Sept 8, 2009 - Pallet Woodshed & Water Treatment

With the first woodshed filled, it was time for another, larger woodshed, and a wood fired sauna for keeping clean in the winter. We also wanted to experiment more with pallet construction, as well as explore other alternative building techniques, such as light straw clay insulation and earthen plaster. Not having had any income since May, one priority was to keep the cost down, and not spend too much time on the project (so we could go find winter jobs soon). So, we embarked on a new building project.

The floor was constructed of pallets covered, and tied together, by screwing sheets of OSB down. Each pallet was supported on drystacked stone piers located at each corner and at each midspan. The stone piers were laid on gravel, and the gravel on excavation down to mineral soil. A quicky foundation, not guaranteed not to heave with frost, and not tied down to the earth (as we plan to weight the building with firewood and we're pretty protected from wind here).

Pallet walls were then erected, screwed down to the floor, and tied together with middle and top plates of store-bought lumber. A timber frame was then put up to support the roof. The timbers along the sides and back were also lag bolted to the pallet walls to prevent buckling. We then added diagonal braces on both the pallet walls and on the timber center posts to prevent racking.

About the same time, our 500 gallon cistern in the basement of the yurt, that we'd filled last autumn with city water, finally ran dry. We decided to put in a water filtration and treatment system before we pumped rainwater collected from roofs into the yurt basement cistern (which we use for drinking and cooking water).

The first photo shows our new water treatment system. It consists of a 5 micron cartridge sediment filter (blue), then an ultraviolet disinfection light (in stainless steel cylinder to left of the cartridge. The UV light runs off of 12 volt DC power from our solar system, and kills or sterilizes any viruses, cysts or other organisms that manage to get past the cartridge filter. We only use this system to fill the yurt cistern (which it looks like will happen maybe once every three or four months). We use a hand pump at the sink to pump right out of the cistern for drinking and cooking water.