Help with luxury deer stand

[Guest clsutton21]

Well...more of a cabin in the sky than deer stand. My 73 year old grandfather and I have come across some free cedar lumber and he has been wanting me to build a permanent styled stand out on the 70 acres behind the house.

My question is...how high off the ground would you build it? Right now we have some 12' 6x6's but also taller poles that we could use. Too tall isn't a problem, but we need the minimum height that would help with scent and things, but of course...I'm sure the cedar will help a lot with that. We plan on making it about 8'x12'...where the inside would be 8x8 and we would have a 4' "porch" on the end to build our stairs up to. Since he wants to be using it, it will also be insulated and probably heated. Fine with me, haha . What would be a good heating source that wouldn't drive away the deer? We thought kerosene would be too smelly.

[bvarnell]

I would think height should be 12' min to about 20' max.

You really want to make certain you have a lot of strong support for something that large and that tall.

For heat, I would probably go propane.

Good luck and be safe.

[whiskey]

I wouldn't make it any taller than you need to see the most area around it. Height can help in a treestand, but is probably less important in a shooting house. You can get a portable propane heater that sits on a grill size tank that can put off more heat than you will want in an 8x8.

[Guest 1shot]

Like has been said I would not make it any taller than is needed to see over the area good. You are really taking about a lot of weight so you are going to really need some good support post and put them at least 3 feet in the ground and use cement. I have built a number of shooting houses 4X4 made out of ply wood and 2x4's and placed them about 9 feet off the ground using four 12 foot long salt treated 4X4's. One thing I learned is DO NOT USE TIN FOR A ROOF. Do a shingle type roof. Because when you hunt in it and if it has a tin roof while it is raining it will drive you crazy from the noise. As far as your sent getting above the deer don't worry about it. Just make you some sent bombs out of 35mm film bottles with a couple cotton balls and put you some red fox or coon pee in them and sit them outside the stand. Deer will pay you no mind. Propane heat is the way to go. Use some "quite" sliding windows to shoot out of and make you a good shelf out of 2X8 under your windows to use as a shooting rest.

[Guest clsutton21]

Thanks for the help so far. Really good advice. I'm hoping to get my posts in the ground in the next few weekends at home and hopefully start framing the floor and stairs.

[Westwindmike]

Thanks for the help so far. Really good advice. I'm hoping to get my posts in the ground in the next few weekends at home and hopefully start framing the floor and stairs.

Be sure to post pictures of the construction process.

[Jasongar8]

Be sure to post pictures of the construction process.

Yea I would like to see the progress.

[dats82]

Don't even worry about the sent issue. The dear will get used to the structure, and if you will just leave a jacket or something in there for a month or so during the off season, they will pay you no mind. I do not know what the land is used for, but where I hunt is farm land that is constantly exposed to people. I see deer smelling me all the time while I hunt, and they just continue on with their business. I think scent is really only an issue in areas that basically only get people exposure during hunting season. Like others have said, just make sure you have good visuallization.

[Guest clsutton21]

I was hoping my 3 other free cedar posts would be in today so I could start on it, I guess you get what you pay for.

[Guest TnDeerHunter]

On our tower stands in South Carolina we put metal roofs on all of them. To deaden the sound before we put them on we put the spray foam insulation on the inside and then camo painted over it works pretty well.

My son works in a metal roofing fab. plant. He told me they now have the metal roofing that is mossy oak. We are going to make a shooting house out of it, top and sides. The sides will be made of the metal before they run it thru the machines so it will be flat

[Guest clsutton21]

Here is where it will be. We are still collecting materials.