Building a Cabin in Remote Alaska for my Family: Plumbing/Gas/Trip to Town

[00:00:07]Now with the chicken coupe out of the way, it's the next day and it's time to do some plumbing. I need to get the drains and the water lines plumbed in. I need to get the propane plumbed in.

[00:00:22]First step is I'm going to get the washing machine and dryer in the room that we want it in and see which which uh orientation we want it. And then I'll know where to put the washing machine box and where I need to drill holes for the dryer vent and whatnot. So that's next.

[00:02:14]Go.

[00:02:32]Okay.

[00:02:34]All right, the wife and daughter had to step out because I'm making too much noise.

[00:03:00]Here we go.

[00:03:19]Fun fact, uh before I moved to Alaska, uh this was my full-time job, plumbing.

[00:03:28]So, Although most of this homesteading stuff is new to me, this plumbing is not.

[00:04:18]All the vents here are going to be steuter vents because I don't want to poke any more holes outside than I have too.

[00:04:27]Um, I've never lived in -40, but -40 tells me that the less holes to the outside you have, the better.

[00:04:38]So, indoor suitor vents only. So, just as a quick demonstration before I just start working and putting the glue on and building it. Um, so right there got the S sanitary tea and a 90 and then the steuter vent will be up here somewhere.

[00:05:04]Something like that. And in the future if I want to, I can I can uh put like a little access panel in in here that I can access the stewer vent in the future.

[00:05:19]No.

[00:05:42]And this uh cold water line can I drilled the hole a little further back so I can come up the back side of the pipe and kind of bend her in there.

[00:06:30]While I'm here, I'm going to drill out for the dryer vent.

[00:06:35]which is also, as you guessed it, going through the floor off the wall, which is right on that stud, of course.

[00:06:47]So, All right.

[00:07:41]Hi, Boomer.

[00:07:50]and one hole for the uh propane line coming up.

[00:08:02]There we go.

[00:08:04]All right. So, now um I'm going to go underneath and I'll bring you with me and we're going to do some uh some more plumbing rough in with the drains. I'm going to try to get the kitchen drain hooked up and hook that up as well. Um, so our septic tank that we built last year is right under that dirt pile right there. And there's a cleanout pipe. I don't know if you can see it or if there's a glare.

[00:08:38]Uh, comes up right outside the window.

[00:08:41]And then the secondary actual uh septic line comes up just about where that blue bucket is underneath the uh crawl space there. So, we're going to plum it to the sink and then we're going to run it straight over this way and then we're going to tee off and come down this wall here and hook up to that washing machine. And then it'll continue on here to the sink and the toilet. And then the tubs, the tub drain's going to be over here. So that'll have to tee in as well.

[00:09:22]But uh yep, time to go underneath the crawl space.

[00:09:28]It might be a little dark under there. I should bring a light.

[00:09:55]Okay, so this right here is our 3-in sewer main. This is coming from that hole I pointed at earlier in the or that mound of dirt. This comes from the septic tank. So, um, so this is going to come up to here for the kitchen and then it'll run down the length of the wall for the bathroom sink, the toilet, and then slightly over here it will be the bathtub drain coming down.

[00:10:28]And then just above just above this bail of insulation is the uh washing machine. So that's going to come in and over and then over to here.

[00:10:44]Um yep. So I'm just going to start plumbing this up. And I hope you enjoy watching me plum my house.

[00:12:09]Okay. I had to do a little um trimming here to get this uh toilet flange to fit in. It's an offset toilet flange because my floor joist runs right here. But I wanted it there because it's centered on the window.

[00:12:28]Uh, okay. So, I just measured where the bolt holes line up. Uh, got 13 in rough in from that stud or that bottom plate to there and to there. So, I know they're squared up with the wall, which means the toilet will be squared up with the wall. Now, I'm going to screw it down and then go underneath and plum it up.

[00:13:00]>> [snorts] >> What about this?

[00:13:46]It's like this. Close your eyes.

[00:14:00]Sure.

[00:14:34]Check this thing out. So all this here. So at least that much less.

[00:14:49]Just be safe.

[00:15:18]Oh yeah.

[00:15:28]Work.

[00:15:42]How's it going?

[00:16:01]What's that?

[00:16:31]Okay.

[00:16:36]Okay.

[00:16:57]There.

[00:17:04]Letter.

[00:17:22]Yep.

[00:17:52]Bring it in.

[00:18:12]Just like that, we are in.

[00:18:21]Beautiful.

[00:18:24]All joints are glued.

[00:18:29]Everything's ready to go. Okay. So, now we have toilet, bathroom sink. You watched me do the washing machine, and the kitchen. Uh, the only thing that's left at the end here, cuz obviously I used a T as you noticed, I hope you noticed, is the bathtub.

[00:19:11]All right, please excuse the sound of the generator, but we're still charging batteries and we're keeping the freezer cold that way. So, it's got to run unfortunately for most of the day and still has to run now. So, anyways, uh now that the drains are done, uh the next step will be I need to get water lines. So, the first step in water is getting the filters and the bladder set up under the cabin in the crawl space.

[00:19:44]Uh, we have a 1,000galon bladder that needs to get laid out. We'll have three filters.

[00:19:52]The filters range from, let's see, this is a uh 10 micron.

[00:20:03]This is uh one micron and this should be like 20 or 30 if I remember correctly. Oh no, that's a five. Okay, so we got a five micron.

[00:20:16]So what I'm going to do is put uh the 20 is going to go before the bladder.

[00:20:28]That's going to just be a single filter by itself. Um and then after that we will be putting the five micron and then the one micron is going to go after that and then it's going to go to the rest of the house and so that'll cover everything besides drinking water. Um and it's going to run through a pump.

[00:20:58]We have a pump. if I was using it over here.

[00:21:04]And that's going to get plugged into an outlet that's under the uh that will be under the crawl space when I put it there. There's the filter housings.

[00:21:15]Um the clear hose is to suck water out of the creek. Same with the garden hose is used to take that water and fill the bladder.

[00:21:28]So, that's what I'm doing.

[00:21:30]I'm going to get this all set up under the house and uh get as much progress done as possible.

[00:21:38]Uh I got to run to town tomorrow um for some supplies. And Alex and the baby are staying here, so it'll be a quick turnaround. I'm not staying the night in town or anything. It'll be uh it'll be a long day, but I'm trying to get as much done here before that. uh before I have to leave and waste a day in town. So Okay.

[00:22:53]That's a cute face.

[00:23:22]It's a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be.

[00:23:31]Uh the I'll have to get the instructions out, but that's the brand. Thousand gallons.

[00:23:43]We obviously have some sort of inlet.

[00:23:48]Another [snorts] one there that looks quite a bit smaller. I don't know yet.

[00:23:56]And then there's also one over here.

[00:24:04]So, I'll have to get get out the instructions and see what goes where and how to put it together.

[00:24:14]Okay. So, I did a little little reading and uh this is what I found out. They this is this is what they give you along with two caps. So, this goes in there.

[00:24:33]Uh it's a check valve. So, one direction only.

[00:24:37]It allows the bladder to breathe. This is a breather cap, so it allows air to come out.

[00:24:47]Uh, and it shouldn't allow air to I don't know.

[00:24:56]Don't really understand it.

[00:24:59]They didn't really specify all that well.

[00:25:03]I mean, there's maybe some online instructions that might be better, but anyways, all I know is their instructions say put that in there. Uh, you've got either a um a fill or discharge there, and that could also be a fill or discharge. They give you two 2-in threaded caps.

[00:25:28]So, uh, this is what I have. I've [snorts] I thought there was only one and I guess you can just use one. You don't have to use both that one and that one.

[00:25:40]Um but say you wanted to fill it there and and you know have it come out and go to the filters from that side.

[00:25:51]I don't know. I don't know what's better to have both go or does it even matter?

[00:25:58]I'm not sure.

[00:26:00]the first time I've ever worked with bladder like this.

[00:26:05]Um, anyways, my plan was essentially now this is Let's open this up so you can see. I can kind of thread it in there before I teflon it.

[00:26:21]So 2 in by 3/4 in.

[00:26:26]Okay, that is going to go in there. Oops.

[00:26:36]And then I have this beefy union uh 3/4 inch threaded ball valve.

[00:26:45]So, that could go on there.

[00:26:54]And then I've got a 3/4 male by 3/4 PEX that could go onto that.

[00:27:09]So that's what I'm thinking for the fill.

[00:27:13]Um, if I want to do that on this side, all I need to do is get another All I need to get is another 2 in by 3/4 in and another 3/4 nipple um to make that other side work. Either that or I just leave it with one, which I might do.

[00:27:42]I think I'll just leave it.

[00:27:45]I think I'll just cap this side for now.

[00:27:47]And if I want to change that and have that be the discharge, then I can easily switch that.

[00:29:18]Okay, there's one filter in place. So, crawl space hole is here. Creek is that way. Let's let it focus. Creek's that way. So, we're going to fill. It's going to come in through here.

[00:29:34]Uh fill in. go through this down and up and out and into the bladder that's just on the other side of the studs over there. And then it'll come back over onto this side. And there'll be two more filters right here somewhere.

[00:29:52]So, I'm going to knock those out real quick. And then I got to go in and help Alex.

[00:30:42]Okay, it will not stop raining and uh I'm headed to town. So, I got my heavy duty rain gear on and I got empty buckets, propane. I got some laundry under the tarp.

[00:31:04]Uh, and a giant list of uh supplies to pick up. So, off we go.

[00:31:16]Won't be back here till the end of the day.

[00:31:22]Bye house.

[00:32:08]All right, it's been 12 hours since we left the homestead.

[00:32:14]Uh, we spent the whole time running errands, drove down an hour to the big town and I don't know, made 15 or 20 different stops, but all things we desperately needed.

[00:32:30]Um, so we're going to head up river now and it'll be a long day by the time I get back. Probably another It's probably going to be about hour and a half, two hours before I'm back home. That's if nothing goes wrong.

[00:32:49]And it's still raining. I don't think it's stopped raining for most of the day. So, got freaking four layers on. Here we go.

[00:33:01]>> In too bad a danger of losing anything.

[00:33:04]I don't think I want to hit any two foot tall rollers, but >> yeah, right.

[00:33:10]>> It looks like we might be a little front heavy, but >> a little bit.

[00:33:12]>> We're just going to have to live with it, I think.

[00:33:46]Heat. Heat.

[00:34:08]Heat. Heat.

[00:34:26]He's back.

[00:34:27]>> I'm back.

[00:34:30]>> Oh my god.

[00:34:31]>> Nice job, babe.

[00:34:35]>> Yay.

[00:34:36]>> What a trip. What was that? Like 14 hours.

[00:34:42]>> It was.

[00:34:42]>> That was a long day. to yourself.

[00:35:14]Okay. All right. So, here's the part I was waiting for.

[00:35:19]Um, it's an EG4 charge burner. It allows my 120 generator uh 120 or allows my 110 volt 30 amp generator to charge these batteries efficiently. So, it's charging it at 30 amps um 110 volt.

[00:35:47]So, it's charging each of these batteries up evenly.

[00:35:52]Um, and we're going to charge them until they're all balanced and all of 100%.

[00:35:59]It should take about 6 hours.

[00:36:11]>> Look who got electricity.

[00:36:14]Tada.

[00:36:18]>> This thing Tada!

[00:36:27]Baby, are you happy?

[00:36:29]We have electric power.

[00:36:34]Okay, so yesterday I uh my neighbors uh came back from town with a load of supplies and their the chain one of their drive chains uh broke. So, I went and uh tried to help them, but we didn't have the right parts. Um, so I ended up uh taking them home with all their stuff yesterday. Uh, and uh I'm going to take them back and help them fix it today, even though it's a terrible day for being outside. Um, I have a little I have some things I need to do on my Argo before I take off.

[00:37:19]I need to change the brake pads.

[00:37:22]I need to lube up the chains and I need to grease all the bearings. Uh, so I'm going to do that real quick. And it's good good uh opportunity for me to kind of show you the maintenance here. I do need to do an oil change before uh the end of summer, but uh I can wait for now. I can I've got a few more hours on the machine before I absolutely need to change the oil. So, we'll do this and uh I'll feel good about uh driving it some more. So, here we go.

[00:38:29]So, we're currently down here in the engine bay. This is a the 23 horsepower Vanguard engine. Uh this is the transmission here. on either side of the transmission are brake rotors and calipers. And the way that this thing turns is, you know, well, the way that it operates is the transmission turns both the rotors at the same time, which are connected to chains, sprockets and chains, and those chains are connected to other sprockets and chains that drive each of the tires. Uh the way you turn is when you turn the steering gear uh it will break. One of the rotors on the side of the transmission, the side that you're turning to will break and the other side will spin freely.

[00:39:24]And that's that's how you turn this machine. Um, so you know, you're trying to stop the transmission on one side every time and it's pretty tough on brake pads. So, we're replacing brake pads, you know, an average of three sets per season.

[00:39:48]Um, so I have to do it occasionally and I can tell when I'm driving right now that uh it's due for new pads. So I try to keep new pads and spare parts under the seat of the Argo just in case you have a problem uh in the trail somewhere. Um anyways, there's two of these little pads here. They go on either side of the rotor.

[00:40:17]and then pistons push them together obviously just like a normal braking system. So, we're going to switch them out. It really doesn't take a lot of time at all. It's pretty simple.

[00:40:36]The pin that holds them in.

[00:40:42]Yeah, that pad virtually I mean it's zero left.

[00:40:47]I should have replaced them a while ago, but so busy. This one's got This one had basically zero. This one has like maybe 5% left. So, those are no good anymore.

[00:41:09]Push the pistons back.

[00:41:36]My hands hold back up the other side.

[00:42:20]Take a peek at that one.

[00:42:22]And that one's not terrible.

[00:42:25]There's maybe 20% left on it. So, I might I'll probably keep this one like in my little cup holder or back under the seat and in an emergency if I happen to forget to reload these under my seat or whatever.

[00:42:44]Uh or if one of these, you know, new ones breaks, I can always shove the uh old one that has a little bit of life left just to get me back home or whatnot.

[00:42:56]Um let's see what the other one looks like.

[00:43:24]That one has about 0% left on it.

[00:43:31]So, three out of four of them were pretty much toast.

[00:43:42]Okay. So, you can see down in here. There you go.

[00:43:47]Uh, these are the drive chains. So, for instance, you know, there's the brake pads I just changed. They're connected to this rotor right there. Let me zoom out a little bit. There we go. And that rotor is connected to that sprocket with that chain. and that goes down and connects to another sprocket which connects to those chains.

[00:44:14]So that's the transmission drive chain.

[00:44:18]Then there's a chain right here that runs this way. That's for the front tire. That chain runs back and under the seat here, which I'll take off and show you cuz I got to lube those chains as well. That runs that one. And then there's a chain that runs to this one. And then there's a chain that runs to that one. And same with the other side. And these chains all need lubing.

[00:44:45]There's the passenger side over there.

[00:44:49]There's coming off the transmission down to that hub where you know that's that's the uh that's that's your main hub right there.

[00:45:07]And then this here is the that there is the axle to the front tire.

[00:45:18]And that goes to the second axle for the second tire and carries on. Same thing.

[00:45:24]So, I'm going to lube up all these and then I'm going to have to lube up the rest. And I'll show you those as I do them.

[00:45:32]I use this uh 1370 chain and cable lube.

[00:45:38]Works really good out here.

[00:47:47]All right, there we go.

[00:48:22]Heat.

[00:48:42]Heat.

[00:48:58]All right, I'm back working on the cabin. Uh, we're installing gas lines today. Um, I just got back from helping my neighbor out fixing his Argo and we want to cook our dinner tonight on uh on our actual stove. So, propane job it is. Just put those uh two 12-in nipples with the gas valves down in their little holes, and we're going to crawl under and see if we can't go plum it up. Okay, so there's one that's going to run to that eve wall there.

[00:49:36]And then there's another for the dryer that's going to run kind of just above this drain line and connect in over to this one.

[00:49:49]And that's, you know, they're all going to run over one pipe to that eve wall.

[00:49:54]And then right uh where is it? It'll be right there.

[00:50:02]See that hole?

[00:50:05]That's going to be for the water heater.

[00:50:06]So, we got three three lines we got to get hooked up here.

[00:50:11]Um, and a hole drilled out there through the OSB. So, Look at that. The sun poked its head out for the first time in like what feels like a month.

[00:51:11]So pretty.

[00:51:13]Anyways, here's our pipe sticking out the wall. So, I'm going to put this uh together and yeah.

[00:52:09]There's our three 100galon propane tanks we're going to be using this year. I'm not entirely sure how much we'll go through, but as long as we don't go through more than three and until say January when we can get back to town uh cuz there's a certain point um during freeze up that we cannot leave and go to town. Um that point is usually sometime in September.

[00:52:48]Uh we are unable to travel the river via boat or snow machine and it takes a good it takes a good like 60 to 75 days I think on average for the river to become solid enough ice in order to travel by snow machine. So in se come September we will be preparing for 3 months of being trapped out here. Um so we'll have to get enough gas and whatever. But those propane tanks are full. Um and it should last us I'm guessing based on what others use out here. I'm guessing those three will last us one full calendar year. Um, I'm hoping it does at least. But whatever we uh use this winter, I will be sure to refill while it's easy to transport them via snow machine and sled. So, that's just what it's going to be.

[00:54:37]So, this this first T here is going to go to the dryer.

[00:54:44]This T here is going to go right up here for the water heater. And then it's going to go out and up into the uh stove.

[00:54:57]Uh these two I'm going to cap for now.

[00:55:00]Um I've been having an issue with the threader. It I just don't have a vice and I'm sure the threader is fine, but I just can't hold on to it good enough to get it to go. So, the little uh specific pieces that I need to make that work, um I just can't make them right now. I think I'll I'll wait till I can either get my hands on a vise or go over to my neighbor's house. He's got a vice. Um I don't even have a pipe wrench, so I can't even really make anything. I just have a few channel locks.

[00:55:43]I mean, nothing pops into my mind right now that would help me in this situation.

[00:55:50]Um, I could probably Google search and build a vice myself.

[00:55:55]Um, and if I had to, then I would. But uh for right now, we just really want the stove working cuz it's the only thing that like we don't have any water lines yet. So the other stuff uh to have gas going to it right now would be I mean not pointless, but we wouldn't be able to use it yet. So All right. Sorry that video was so long and I didn't actually get any one thing completed. Um, but that's just the nature of things out here. I don't have every single little part and piece that I need to complete it. So, we're going to get those parts and uh we'll get it finished up in part two. So, thanks for sticking with us and uh we'll see you soon.