Finally, project ice shanty complete!

[jasond37]

After a couple of weeks and a few beers and cuss words later my brother in law and I completed our first build together.  We each had built a shack last year, but I sold mine and he built his with another guy but was 'bought out'.  We each found ourselves shackless and decided to build one together.  I bought the windows on CL for $50, and we have about $200 in material.  The house is 5' 11" x 8' on the outside, just wide enough to fit snugly between the side rails of my trailer.  We've actually been talking about it all summer, but waited until January for some odd reason to build.  We used my garage and had to bear one of the coldest January's in recent years.  It was about -10 F outside the final couple days, and we only had a big buddy and a sunflower heater to heat my un-insulated garage.  We have the corner trim, drip edge, spray foam to insulate the underside, paint and EPDM rubber roof left to complete this spring when it warms up.  We wanted to get this darn thing on the ice as we only have about 5 weeks left.  It will be stored inside during the spring thaw so we are not worried about things getting wet or wrecked in the mean time.  I did the same thing with my 4x8 last year and it was fine.

Here is the floor frame.  We ripped a treated 2x12 in half for the runners, and ran 7 2x3 for the floor frame with plywood floor. 





We framed with 2x3 also.  Everything is screwed together and the roof members are held down using brackets. 




We were going to assemble the roof separate and install it outside, as my garage door is only 7' high.  We saw the weather report and thought no way did we want to work outside on the thing, so we thought it would be easy enough to tip it on it's side and wheel it out on a dolly......it worked but it wasn't as easy as we thought!!!  When it was tipped I was on one side holding the dolly and it slid, let's just say I was somewhat trapped and the house was literally laying on top of me.  It was a good laugh at least!  We estimate the house weighs less than 400 lbs, together we can pick it up and move it around with relative ease.  We had it tipped on it's side using a dolly and my floor jack of all things to wheel it out of the garage.




 

[je9]

good job on the shandy

[stevep71]

That's awesome !!!    I have been thinking of undertaking the building of one. I think I have just been inspired !!   Really, that's great ! Nice Job ! Enjoy it !

Stephen

[Drift Dodger]

Excellent job! Nice sensible size and weight ... great portability for a 'hard-side'.

[icemantwo]

Nice work!

[fishonNH]

Nice Shack! I see the trucks on the ice and I'm glad to see someone has some good ice with little snow. We're around 6-7 inches in most areas and 30 inches of snow and slush to pull the houses through. Mine is still dry docked, needless to say.

[jasond37]

Thanks for the comments!  We have about 5 or so inches of snow on top of the ice in most spots on that lake.  Much of the snow blew off or melted during a two day 35-40 degree heat spell we had a couple weeks ago.  We still have well over a foot of hard pack in my yard.  Still sketchy when driving around though as drifts are in some spots.  There was about 18-20 inches of ice where we dropped the house.

[vermonner]

Nice work.  It looks like it's hugging the ice.  Take it from someone who didn't block one up, that if you haven't, you want to get some cinder blocks between that thing and the ice or you'll be out there w/chainsaws and pry bars at the end of the season.  Enjoy the heck outta that shanty.  I like the shaker pedestal table.  Classy.

[thorson]

Nice job!  I well give ya one valuable piece of advice from the school of hard knocks. Seal that floor up with a good oil base paint as it will soak water up at unbelievable levels and freeze/expand the wood chip floor. The edges around the holes are like sponges. My failure to do this cost me many hours of repair time  when I should have been fishing!!!!!!!

[jasond37]

The house is up on 4x4 blocks.  I've learned over the years as well to always block them up.  The plywood will be covered this spring, we are thinking of that roll on truck bed liner.  It's just too cold to apply anything right now and we wanted it on the ice, just couldn't wait.  I did the same thing with a 4x8 I built last year and everything worked out well.  The underside will also be covered with some industrial expanding spray foam.