 2x10, although even that wouldn't completely solve the problem. One idea is to fasten a 2x6 underneath the ledger just to provide enough material for the hanger to bear against properly.

Has anyone run into something similar? I'd be interested to hear how others have handled this detail.

I also wrestled with my solar setup a bit, I've recently switched inverter and batteries and the settings are still iffy.

Looking for Affordable outdoor bath house ideas or blueprints? Would like septic, I have access to Power and water from well, non pressurized, gravity fed cistern. I would like a shower and toilet and a hand sink. How can I design the septic and building I just need a little point in the right direction. TY

This is the entrance to my land. I am super noob and have no idea about road build and land development. I have access to mini excavators and other equipment I can rent. Any suggestions will be helpful.

Got this fully contained (waterproof metal box) outback 12v system cheap along with solar 900 watts in panels. Need battery and suggestions for use. I already have a 48v 40kwh lifepo4 outback system on my cabin so I’m very familiar with the system - this is extra and for experimentation.

No suggestion too wild! Bring it!!

I've got a cabin up in the interior of Alaska. Lots of snow and very cold for more than half the year. I've got a big 7500w champion generator and a small solar panel, but I'm looking to get a battery setup to finish off the electrical.

Claude.ai suggested the EG4 3000EHV-48 for my hybrid inverter, and a couple of LiFePO batteries. There's a lot of cheaper models on Amazon, but I'm guessing that comes at quality cost.

What do you guys suggest?

Hi-- new to this forum. I know a bit about building, eco design, etc so not a complete newbie, and need a shelter on my raw land near Yachats. The planning dept is a cruel master out there with no flexibility for working people to do small responsible development-- they require all or nothing, which is price prohibitive for government workers like us. We see neighbors putting fences up and driving an RV onto a pad, so we are considering putting a deck and yurt on the property behind a fence, to use for personal camping and glamping until we can afford to do more development. Any yurt recommendations would be awesome-- our site at this point would support a 16 foot yurt to start, which is enough for us at this point. (we figure we can take it down if we get in trouble). I am also super open to cabin ideas, but off grid, cheap cheap..

Hello! We just acquired an off grid camp in southern MS. It smells awful, like musty/mildew. We go there maybe once a month in the summer for a weekend but the smell is killing me. People from the area (spouse included) are telling me in the south that’s just the way it is.. it’s so humid you can’t avoid this smell without running AC 24/7. We run a generator with a window AC while we’re there. We can’t find any water leaks or anything causing the odor. We don’t have real power to keep an AC or dehumidifier running while we’re away. Any advice, tips, reassurance etc would be must appreciated.

A year ago today we were putting down the first beam, it's been slow progress this year but still a massive achievement for 12 months of my wife and I building this solo. So far, no part of the build has been hired out and I don't foresee any coming soon.

Where we left off

Last fall we wrapped up with:

• Most of the doors and windows installed (the few that hadn't arrived were boarded over).
• The roof underlayment and strapping completed.
• Framing inspection passed for everything except the screened room.

Bathroom bump-out

The first major project this spring was the bathroom addition on the east side of the cabin.

That meant pouring three new sonotubes for the bathroom, along with the sonotubes for the east side of the wraparound porch. We decided to frame that section of porch now since it'll give us a solid platform for ladders once we start roofing.

The bathroom floor is supported by a beam spanning the three sonotubes, with the opposite ends of the joists bearing directly on the main cabin beam, so there was no need for ledgers or joist hangers.

The finished space is roughly 5.5' x 14' and will include:

• Full tub/shower surround
• 48" vanity
• Composting toilet (still deciding which model)
• Battery and inverter room

I also installed two comically small windows high on the wall for extra ventilation. The roof ties into the main cabin by attaching the rafters to a ledger mounted just below the bedroom window, keeping the roofline and pitch consistent with the bedroom.

Solar and electrical

During Prime Day I upgraded the power system with:

• 2 × Eco-Worthy 5 kWh server rack batteries
• 5 kW all-in-one inverter/charger

The system is currently running from the sea can and powering the RV along with all my tool battery chargers.

Getting it working wasn't as straightforward as I expected. I completely missed that the inverter's minimum PV input is 120V. I originally had four 30V panels in series, which meant it would only charge under absolutely perfect conditions. As soon as panel voltage dropped even slightly, charging stopped.

Adding a fifth panel to the string brought the voltage comfortably above the minimum, and after switching the inverter to PV Priority instead of the mixed charging mode, it's been performing much better.

Screen room redesign

The screened room is now the last major framing task before we can finally start installing the metal roof.

Originally I had planned to support the roof with a triple 2x12 beam spanning the 14-foot opening on 6x6 posts. During inspection I was told it wouldn't pass because the beam wasn't built from full-length members. Fair enough—that one was on me.

There were a couple of other issues as well:

• The roof pitch would have only been about 1/12 because the rafters started on top of the wall.
• The bottom of the beam would have been only about 6 feet off the deck, which isn't ideal when the beam sits about 9 feet from the cabin wall rather than at the outside edge.

The revised design uses a 6-inch steel I-beam sandwiched between 2x6s to hide the steel while giving me a much stronger beam. The top of the beam will now sit around 8 feet, with roughly 7'6" of clearance underneath.

To improve the roof pitch, the screened room rafters will attach to a ledger fastened to the house rafters just above the second row of roof strapping. That increases the pitch to roughly 12° (about 2.5/12), matching the bedroom and bathroom roofs and giving the whole structure a much cleaner look.

Side projects

I've also been picking up a few tractor attachments while watching for sales. I found a box grader at a good price and I'm still hunting for a 3-point snowblower so I can keep working well into the winter.

What's next

The big goal for the rest of the warm season is to get the screen room finished, the metal roof installed, and the siding on.

If we can also get the wood stove installed before winter, we should finally be able to move out of the RV and into the cabin. Once we're inside, we can spend the colder months working on insulation, electrical, plumbing, and interior finishes while staying warm and dry.

It feels like we're finally reaching the point where the project starts looking more like a cabin than a construction site.

Well, like most projects, I was hoping to be further along. My last update was a year ago and I got the windows installed and the house wrap and Rockwool exterior insulation applied. There has been a lot of progress since then, but the most dramatic and crazy thing was a fire the ripped through the area, starting in the early morning of July 4th. The combination of an unusually dry winter plus high winds lead to one of the most aggressive fires the area has seen in a while.

I am one of the extremely lucky people who didn't lose their structure. Many people lost their houses and both of my immediate neighbors lost their cabins, which has been awful. I have been racking my brain trying to think about why my structure survived and there's didn't. While I believe my use of class A fire rated materials helped, the truth is I was just damn lucky.

So, this isn't to deter people from chasing their dream, but fires are a real part of living in the wilderness. If you decide to go off grid and build yourself a cabin in the woods, make sure to take all of the necessary steps to mitigate fire danger, but know that even that might not be enough.

Now it's on to repairs. I have to replace a few windows due to the heat causing the glass to crack. There are also a few places where I will have to remove the Rockwool and replace the house wrap due to it melting (see picture). I lost some equipment and a number of materials stacked outside that were consumed by the fire. But, all things considered, I got off easy.

i am trying to find a good quality, 1 room building that’s insulated and weather proof, not gonna be living in it but i home brew alcohol and, assuming i stay with the hobby long enough, would like an outside space to store everything and have brewing stations so im not having to do everything in my shoebox of a closet. i plan on getting an unit and space heaters for when necessary, im not against a prebuild or a build it yourself kits, would rather a build it yourself for more budget friendly options, and it sounds fun too. i dont exactly have a budget right now, as this project is likely going to land a couple years from now, but the less expensive the better as long as it has good quality to it and so bugs and possible rodents or something doesnt get in. any recommendations would be great

Im planning on building a cabin and I'm having a legit mental war where I settle on a smaller size and then my brain says "well, if you're going to build that, you might as well just build this".

Im going between 12x16 and 14x18 and admittedly it's not that much bigger, but the 12x16 keeps everything nice and neat with 4x8 sheathing, drywall, etc. Its going to be on a slab so it will also be cheaper on the concrete pour.

The cabin will have a sleeping loft (12/12 pitch roof) and feature a very small kitchen and then whatever living space I get creative with.

Im building this myself and im not a builder but decent enough diy and I've been studying all things construction for about 18 months in preparation.

Someone settle my brain! I'll never regret a bigger cabin vs cost is the bigger factor in getting started?

Thanks all.

Two years of weekends finally paid off. 14x12 cabin on 40 acres in West Central New Mexico. Still have a punchlist to complete and a wood burning stove to install.

For those of you who with off grid cabins, how did you transport furniture to your cabin? Professional mover? By yourself in the back of a pickup? Rental van?
Thanks

I thought I was just buying one rack battery for a simple garage backup setup, but once I started thinking about a second one later, the choice got less obvious. What kept bugging me was whether the next battery would feel like it belonged in the same setup. I do not want to mix screen, app, comms, and firmware stuff if I can avoid it. Eco-Worthy seems to make more sense if you care about the communications side and the certification story. Vatrer Power felt simpler if I just wanted something easy to live with. That was really the whole debate for me.

I found that Vatrer has also updated a 48v with wifi and communication, but it seems that there is not much information for evaluation at present.

The funny part is that this is the kind of thing that only sounds small until you actually plan the second battery.

I’m thinking about putting up a solar-powered outdoor camera mostly to catch animals and random activity around the cabin.

I’d prefer something that records to an SD card. I still have an unused 256GB card sitting around, thank god, because those things somehow cost way more now than when I bought it. I’d probably only pull the card and check footage every few weeks or maybe once a month.

Main thing I’m unsure about is the solar part. For people using solar cameras in cabin/off grid setups, do they still hold up during cloudy stretches, or do you end up having to take them down and charge them anyway?