Wellhouse (again)

(Note: I’m tired and proofing this post was making me cross eyed; so I said the hell with it and am about to press submit, typos and all).

More guerrilla construction this weekend; yesterday I packed my tools and materials up and did another 24 session on the wellhouse project. It was pleasant (roughly 82 was the high and 48 was the low) and crystal clear so I can’t really complain……

You may recall the tarp-fronted structure I posted pictures of after the initial construction weekend 6 weeks ago:

Since then I’ve done some shoring up of the foundation and clean up of the electrical; this weekend I had to re-engineer & reconnect the backwash drain we broke during the demolition, finish framing the front, build a door and put up the last 2 pieces of hardie board siding on the front.

First, the drain. I had just enough odd pieces of PVC to fashion a drain out under the front foundation. Part of the “re-engineering” would be to create some system that wouldn’t freeze when the system back-washes in the dead of winter; also I wanted to be able to run the hose out through the same brain if needed.

The pic below shows the drain end coming out from under the reinforced foundation on to a concrete based spillway. I covered the spillway with a piece of scrap corrugated drain pipe I had cut in half lengthwise then back filled over it. This should do the trick.

The pic below shows the beginning of the door framing in the front- not much appears to be done at this point but progress was being made.

I could find a satisfactory door short enough to fit into the front so I ended up making one- this will be a pain but a LOT cheaper than having a custom one made. I used 2×6 T&G yellow pine for the front and glued/screwed it to a scrap piece of 5/8″ plywood leftover from the roof decking. Hopefully this is warp resistant if not warp-proof; it was a pain to put together but the design should be satisfactory for this purpose. (And it should look good too).

Finally it was time to cut and hang the front siding; this wasn’t easy due to the weight of the concrete based board. It is up, although I ran out of time and materials to properly frame and hang to door. In the meantime I made a pendulum door out of the pieces i removed for the very rough cut door opening; this is nothing more than a temporary critter/weather block. Note this small opening was just to have access into the well house until the permanent door is finished and hung; I’ll cut the finished door opening from the inside using a reciprocating saw when the door is ready to go up. It is easy to cut more material off but impossible to put it back once cut, hence the conservative opening.

You may have noticed the spots all over the front siding; this was due to it laying out under the trees for 5 weeks waiting to be hung. All sorts of critters can move in under any construction material left out in the mountains; before I started handling the materials I used a crowbar to lift and move it to give any copperheads a chance to “not bite me”.

There weren’t any copperheads this time (thankfully) but I’m still glad i was cautious; the poor picture quality doesn’t do the Black Widow below justice. (She was under the siding; I think I’d rather be bitten by a copperhead than one of these.)