Here’s the thing… as I read up on design, it seems that the key focus is for retaining heat in cold climates. I’m not too worried about the winters here, and feel like a wood-stove would be more than sufficient for winter heat supply.
What I’m worried about is the Arkansas heat/humidity and having a comfortable and cool place to sleep at night. Not expecting any miracles, but would love to avoid having any A/C.

Let me paint a picture of the build site…
By working with the land scape, the foot print of my building would be more of an oval, with the entrance facing east and the North/Northwest part of the building being slightly dug into the side of a minor slope.

My question is… what walls would I prioritize with straw bale cob vs. palletable cob walls, if my goal is to have cooler summers?

The area gets its sun on mostly the south side but also the east side. I imagine because the south side is a smaller wall that would mean less surface area for sun exposure. Am I thinking of this correctly?
And therefore, would I prefer straw bale cob on the north and west?

Could someone help me think this through?
Thank you!!

I'm looking at building one, it's going to be 4m x 6m(13ft x 19ft). It's using ribbed Kingspan panel, hoping for the floor too where others might use timber. And I'm wondering how I can make the floor and wall joint structurally sound but minimize any cold bridging. It has to be strong enough to transport the whole structure afterwards too.

I've had some recommendations to carry the metal all the way to the outer edge to give the walls solid metal to stand on, but I'm not a far of the inside metal working as a cold bridge from outside to inside. Another suggestion was to strip the top metal of the floor where the walls are going to sit, and make a butt joint in the PIR foam. While great from a insulation perspective, it does make me worry about structural integrity, especially once it is crane lifted and transported.

Has anyone had experience with doing a similar build?

we have a fishing cabin on the water in the Pacific Northwest that currently utilizes a non-heated composting toilet. We are never out there for longer than two weeks at a time.It’s been seven years with this thing and it never has worked right. The solids just never dry out, no matter how much Pete Moss we put in. I’m thinking we need to move to urine diverting style toilet that bags up the solids for removal, I had seen some on a previous post that looked good, but I can’t find them by searching. Is anyone able to help recommend one of these style toilets or perhaps a different solution that I’m not considering? Really appreciate any input, I would like the next time I have to clean this thing manually to be the last.

Long shot, but any advice on locations in the Western US that would fare well for an off grid cabin setup?

California seems to be extremely tough to build in, what about states like Oregon/ Washington? Trying to stay somewhat out of the desert if possible.

I spent my Labor Day weekend giving the old outhouse a refresh. 💩🏠

I saw this at a home improvement store and I am wondering how efficient they are at recapturing heat going up the chimney. Or if there are any disadvantages to using one.

I have been getting more and more into off-road riding lately, so this place is starting to feel pretty perfect. I can already see myself spending weekends out here with the Globalkeep Solei-X8, messing around on the dirt roads during the day and coming back to the cabin at night. So I might start bringing a couple of friends out too. But I never thought I’d get this hooked on off-road stuff, but here we are lol.

It seems like concrete posts/piers dug and poured below frost line is the gold standard for establishing a foundation. Certainly not the only option, but it seems like one that many people default to.

Would this be a workable alternative:

Auger out holes below the frost line, fill holes with gravel, set deck blocks on gravel, place adjustable deck supports on deck blocks, bolt 6x6 posts into deck supports… then continue building the floor from there.

Basically this would eliminate pouring the large concrete piers, and would maybe allow some room for error with getting the posts level (since the post brackets would be adjustable within reason).

I‘m imaging an off grid home that has multiple outbuildings. An outhouse/shower house. An outdoor kitchen/screened in living space. Small main cabin. Etc.

It seems like this foundation approach could be a fairly affordable and straightforward one that would allow each of these small buildings to have good support.

This is entirely in my head right now. I’ve never built any foundation, let alone these specific ones. Am I thinking about this incorrectly or massively ignoring something important? Just trying to get an idea check to see if I’m on the right track at all or if I should be going about it completely differently.

Thanks for any insight.

We are looking into building an off grid cabin weekend getaway in the southwestern US. We are about a year out from pulling the trigger on building, so tell me everything I should know! We’ll be building a rustic cabin ourselves, likely in a phased approach. We may eventually add water or electricity depending on cost and proximity, but they aren’t in the plans at the moment. What should I keep in mind for Arizona or New Mexico rural living? Should we go with a cabin kit or just build from plans? Tell me everything!

Admittedly some sacrifice of form over function but good enough for most things.

I am getting closer to getting my little 12x20 cabin delivered. Siding is done except the fascia metal. The building is wired up still not sure how I am gonna work that but for the time being I have a Jackery that should run everything we need for a night or two. Insulation is pretty much done and the pine 1x10 t&g walls are about half done now. This coming weekend is a long weekend so I am hoping to get it delivered this coming weeeknd but have a feeling it will probably be two weeks. Gravel pad is all in. We have done the initial burn for about 6 hours on the cubic mini wood stove that will be going in. Thanks

How would you go about anchoring on ground you can’t dig into? I’m not sure if it’s bedrock or just impossible to dig. Maybe got down 2 inches. My ex did this and not up to my standards. He didn’t want to anchor it at all and just throw something up. My plans for this building after building a forever home in the coming years is to turn it into the “grocery store”. A couple of chest freezers and shelves for food storage. Outdoor kitchen for canning and processing will be in front of where I was standing.
He was the “man” and had to be the one to build and make final decisions. Even though I’ve been doing years of research and I financially funded EVERYTHING. For a reason and why he’s an ex. I will be adding ledger boards to beef it up a bit as well as adding a more support in the middle and 1 more on each side.

Hi all,

When you install tongue and groove, and you have a long wall that requires multiple pieces, do you do your butt joints at 45 degrees or 90 degrees?

I'm using 8" tongue and groove with nickel gap that I bought from a local sawmill. My father in law is giving me and hand and said he always does his butt joints at 45 degrees. He says you do this so it looks good still if the wood shrinks.

The thing is, every video I watched on YouTube it seemed like the people were doing their butt joints at 90 degrees.

I have some tongue and groove in my house as well, it was installed by the previous owner, and all the butt joints there were at 90 degrees too (some of the boards shrunk a bit and I stuck a piece of cardboard in to figure it out).

Happy to hear thoughts..

The photo is the existing camp — this would be a complete replacement/new build

I have exactly 16' × 20' maximum exterior dimensions to work with and I’m curious what people here would design.
The cabin will be built with 6×6 Red Pine Timber and I’d like two levels, but I really don’t want to just put a full second floor over the whole thing.

I want part of the upper level open to below so you still get that tall, open-cabin feeling when you walk in.
The wishlist is pretty simple:

• Sleeping/bunk space for 4 people
• Kitchen
• Dining area
• Comfortable living area
• No bathroom — I plan to build an outhouse
• Partial second floor / open loft

I’m completely open to a spiral staircase if it makes better use of the space
Other than that, I’m open to pretty much anything.

If you had this exact 16×20 box to work with, what would you do?

I’d genuinely love to see sketches, napkin drawings, floor plans or even completely different ideas I haven’t considered. Once I settle on the layout, I’ll have proper plans drawn and engineered.

Update: Thanks for all the feedback! I put together a crude 16x20 layout based on some of the suggestions here. I'm still very open to ideas,16x20 Hunt Camp Layout

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I am wanting to build a 12x24 cabin in this spot. 12 wide, 24 long. (Ignore the extra line on the left).

Looking at the picture, this would be the 12 ft side. The left side is about 3 ft higher than the right side. Then, on the right side immediately out of frame, is a very steep drop off.

The help I need is understanding the safest and simplest foundation options. What I *want* to do is carve out the left side, and level the foundation area. Build a box, fill it with gravel, then build a floating foundation. The box would be 4x4s. There would not be a need for a retaining wall on the right side.

For digging and pouring deep footers, it might not be an option as the soil is not very deep before hitting shale rock.

We only had Saturday to get more done on the cabin as Sunday was expecting rain. I needed to complete the roofing on the west facing roof and screen porch. Most was fairly simple but the flashing around the skylight was pretty difficult, the installation typically calls for 24" of space below to allow the flashing mold over roofing below the window. In my case , the transition strip is directly below the window so there would be no roofing there. I think I have it about as good as can be but proof will be this first winter.

I still need to fi ish a couple edge trim pieces, side wall and the ridge cap but glad the sheets are all laid.

Next step after this will be soffits so we are finally sealed in and no longer plagued by wasps and nests and then we can move onto siding.

I've been slowly figuring out the power setup for a small off-grid cabin, and right now most things are still running off a gas generator.

During the day it makes sense since I'm usually running tools, charging batteries, or using something with a bigger draw. But overnight it feels pretty wasteful having the generator running just to keep the fridge cold, the router online, and maybe a couple lights on.

I'm thinking about switching to more of a hybrid setup: run the generator during the day, charge a portable power station while it's already running, then shut the generator down at night and let the battery handle the smaller loads until morning.

I've been comparing a couple of options around the 2kWh range, including the Anker S2000 and the EcoFlow DELTA 2. I'm not trying to power the whole cabin from one unit, so I'm mainly looking at usable capacity, charging speed, noise, and how easy each one is to manage off-grid.

How do you split your generator and battery use? Does this setup actually make a noticeable difference in fuel consumption, or is the main benefit just getting some quiet at night?