Posts

Posted on

Bill got ‘nothin!

Tropical Storm Bill rolled into town the other day.

Radar image of Bill
Image courtesy National Weather Service

The ground was already saturated, raising fears of flooding. I went to the build site to verify the tarps were in place and secure.

 

One of the tarps was ripped; hanging over the corner of the walls caused extra stress that caused the tarp to rip. I repositioned the tarp and retied the ropes so water would not enter via the tear.

Frogs have taken up residence in and around the underside of the trailer and wherever the tarp is on the ground. I suppose because it is wet and there is lots to food for the  (mosquitos!), this makes a good habitat.

English: Photo of a Frog
Photo of a Frog (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Posted on

The Porch

The Tiny Home has a little 4’x4′ porch which is little more than a square hole right now.

I’ve been kicking around ideas for what to do. Here are some ideas:

Wooden Slats

I saw a nice wall hanging at Target that would look really cool as a porch.

The hanging’s slats are too thin to support a person’s weight, so I’d have to either reinforce it or build my own.

Tile

If I go with tile, I would need something to support it. I could make some supports out of steel and then powder-coat them to prevent rust.

Steel

Speaking of seel, I could make supports out of steel and weld expanded metal to the top as the deck/porch. I’d leave it to rust because that would look cool.

Deutsch: Streckmetallzaun Verwendet an der Inn...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What do you think?

Posted on

First Walls Going Up

I powered through and got the first two walls raised! There’s no going back now.

To start, I needed to trim part of the wall that hung over the wheel well. I’d measured it a little long and it needed to be flush. The Japanese saw worked nicely here.

Trimming wood with a Japanese saw
Trimming wood with a Japanese saw

For the first (long) wall, I attached a couple of 2x4s, one at each end, with a single screw so it would hinge and prop up the wall when I raised it. This allowed me to raise the wall by myself.

Ready to raise the first wall
Ready to raise the first wall

After I got the wall up and reasonably plumb, I clamped the bottom.

The wall upright and clamped
The wall upright and clamped

Next I worked on the adjacent wall, so as to provide stability. I needed to cover everything with a tarp (the next week is predicted rain every day), and I was concerned that a single wall would be easily knocked down by wind or the weight of the water on the tarp.

I quickly assembled the second wall, starting with the footplate. I went to look for a 4x4x8 in my wood pile for the header and realized I hadn’t bought any in that size. GRR!!! No problem. I used a 2×4 temporarily to anchor the top of the studs. I screwed in just 1 or 2 screws in each stud and didn’t use glue.

With that, I threw the tarp over everything and tied it down as best I could. By this time it was 1:30 am; I went late because I didn’t feel like I could leave it with only one wall.

The two walls tarped up
The two walls tarped up. Phone ran low on power so flash didn’t work 🙁

Whew! The next wall is the longest one in the build. It should go faster because I’m more confident and know what to expect.

Posted on

Delay

Several days of rain and other commitments have put us on hold for the last few weeks.

Posted on

Cutting more wood

It is raining so I’m spending the time prepping wood. Besides ripping it to the correct length, I’m drilling pocket holes on each end so it will be ready to go.

 

Sawdust from pocket hole prep
Sawdust from pocket hole prep
Prepping wood for studs
Prepping wood for studs

 

Posted on

Thoughts on Solar

I took an introductory class about solar powering one’s home at TxRx Labs. It was very well done — I learned quite a bit about maximizing energy and the difference between a cheap controller and an expensive one (hint: the features included in the expensive version are necessary if one is serious).

One of the topics that kept coming up was ROI (return on investment). How long before you “pay off” your system by selling the electricity to the grid? There were all sorts of charts and the like provided on what kind of system, how big the panels, etc.

I realized that I don’t care. My goal in going solar isn’t to make money or pay off anything. It is simply to take that expense out of my life forever (or for several decades). I won’t have to worry about running my A/C during the summer and getting a massive bill. I won’t feel cheated because I have to pay $30 for the cost of the lines and poles on top of my usage (which often falls below the “minimum” amount, so I get a mandatory fee on top of that).

To a lesser extent, I’ll feel a bit more treehugger-ish because I’m not relying on dirty power generation. If I can add enough capacity to charge an electric car (or at least top it off), that’s even better.

Posted on

Attaching the House to the Trailer

From my own research, this is a “controversial” topic: some folks say it is required and others say not to bother.

Someone is *wrong* on the internet!

Does it make sense to attach the house to the trailer? The weight of the house should be enough to keep it on the trailer as in, will it blow off while you’re driving down the road? No. If I’m worried about tipping over, then the house is destroyed anyway.

Tumbleweed suggests welding threaded rods onto the trailer that are then passed up through the subfloor, sole plate of the wall and a HDU5 holdown. I decided to not go this route, because I would have had to strip the paint from the trailer and I didn’t like the position of where I’d have to place the rods (too close to the interior of the house).

So what to do?

It turns out that my trailer has stake pockets for adding a railing. So my idea is to create a bracket that will clip to the bottom of the bracket and hold a threaded rod.

The completed bracket with rod
The completed bracket with rod
[envira-gallery id=”90″]

Here’s a video of me welding the plate and then grinding and polishing it.

Posted on

What about all your stuff?

When moving to a tiny home, space is at a bare premium. All those “things” I kept around and never used needed to get the heave-ho.

“Take only what you need to survive, Princess Vespa!” I kept reminding myself. But then I remembered that my name isn’t Vespa and I’m not a princess. Oh well.

When cleaning out, I did it in short bursts. When I got really discouraged, I watched the Best Damn Cleanup Motivational show in the world, ever. That got me juiced enough to dump stuff I was sure I really needed.

No, really. I need that.

Like in the show?

Yes, but this is different.

Really? Like how you yelled at the screen, “It is friggin busted and old, THROW IT OUT!” and they kept it anyway and you were like, “Ooohhh, dummy!”

Uh, yeah.

So…?

So, I’ll throw it out.

Good man.

Clothes

Yes, yes, of course donate them, even if it doesn’t matter. Remember, if you really, really, really, really need something you can always buy it again later. No, seriously.

  • If you haven’t worn it in 6 months/a year, GONE.
  • If it doesn’t fit — too big or too small, GONE. (Buy a new one when you’ve slimmed down/bulked up).
  • If has holes, busted zippers, missing buttons or tears or seams are coming apart, GONE.
  • If it has stains and has been sitting in the “I’ll fix it” pile for more than a month, GONE.

Books

I love books and I have a BAZILLION of them. So, this was hard. Here are the general rules I used. Some stuff I donated to the library (they hate me now), and other stuff I just recycled.

  • If it is a school/college textbook, GONE. No, I don’t care; you can use the interwebs if you really want to look up how many electrons are in the outer orbit of Sodium.
  • If it is ripped, missing cover, pages falling out, soaked with coffee, moldy, or otherwise damaged, GONE.
  • If it is a technical book that is more than a year old IT IS OBSOLETE. GONE.
  • If it is outdated (“How the economy will crash in 1985”), GONE.

Newspapers/Brochures/Flyers

Recycle them all, I’m not kidding. If you can’t be bothered to recycle them, then just landfill. You aren’t going to read those things you’ve been saving, ever.

Magazines

WTF? 99% are GONE. There better be a damn good reason to keep one, and consider keeping only the pages you need.

Organizing tubs/geegaws

You don’t need them. You’re going so small, you won’t have anything to organize.

 

Posted on

I Got Wood

My order for wood arrived from the supply yard. Compared to other orders, mine was miniscule of course. The guy dropped it off in the yard.

2014-11-03a

A short while later I had it moved into the storehouse.

2014-11-03

Posted on

The Trailer

The Tiny home starts with the trailer, and there are several reasons for this:

  • It provides the solid foundation that supports the house.
  • As a designated “Travel-Trailer”, no home inspections are required*.
  • It is illegal to live in a structure as small as the Tiny home**
  • When moving day arrives (or you want to get out of town for a while), just hook up the truck and go.

* Your results may vary due to local laws. Also, by not having your home inspected it is on YOU if you build crap that falls down and kills someone. YOU must build and build well, my friend.

** For a number of reasons: many communities don’t want vagrants camping on their streets; to prevent Tenement-squalor conditions; etc.

2014-09-29

When picking a trailer, there are three things you will want to look for:

  1. A flat bed with wooden planks. No dovetails (the slope at the end to aid in loading vehicles), because this will make it harder to build your subfloor. You want wooden planks so you can remove 1/2 of them and lighten up the trailer.
  2. For my 96″ x 20′ trailer, I made sure mine had a GVWR of 10,000 lbs (5 tons) and a double-axle. Tiny house will be heavy and needs the proper support.
  3. No railings. Tiny house will extend to the edge of the trailer and a railing will get in the way. On my particular trailer, the construction required a front railing, so I am building around that.

Other considerations

  • Get a hitch lock. Don’t be this guy.
  • Make sure you know what kind of electrical connection your trailer will require and get an adapter to fit whatever truck you’re using to haul it. You can get these adapters at auto-parts stores, onine and probably places like Harbor Freight. They’re like $15-30 and better than getting a ticket for having no tail lights/turn signals.
  • Get insurance, because it is dirt cheap and you don’t want to be an idiot with no trailer because you were cheap. When you finish building your house on the trailer you will need more insurance, but that can wait for another day (don’t forget!)
  • If you plan on moving your house a bit, consider getting a spare. Trailer folk I spoke with mentioned that blowouts are common, so having a spare can mean the difference between being stranded in BFE and getting to where you’re going.
  • If I had to do it again, I’d get built-in jacks, because it would’ve been much easier to raise and level the trailer. Parking your trailer for long periods in the same spot will ruin the tires unless you raise them off the ground. I ended up using a 6 ton-capacity bottle jack and a bunch of cinder-blocks to do the job.

2014-11-06b 2014-11-06a

I shopped around and got my trailer for low-$4,000s. I could’ve gotten one for about half that off Craigslist or whatever, but (at the time), I didn’t know much about trailers and how to tell if they were still in good condition.