Month: January 2018

While every task and activity around building a house, even a tiny one, is a big deal, it is not every week that we see huge changes.  So this past week we sweated the small stuff – worked a lot on paperwork and research,  ran our utilities, and built the framing around the wheelwell.

There are still many decisions to be made and products to select.  Lucky for us there have been so many before us and many like us, who post their choices and reasons why.  A major next item for us is the automation system, so let us know any insights you may have.  We are also having to select our standing seam metal roof vendor.  Any recommendations or suggestions are welcomed.

We have started to receive some of our other items so we will post our thoughts and selections as we install them.  One small set back this week was our roof access window. We were all excited about installing it and found it cracked when we opened the box.  A replacement should arrive in the next couple of weeks.

As we have mentioned on our earlier posts, we will primarily be on the road with our tiny home.  However, when we are home, it will be our guest house.  We knew we needed water and electricity brought out to the tiny house (it is not always sunny enough in NJ for us to rely on solar power 100% of the time), so we had laid some piping under our parking spot.  With the deep freeze, at least temporarily over, we took the opportunity to dig the rest of the way and draw the power cable and water line.   For the water, we decide to get heated drinking water hoses and run them through 2″ (5 cm) piping.  Because we have about 80′ (24.3 m) of ground to cover, we had to get two 50′ (15.24 m) hoses, each with their electrical connection at the end.

Thinking ahead,  we may want the ability to rent the space and have other tiny homes be able to park on the property.  That being the case, we went with a 50Amp 220/240v electrical line with an electric meter.  We had some help with the digging, but it still took us all day.  We are pretty happy with the results, though.

 

 

Going back inside the tiny house, we focused on the wheel-wells.  The framing sits on top of them, but they protrude further in and is just a thin layer of steel.We heard from several tiny home owners that this area is often the source of drafts and cold.  Since we are having blown in closed cell foam insulation installed, we decided to build a thin frame which would allow for 2″ (5 cm) of insulation.  Yes the walls are thicker than that, but we needed to 

minimize the depth as we have appliances that will back up right to them.  We built both frames but installed one of them thus far.

 

till next time….

What a difference it makes to put in some windows.  Great progress over the last few days.  See the video below.

http://tinylivinglivinglarge.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/large.mov

http://tinylivinglivinglarge.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/720p.mov

After we got the sheathing and roof panels all cut and placed, the next step is to tape the seams and put down the roof underlayment so that it can be weatherproofed.

However before we can do that we need to make sure we add about 2600!!! screws to ensure it is properly tied down.   We started but have a ways to go.   On the materials front, we have loaded up with many rolls of ZIP-System flashing tape, courtesy of Volstrukt.  This will cover all the seams of the sheathing and will also be used around the window frames.   Putting it down in the right order so that water can always travel downward is critical.

On the recommendation from Tiny Home Builders, we also purchased heavy duty Ice and Water underlayment for the roof.  Since the roof panels are more susceptible to moisture (the center roof is regular 3/4″ subfloor grade plywood as that is where the roof top deck goes) and that is often where moisture issues start.  It is such a small roof after all so two rolls will easily cover it.  Again, you start at the bottom and overlap each row as you go up.  For us that means we start with the center section first and we will also overlap the edges (which will have the tape on them already).

So with all this, why the tarp then?  Well, we got behind in applying all the screws as Robert got a bit under the weather, but more importantly, we can’t apply the Ice and Water shield below 40 Degrees Fahrenheit (+4.5 C) and it has been freezing cold.   So with snow and windstorms in the forecast for today and the possibility of sleet and rain on Monday, we had to get the tarps out again.  But no more cheap blue tarps (got a great deal we thought).   These are heavy duty and then took a trip to Home Depot to get 300′ of rope that we used to tie it down tight.

Winds are gusting at 40 mph, the snow is coming down, the house is all wrapped up, so we will stay inside, working on all the other items that need our attention.

With cold weather continuing, adding the sheathing and roof would be key in creating an envelope to protect the inside from the elements.    Snow was in the forecast for Saturday, so we started early Friday morning.  We had mostly completed the framing, adding screws and a few of the bolts.  We were still waiting for a longer drill bit to come as we needed to drill through the 2×6 tubular steel frame to attach the walls with 5/8″ bolts to the trailer.

Reading through our notes from our workshop and the accompanying building manual to make sure we were all set for the next step, we realized we still had to add the hurricane straps.  People in Florida know all about these as without them, roofs tend to fly off in hurricane winds.  With us traveling 60-70 mph (110+ km/h) down the road, the same rules apply.  Of course these came with the material from Volstrukt, so it was just a matter of climbing around the ladder and adding them every 4′.   It still took a while, so we got a bit behind.  We ended the day with about half the walls up.

A word about the sheathing.  We chose to go with the lightweight, insulated, structural sheathing versus normal plywood.  Just as discussed in our framing choice post, we did this because of weight and structural integrity.  These sheets are very light, Julia and I can easily carry 4-5 sheets at a time, have a little bit of insulation value (R-3), and add tremendous structural strength as they are screwed in with a very high density of screws.

So we wake up Saturday morning to heavy snowfall.  It snowed until 1 pm, accumulating about 3 inches.  The rest of the day was spent blowing, sweeping, and cleaning off as much of the snow as possible.

It was now New Years Eve and we were more determined than ever to make progress.  And what a day it was.  We decided to add a fire pit to the work area so we did not have to go in and warm up and it also let us get rid of some of the scrap wood we had.

The day became the day of extremes as we worked 11 hours straight outside in 12 degree F (-12 C) weather and then finished off in the Sauna at 185 degrees F (85 C).  We are living the dream! 

Here is a short video on our progress of the day.

We are very excited about 2018.  Happy New Year to all.