How to Build an Off Grid Log Cabin: For FREE!

Description

Join me as I start building a new log cabin, for free, and talk about the time I lived off-grid and show my old log cabin that has been standing for 25 years now - 15 of those years completely unmaintained.

Stay tuned for the following videos as I complete the cabin using all natural materials and stockpile food and other supplies for a year of off-grid living.

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Website: http://myselfreliance.com/

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Tags: bushcraft,camping,self-reliance,survival,off grid,log cabin,cabin,shelter,joe robinet,super shelter,tiny home,small home,gransfors bruk,axe,pathfinder school,dick proenneke,cabin living

Video Transcription

everybody's sean james here from my self-reliance up here looking at some land in north-central Ontario where I had my property 25 years ago where I built that cabin I'm hoping to find some land to buy but in the meantime friend of mine wants land very close to the property where I built that cabin said I can come out here and do whatever I want so I'm cutting some cedar trees down today I'm going to show you how I notched those and I have chosen this location as my new log cabin location actually and I'm going to go over all the things I was doing to live for a year in the woods of off-grid no power no running water no money so what I'm going to do is reproduce my cabin my 8 by 12 cabin that I built but I'm going to make it completely built out of natural materials and using construction methods that you can disassemble it so rather than no tulino nails I'll do some dowels drill some holes and put dowels in on any joints that I need to secure or I'll do ship laps or some other kind of woodworking joint I'm going to notch the logs they're all going to be placed on top of one another complete two rectangular 8 by 12 rectangle and that's going to be the structure and I'll split some cedar like I said I'm in a cedar grove will split some cedar logs into planks put a roof on using that and then I'll actually split and make some cedar shakes that go on top of that so the whole thing can be disassembled not going to be easy mind you to disassemble but I'll try to make a smaller log so it's a little bit lighter than it would have been that cabin I built 25 years ago that that was built mostly out of hardwood mostly out of black ash very heavy wood maple and then a little bit of bass wood which is light but construction we've been very heavy difficult to disassemble so I'm going to try to read redo that right here I'm going to do a little bit different notching patter and I'll show you how I notched it back then and how I'll notch those logs on the corners now right so when I'm selecting my logs for a log cabin we're selecting my trees to cut down for log cabin I try to get two sections out of each tree so if I build this cabin eight by twelve I need about three feet longer than each side so I've got enough overhang for notching it so eight foot wall I need 11 foot logs into the 12 foot wall and needs 15 foot long so it's hard to judge that that length from the ground but what's even harder signing a log that's straight enough to get say 11 plus 15 to get 26 feet of straight logs yes straight logs out of it so that cedar right there when I came at it from one angle looked perfectly straight which it was from that angle from this angle I couldn't even get one straight log out of that fortunately so it's a beautiful cedar a great thickness for my cabin that one's slightly too thick I could get a section out of the middle but I'd feel bad about taking that cedar down just for the center section of that log so here's one here where the DIA top is already damaged and broken off I can get one length out of that one good probably the 15-foot log so I think I'll probably take that one got a nice spruce here too but I try to make most of the cabin at a cedar if I can but not against taking that spruce as well ok guys I'm just going to knock these logs right here spruce tree that I just cut down to about a six maybe eight inch log at the other end nine inch log not too bad of a taper so I can get two sections out of it cut an 11 foot log here so that's going to be good for the eight foot side closer to the bottom I don't want to put the spruce rate close to the ground I want cedar down there more rot proof and though even though they're going to sit on rocks this time when I built the cabin I put the bottom logs right on the ground I didn't have anything to elevate them I figured they were sacrificial logs anyway and they did last up 25 years and the cabin still standing so these proofs towing and elevate them a little bit that's going to be like I said the log may be second or third up from the bottom this law because the spruce tree got hung up and the top section wasn't any good this piece here will be probably just enough on the eight-foot wall to go from the corner to the door so it's not a waste of a log so I'm going to go ahead and and show you how I notch these last time when I built the cabin and I'll tell you what I'm going to do differently when I build this cabin so the first thing I did get that first row logs down I'd notch them so that they're the two runner logs langt ways we're down lowest and then I notch those and drop into two shorter ends into those notches now this is going to be sitting slightly higher than that right so it's going to sit almost flush so every time you come over the course you do this put both of those logs on then both of these logs and so on all the way up so what I did when I built the last cabin as I would all I had was sometimes at a chainsaw when my dad would come up on a weekend or something with a chainsaw from work I didn't know anyone so typically it was done with a hatchet I would score that marshal width and I would depending whether the log was upside down or not I would score that so with the backlog as well the way I'm going to do it this year gives you a little bit tighter fit this fits pretty well but you end up with because the logs are round and I'm doing a square notch the two squares sit tight in the middle but then around the outside of each round part you're going to see a gap so I'll show you fell asleep okay so now I have this piece that's the width of the log but now have to get that out of there so what I'd do is sure that again cleaned up like a little bit bigger hatchet than this actually but make this work scored that at the depth that is Roger saw cuts down because I mean about its Shore taxi how it the glances and to go for your leg because it's so short a handle I don't like it at all of course I did that Freight on or not basically these are stop cuts so when you come across with the hatch at our axe try not to carry through gives a nice straight stop cut right there get that little bit more flush see that log it's in there pretty tight right there show you what happens when I bring this halfway down to stop cuts I had two key notches in response to get a little bit closer I'm going to get a proper crosscut saw to these are okay they're portable so obviously good for my trips but for high-volume work like this you really want a proper crosscut saw what really neat something like that and a really good act really get Skirvin that you can sharpen a keep razor sharp this this actually is good feels a good good company holds affords it just i don't like this particular saw so that's the depth that I bought that now the back of this classic axe is not hurt and so it's not meant for pounding but typically what I would do get that on there and use a mallet wooden mallet pound that down that'll keep a nice clean cut on there so it's equal depth all the way again I've got little stop cut so I can but across and even better for doing is a chill chisel instead of a hatchet a little bit more precise so and you just pull not notch that radius wait wait easier actually and nicer and when you see what I'm going to do on the next cabin you understand what okay that's the safe it you can see how the next log I leave them sitting proud like that so the next log is going to be not here of course and then that's piece it the long will wall there that log it's not so what ends up happening is that not those two notches bring this log next course down on top of that one and you choose no straight logs and you orient them on the wall you don't mind a bow actually or both coming in or out but you don't want it up and down because then you have to try to trim that all the way off full legs so this one isn't bad but the knots and stuff they're lined up and they're hitting can put that log set it in there do your notches set it right down and then kind of run a hatchet or a saw down it and take off all the high points until it's sitting nice and tight and also a nicer if you can get a flat surface there anyway otherwise all you get is round against rounds you get just that tip or the outside radius of the two logs touching so you end up with hardly any our values for this because it's just a fact gob holes right through it their airspace is right through but even if it was tight it's only touching great they're at a very fine narrow point and then it gets a whiter and whiter that gap of logs start falling off of it with the roundness so it really would be that's white square log homes are nice because they all sit nice and flat and you can put a foam gasket inside there but since we're doing this completely traditional and what I did in the past was traditional I teared it off a little bit or flatten it out where I could got them fitting as tightly as I could I took Moss this whole ground here Canadian Shield is covered in Moss and boreal forest even more so as you go further north and I just shove that in the gaps from both sides stayed like that for years and then when I got married actually convinced my wife I don't think that we were married yet we were a gate I guess and she came up to the cabin and the field that the half acre one acre field where I pulled in and parked was stripped of topsoil I guess years ago and it's it's clay I was able to get clay out of the field really hard good beautiful clean clay took it out and we not only filled in the gaps with clay but the whole logs too we laid water proof that you'll see that in the pictures but it was a you know it's still there 25 years later I guess 20 years later after we did that that clay and as long as you have an overhang keeping the range from hitting it it'll stay there an awful long time so that's so that's what I did last time quickly I'm going to pack up because I'm actually excited about getting home and getting working on the video series for for living off period I know something I let go for a long time but I'm really excited about doing that to that series and I'm going to make an e-book out of it as well my dream when I was younger was to live in the cabin I want to show you the economics of how I did that back then I'm actually surprised so I look back that I had to wherewithal to make through the calculations so I designed my cabin to be as efficient as possible and we use the fewest logs as possible so roll doorway facing southeast with the Sun winter Sun and away from the prevailing winds off the lake so everything has to be 100% or as close to efficient as as you can make it in order to be able to survive and cut your living expensive tale to next to nothing so you can live off-grid like that but what I want to show you is the economics of all of that as well so I stockpiled enough food for a year and then planned on getting my protein from the wild which I did as well and I'll show you how I did that so stay tuned I hope you like what I'm doing here and hopefully I'll get get a cabin built this year and you can see how I how I scribe these logs do a little bit differently so just quickly what's what I meant by that is instead of doing a flat not flat notch like this I'm going to take a scribe so it's a like a compass and you just do this you follow the contour like that and then you only notch this log out and you do it in the shape of the round log but beneath it so we halfway through and be perfectly round and when that sits down flush on there it's going to hug that log perfectly it's going to be a really tight seal if you do that you don't need to any fasteners you don't need any plugs or dowels so you can literally build this cabin like that those logs are going to fit together you can number them you can take that cabin apart I'm looking forward to doing that them anybody wants to help me I'm going to be doing some workshops on it as well so if you want to join me as part of the educational series enjoy and I put on putting on then just reach out to me and I'll get you the information for that thanks for watching the video hope you hope you are inspired by the story of my log cabin and it's inspired me to go back and revisit that revisit what I was planning to do with my life and you know I hope it does the same for you so thanks for again for watching please subscribe you get notified when the next videos are coming out and feel free as always to ask me whatever questions you have and I'll try to get back to you as soon as I can thanks for watching guys [Music]