Building an ice shanty need suggestions.

[draz]

Hi guys/gals

Hope everyone has had a safe and productive open h2o season.
I got 40 steel 2x4 for free and was thinking of building a shanty out of them do to the light weight. I plan on building a 5x8 shanty.

WALLS: The walls will be 7' and 6'. Do you think that is enough of a slope for the roof.

ROOF: I plan on using a couple of sheets of fiberglass on top of 3/8 ply wood for the roof.

SIDING/T111: As for the outside, I had 2 ideas and I am open to more. The key thing is to be light obviously. I was planning on using 3/8 T111(maybe to heavy?) for the walls and painting it or I was going to use 1/4 luan, tyvek it, hang strapping on the inside and then side it. Then I will insulate no matter which idea I use after that in the inside.

FlOOR/SKI: going to use 2x4 PT for the floor structure with 3/4" PT ply wood. As for the skis, I was going to double up 2x8-10 PT to make a ski and then line the bottom with something. If this enough clearance, should I use 2x10's?

Any help would be great. This is my first and want to try and get it right the first time. Please let me know what you think or can suggest?

thanks

[JIGGIN-]

Hey Daz, Nice to hear from you.

Sounds like you did great getting the studs. That's what I'm waiting for before I start my next one. I have alot of stuff gathered but not the studs yet.

Walls: 7' down to 6' isn't a bad slope. If you put rafters up, you can use that as storage space to dry things like tip up's, boots, gloves, even store things like sleeping bags (if you decide to sleep overnight). Also good for putting in ceiling speakers for your radio as another idea.

Roof: Don't really know if  you need fiberglass on top of the 3/8 ply wood. Unless it's the ridged fiberglass your talking about. My roof is sheeted with Polycarbonate. (similar to lexan but thinner and unbreakable). At one time I had sky lights in my ceiling (I didn't put any insulation in between a couple of rafters) but learned that they will condensate and then drip when you heat it up. Nice when they are dry but not so nice when they drip. I now have them blocked with insulation.

Siding: T111 isn't bad nor is luan. I would stay away from the chip press board stuff. It will fall apart even if painted and it's heavy. Definitely Tyveking your house after you have it studded is a good idea. Not sure you need strapping and once you put up your siding it will stiffen the walls up. I used trim coil to side my house with. Metal (rugged) and little maintenance. Problem: heats up and will reflect heat onto the ice.

Floor / Ski: Your floor is the part of the house that will take the most abuse. Plan on this being the beefest part of your house. With all the traffic, ice build up, water and creepers, it will take a pounding. I use herkuliner (the stuff you put in the back of your truck bed) on my floor. Every other year or so, I redo it as my creeper tend beat my floor pretty good.  I used 2x6's for my outside frame of my floor and then used 2x4's for floor joists. I used joist hangers too so not all the stress is on the screws. For my floor, I put down plywood then 1" foam insulation and then luan on top (sandwiching the insulation in the floor between the plywood and luan).
Make sure you leave enough room for your auger to drill your holes without being cramped up against the wall too.
For runners, I use a 2x10 bolted onto the 2x6 frame so if I need to replace my runners on the ice, I can just unbolt them. Also plywood the inside and outside of your runners so they don't split. Add snow skis to the bottom too so easier towing.  Using 2x4's for floor joists gives you alittle extra clearance under your house.

Add a bump out stove box. This will free up alot of space on the floor. Bench seats with storage is cool too but make sure you angle the bottom of the bench for your heels, otherwise it gets uncomfortable.

I hope this helps or gives you some ideas,
JIGGIN.

[Flags up]

I built mine with metal studs, vinyl siding on the outside and luan inside. The luan stiffened up the house just fine. No need to go crazy with plywood. You should consider putting in blocking at the corners were you will put tie down hooks. I recommend going to home depot or lowes and ask for there damaged luan and you will save a ton of money. That stuff is expensive.  I made my floor out of heavy gauge galvanized steel. Lighter than pressure treat but tough to find. I put down 3/8 plywood for the floor on top of sheets of 2" foam. I used a 5 gallon bucket with the bottom cut off to fill in the space from the floor to the ice. This cuts down on wind coming in and stealing your heat.  My skis were a couple of 2x10 heavy gauge steel with the ends bent up to help ride on the snow.  My windows were made out of lexan. Good luck. Keep the weight in mind at all times. The past few years have prooven to be very tough conditions and always put your house on blocks. Chipping out blocks is easier and less damaging than chipping out skis. I found almost all of my stock on craigslist. A lot for free. 

[rockhound57]

on my 8 x 10, I used 1/2" CDX, painted it on both sides with Urethane porch and deck paint before ass'y, with some fine sand mixed in on the last 2 coats for non-skid, works great! , 2 x 4 joists on 16" with a 2 x 6 in the center for stiffness and extra skid if on rough terrain; my ski's are single 2x10, with sno ski's for runners. the ski's are from the dump, fastened with 3" SS deck screws every 8-10" and staggered side to side to hopefully avoid the splitting problems, the paint came from Aubuchon as mis-tints @ $5/ gal.!!, I haven't had any noticeable sag or bounce from the 1/2" w/ 2x4 floor  I used SS fasteners for everything on the floor and roof [screws for all structure, SS ringshank siding nails for the plywood] because I wanted a long life. so far, it's been good. My walls are used,  painted, 3/16" luan paneling , the roof is plastic covered 1/4" luan  with foamed in place styro insulation on both, my windows are long, narrow alum. storms on their sides,SET FOR SITTING HEIGHT, not standing! so you don't have to interrupt the card game to check flags!

Also, the ceiling storage is a great idea; camouflaged well, it's hard to tell its there to the would-be vandal.

[theseeker]

if your going to use 25 or 26 gauge steel studes be sure to rivet them to the steel channel... in time self tapping or "tek" screws will work themselves loose. the rivets take more time but work much better!!!

[tippin2back]

im into my third season with my first shanty ....i built a 4x8 knowing i was going into this solo......as soon as you build one you start to get a lot of "new" friends.....that being said, im adding another foot onto mine this weekend. as you sit in your new shanty through the first season, you get alot of new ideas...i shoulda done this....that... think about heat, moveability inside...your best bet is to make a square on your drive-way (rope...strapping..what ever), and sit  in it, see what right size is right for you....mistakes i made on my shanty that i wish i could change are, 1.....too tall...6' high on one side ....8' on the other.....tried to make up space going up, but you can only reach so high, and wind blew it over on it maiden season. 2.......as jiggin' said your runners will take a beating, make them so you can interchange them  easily. im learning this into my third season. i used 2x10x12's  p.t....thought it was strong enough....nope.....goi ng with the same this yr. but adding a thin plywood to the outside edge with some down hill skis i got at the local dump..and because of my inexperience they suck changing....no matter what you do, its an investment into a lot o' fun.

[Thumber]

A lot of great info guys, other things to remember is weight weight weight !!! Getting a shack out normally is no problem, its when time comes to remove it.

Your frame should be rugged and the use of PT is a must, studding at 24" is OK, sheathing should be the lightest you can find, to me the best is the Kal-Wal panels that are made of a plastic type of material, you can paint it, or leave it the way it comes, it let light in and its a produce solar heat. You can buy them at a very fair price in Bow, NH last I knew. Height can be a problem with high winds as said in a previous post, 7 -71/2 wall height is ok and it helps in heating cost

The runners like everyone has mentioned are very important PT sitting out in the weather they always spilt's and warps, laminating  them with plywood is great, the next house I am going to have some aluminum runners made up with some aluminum bridging to hold them on, these are pricey but saves years of work ahead of you.

The winter of 1978 I hade to dismantle my house because of heavy snow and it wasn't pretty,the same thing happen in 1985.

Putting small snow ski on looks great but have little value, with deep snow and the weight of any house will sink down and plow snow. When removing a house in deep snow the is key is to put a toboggan under each runner, this will keep it up on the snow.
Same goes if at the end of the season when the top layer of the ice is slush, best thing to do is go out and retrieve your house every early in the morning, 4 AM when its the coldest and the slush is frozen before sun rise, use the toboggan again.
By the way, you don't need to buy toboggans, just ask around and I am sure people would let you borrow them for a day

[NH Trout Fisherman]

Hey Draz,

The Guys bring up a lot of good points/ideas...I would agree that one of the most important things to consider is the weight. The past few years we've had tough conditions, whether it was deep snow/slush or slow forming ice...A heavy shack is gonna make things tough out there. So keep things light...

I agree with Tumper that the plywood will be the bulk of your weight, so choose wisely what you use...1/2" ply is good but will get heavy. 1/4" ply works well and is good for the exterior with 1/8-3/16" luan or masonite for the inside. I also agree with Jiggin about the flooring, it needs to be solid...PT is great but it weighs a ton...If you frame the flooring 16" on center 5/8" PT should be fine...If you frame 24" OC then go with the 3/4"  for the strength....Also I like his idea for bolting on the ski's so that you can remove them easily to replace them if necessary...
The 6ft to 7ft walls should be plenty tall enough for the roof an head clearance inside ( unless you're really tall?   )
 
Here are a couple I've built over the past few years...

One of the older ones...



My current shack...