Tortoise Cove New Building.....

N2TORTS

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The New Building is 8’x14’ .....3- doors , window and skylight, that sits on Alum. Floor Joists.


2x4 walls fully insulated with R-13 and then Sheeted with ½ OSB board. All interior wired with GFI and ran straight into a New breaker on the house panel.

The floor itself is a 1” Marine Ply with Epoxy coat, then I added 5/8” Foam insulation sheeting on top . Before adding medium I two pieced –tarped and black papered the walls to help with moisture.

3- 42”x 72” Steel frame double insulated doors…..

The Hut itself is divided into two main sections for the Cherries and The Hypos (reds) , along with a 2’x12’ open table loft above.

Some neat stuff was adding a ‘cut –down” live tree for the support on the Grape trellis and of course the ugly block wall that had been hiding behind the play-house for 50 years.



Not the best of pics ….I’ll blame it on the late afternoon sun …..but ya get the idea ….
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And of course’ a new little added water feature on the back side of the pond……that looks really neat at night with some floating LED’s.

Still needing to add the auto mist system and some other goodies ...
JD~;)[/URL]
 

KevinGG

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Really nice. That's a big building. Bigger than my entire redfoots habitat. Don't worry I only have one
 

TigsMom

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I love the new tort house and especially the not-so-ugly wall! Great JOB!
 

bouaboua

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Wonderful job Jeff. Thank you for sharing with us.
 

N2TORTS

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Well Lynne....gosh ...thanks! ..... I finally finished it up this afternoon.....
 
M

Maggie Cummings

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If you were a good guy you'd come to Oregon and do that in my yard while my arm heals, (if its gonna) Beautiful building
 

wellington

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It looks great of course. Love your art work too. Nice grapes growing there.:D Such a green thumb you have.
 

N2TORTS

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Hey man, good work. I'm curious though, what was your reason for the makeover?
Hi ya Heather .....well there were a few reasons ...but #1 was cost of heating all my animals - My Elec bill was 600+ a month .
Out of the two old buildings that once stood ....one was probably 50 years old ( an old play house) and termite infested. Along with never really being insulated correctly ( although I did add some when converted to a tort house) the heat source was never contained efficiently .
Same thing goes for the Rubbermaid Shed ...although I did panel insulate it - never really was that efficient at retaining heat. The new house I took into consideration from the ground up ...by #A using aluminum floor joists (will never rot or sag) and building it much more like a real house - fully insulated . In just the last few days in monitoring temps, I get the same "heat settings" with one heat source as compared to ten beforehand. Along with the extra wide doors on 3 sides , it makes it convenient for Cindy and myself just maintaining the herds overall. I have a bit of planting to do , as I also gained some extra yard space as I cut down an old 40' tree that was blocking about 24SF of non-useable space. The ironic thing is during this project I myself was in the ER 2 times and had 5 different females nesting....(boy what a week!)
None the less.....I'm happy with the outcome thus far ....plus to be honest I really enjoy building and just creating things.....
JD~
 

N2TORTS

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It looks great of course. Love your art work too. Nice grapes growing there.:D Such a green thumb you have.
2- Green thumbs .....;)
and the grapes are actually a Cabernet Sauvignon variety and quite tasty ....even before made into wine ....:p

and thank you for the Kuddo's everyone .......it really does make a difference in my day !

*Happy Tort~n *

JD~
 

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