Plumbing Is Finally Complete!

Plumbing... The aspect of construction where we were most apprehensive. Neither of us had ever done any plumbing and we don't have any plumber friends, but we were determined to do it ourselves. How hard could it be anyway? We only have to plumb for 2 sinks and a shower (we don't need plumbing for the composting toilet).

Sans any experience, installing the plumbing involved a lot of googling and YouTubing. Spoiler: we finished the interior plumbing ourselves! **fingers crossed, we haven't pressure tested it yet**

As you may remember from our Planning & Purchasing post, we went with the Rheem Performance Plus 7.0 GPM Propane Outdoor Tankless Water Heater. It will be installed outside on the backside of the trailer (short side) once we finish staining the exterior. We need to wait for the cedar to weather for a few weeks before we stain it. Since construction is iterative, the plumbing is finished to where it can be, which is to the hot and cold water pipes sticking out the back wall on the trailer.

The process started with and comprised of a lot of Drew drilling holes in Rosey Leigh/Swiss cheese house (Drew's favorite thing), but he insists it must be done! Unfortunately, we don't have too many pictures of the step by step install (so you can't see all of our mistakes). You would think that with this process taking several weekends that we would have lots of pictures, but there are only so many pictures Abbie can take of Drew staring at the wall (Drew's other favorite activity).

So we decided to start with the manifold for the system since it was going to be the heart of all the plumbing. For reference, below is a finished picture of the plumbing manifold. Normally (as we understand it) you would have plenty of room to put a manifold in a closet or the garage, but since this is a tiny house, we had to get a little creative with its placement. We decided to put it in the cabinet beneath the bathroom sink. And to make things even more interesting, we are putting this Ikea sink in that has a pretty small footprint (10" x 24"). So cramming the manifold inside of it was a little bit of a challenge, but we rose to the occasion! 

We purchased two PEX compatible copper manifolds (one for hot, one for cold) and devised a way to fit them in the tiny space. We stagger them vertically and horizontally to be able to complete all the routings and still have them fall within the footprint of the sink. You can see it from a different angle and with less pipes in the picture below.

The manifold took a lot of time to construct correctly. It even had us working through the night! Well not really through the night, but a little bit after dark. Plus we forgot our headlamps at home, so it was by phone light.

I don't believe we have said it in any of our previous posts, but for our shower we choose to go with a U by Moen Digital Shower Valve. It was actually Abbie's idea because she likes the ability to have the water set at the exact temperature she wants without having to constantly play with knobs. Drew definitely jumped on board when he heard it was soon to be compatible with the Google Home. Which will come in handy when you need to take a morning shower, but don't really want to get out of bed. You can have the shower at the perfect temperature before you even get out from under the sheets!

The picture below shows the 1/4 inch plywood behind where our digital shower valve will go. This will all be inside the cabinet so it will rarely be seen, but we needed to get something behind the valve before we install it since it is not going inside the wall. We also put some insulation in the wall cavity before we covered it to, hopefully, prevent the pipes from freezing! This is an exterior wall after all.

Below is a picture with the digital shower valve installed over the painted plywood.

Next up we installed the copper pipes that head outside to the water heater. This needed to be completed so that we could seal them to the house wrap before the siding went on (we put the siding up the very next weekend). Since we are using PEX throughout the tiny, this is the only copper sweating that we have had to complete. PEX cannot be used outside (UV light breaks it down) so we had to transition to copper and that meant sweating the PEX adapters onto the copper pipes to head outside. You can see that copper pipes are offset vertically by the width of a 2x4. This is done to match the height of the manifolds.

Below is a picture showing where the water enters the house in relation to the manifolds. Not very far away because, again, we want to keep it all in the footprint of the small Ikea sink.

If you hadn't noticed from the pictures, we didn't really do the plumbing in any particular order. So somewhere in the mix, we ran the PEX piping for the shower heads and the kitchen sink. The bathroom sink run was straight from the manifold and didn't go in the walls since it was already below the sink.

Above is the run to the kitchen sink looking from the kitchen to the bathroom before we wrapped it with the pipe insulation. This run was quite difficult to do with all the bends in it. If PEX gets kinked or scratched you are supposed to cut that section out and start over. We ended up doing that a few more times than we would like to admit... Looking back we probably could have picked a little easier routing for ourselves, but what's done is done!

Here is the kitchen sink run from the other angle (from the bathroom to the kitchen) with the pipe insulation installed. We wrapped the pipe in insulation just to give it that extra layer of protection in keeping the water at the intended temperature. We will still have rockwool insulation in the walls around it, but the pipe insulation makes sure it is wrapped nice and snug.

These next few photos show how the two shower heads and the kitchen sink hot and cold lines run from the manifold.

Below shows a close up of the location of the shower heads. Drew has always wanted a rain shower head and after all his nagging, Abbie finally gave in. So below on the left you can see the location for the rain shower head and on the right you can see where the normal shower head is going. Abbie needed a normal (angled) shower head so she could shower without having to wash her hair.

Our two shower head set up was another reason that led to the decision of purchasing U by Moen. It is designed to control two different fixtures and also simplifies the plumbing with only needing one line run from the valve to each shower head (as you can see coming out the top of it). The final reason for picking the digital shower valve was to keep the shower stall looking more modern and clean without any mechanical shower valves muddying up the lines.

In the middle-left of the above picture you can see the circular white cardboard holder of the control cable for the U by Moen. This is for the electronic controller we will use to select the water temperature and which shower head we want to use (this includes it coming out of both at the same time if we so choose).

This last picture shows the comparison of the non-insulated to insulated PEX piping. Also in this close up you can see the plastic guides we used in a lot of spots to keep the pipe from rubbing on the wood. Hopefully this will increase the longevity of the plumbing system.

That is it for interior plumbing! We still need to finish installing the exterior water heater and its valves, and connecting it to the rest of the system. Then the pressure test to make sure that everything is ready to be sealed up.

For now though it is on to electrical! And with the help of Abbie's Dad, Buddy, it should go pretty fast! That is if we can make our minds up on exactly how many outlets and switches Drew needs...

So Long Tyvek, Hello Siding!

Time to upgrade that Tyvek house wrap! Siding weekend is finally here... and we couldn't have asked for better weather. You may recall in a previous post that we liked the cedar lap and gap for the siding, but we also wanted something to break up the boxy feel. After installing the roof, we really liked the look of the roofing material and wanted more people to see the pretty "Deep River Blue." So we decided to use it as siding as well. The cedar will cover the two short sides of the trailer, the driver side of the trailer (back of the house) will be all metal siding, and the passenger side of the trailer (the front of the house) will be both metal siding and cedar. The metal will be centered on the door and stretch to the center of the windows beside it.

In case you don't know, putting the siding up is a fairly big job (depending on who you ask) and we were hoping to get it all done in a three day weekend (Friday to Sunday). So we enlisted some help. Drew's Dad, Rick, flew down Thursday evening and Drew had Friday off. So they would be ready to pick up the material Friday morning (thanks Ray for letting us use your trailer!) and get started on the siding the same day.

We also had a family friend, Craig, volunteer his weekend to come down and help. Craig and his van full of tools arrived just as Drew and his dad returned with the siding material.

So after a half day of work on Friday we finished the forward short side of the trailer and the cedar just around the corner from it as you can see from the pictures below.

Friday we also placed some of the trim for the metal siding on the driver side of the trailer (back of the house). We quickly learned that the cedar goes up faster than the metal. It was also interesting that with the metal you had to put the trim up first before the panels. Below aren't the best pictures of the metal trim, but it's there (look around the windows). Also the wheel wells made for some interesting trim angles.

Friday night we had even more help arrive. Drew's brother, Nathan, was able to make it down to "help" (aka sling drinks) for the weekend.

Abbie and her sisters, Statia and Grace, also made it in Friday night. Abbie had to work Friday and Statia and Grace were coming home for spring break after class.

So Saturday, with all the extra help and minimal measurement errors, we were able to finish all the cedar siding and get all of the metal trim up on the driver's side of the trailer (back of the house).

We already said that the metal siding went a lot slower than the wood (and you can tell by the relative progress). This was because it was much more tedious to work with and required significantly more planning, illustrated by the picture below of us discussing how we were going to attack the cuts. We did break a little early Saturday to enjoy the great company and beautiful weather.

Which meant we hoped to finish on Sunday, but knew that Drew and Rick were able to work Monday if needed. We started and got into the zone on finally hanging the metal panels. It was all hands on deck, so no one was taking pictures of the progress until later in the day. Here are a few celebratory pictures of us hanging up the last bit of the driver's side siding.

If you are keeping count of the sides, then you've figured out that we didn't get the siding finished on Sunday. Going into Monday we still had to install most of the metal trim and all of the metal paneling on the passenger side of the trailer (the front of the house). Drew was able to take of work and Rick didn't fly back until Tuesday morning. With the team whittled down to two, they finally got the last of the siding up. Rosey Leigh is really looking pretty now!

At the end of fours days, all we lack are some touch ups, caulking on the metal siding and of course we still need to stain the cedar siding. All of which will wait for another weekend. Next up is finally finish the plumbing and starting the electrical. 

Exterior Electrical Boxes and Vents Part 2

It's been a while since we last posted, but we promise we are working! Admittedly, it has been a little slow going lately. The plumbing is proving slightly more difficult than anticipated, but nothing we can't handle! It just means Drew does more pensive wall staring than normal. 

On this blog post we are to address the exterior electrical boxes. After some back and forth we landed on installing 4 exterior electrical boxes. The first box is for a coax cable. This will allow us to install an antenna or a satellite dish near the roof with the coax cable running inside the walls (rather than the outside of the house) to our living room. The other three are for outlets. One on the back of the house for plugging in tools or a heater for the propane tank and water lines, and the other two are for outside lights. One near the roof for hanging patio lights and the other closer to the bottom of the trailer for any ground lights.

Installing the electrical boxes was pretty standard. First, you'll need a hole to install it in.

1. Cut a square out of the Tyvek wrap.
2. Trace the pattern they provided with the box on the OSB.
3. Drill a hole in one or more of the corners of the square so you can get the jigsaw blade started.
4. Use the jigsaw to make the hole.

Once the hole is cut you place the electrical box in it (we went with the Arlington DBHM1C box) and secure it with screws.

Once you have it secured, you finish it up just like you would a window.

Next up are the vent's for the bathroom exhaust fan and the range hood. As Abbie will tell you, Drew's favorite thing is cutting holes in poor Rosey Leigh. She suggested changing the name to the Swiss cheese house. Both of these vents are 4 inches in diameter, so we used a 4 1/8 inch hole saw to give us just little bit of "play". The little bit of play is nice because we have to go through the rim joist and the exterior OSB sheathing, and they are 3 1/2 inches apart. This makes lining up the holes challenging, but definitely doable.

Once both the holes were cut we placed the 4 inch duct through, to make sure they lined up with each other, and they did perfectly!

Above is a peek from the inside to the outside with the duct removed, but the louver vent in place.

And here is a close up of what it looks like on the outside with the louver vent on. The blue thing behind the vent is called Quick Flash and they come in all different sizes. We decided to use the Quick Flash because it makes it easier to set the louvers flush with the siding once it is installed. The Quick Flash product allows us to move the ducting back after the siding is installed, but still have an airtight seal.

If you look closely you can see both the bathroom exhaust fan and range hood louvers installed.

Above is a close up of the Quick Flashing all finished up and without the louver vent on.

We also redid the composting toilet vent with Quick Flashing. This will allow us to make adjustments in the future and it should make installing the siding easier.

Last, but not least, we placed the mounting block for the front door external light (we went with the Arlington 8082F for the mounting block). Once the placement was decided (centered over the door as low as we could go and avoid the door header), we needed to drill a hole to pass the electrical wiring through.

Like with all the other electrical boxes, it was screwed in place and finished up with the Tite Seal Tape. Below you can see what it looks like with the mounting block in place. We haven't picked the light out just yet, but I think it will look great on that block!

With the vents and exterior electrical boxes finished, it is time for siding! We have a long weekend planned with some special guests to, hopefully, finish the siding all at once. 

P.S. To be fully ready for siding we also needed to get the exterior water lines run through the sheathing, which we did, but we'll talk about in more detail in an upcoming plumbing post.

Covering the Line Set and Installing all the Vents Part 1

Last weekend we got the line set routed, but it wasn't fastened to the trailer underneath, and it definitely wasn't protected from anything that may jump up at it when going down the road. So this week we had to take care of that. Drew gleaned inspiration from this video on YouTube and decided that he could bend some thin galvanized steel to form a cover and something that held the line set up at the same time.

Below is the back corner piece being bent to fit into place. This piece was the only piece that was cut first and then bent.

The rest of the pieces were straight runs and it was easier to bend them and then cut them with the electric sheet metal shear that Drew's dad left when we worked on the metal roof. Below is what the piece looked like right as it was ready to be cut.

In the next picture, Drew had already worked his way up from the back of the trailer (working back to front so the overlap is favorable to the direction we will be going down the road) to in between the axles. The picture attempts to show how the metal is bent and installed. To the right of the white insulated line set in the picture is a 6 inch steel beam and above it are 4 inch beams with a sheet metal bottom. This makes roughly a 2 inch corner (since the beams are flush on the top of the trailer) that we used to hide the line set in, and only needed to bend the sheet metal to create the other two sides instead of three.

Some action shots of Drew putting in the last piece (photographs courtesy of Abbie).

There is a break in the sheet metal covering where the scissor jack juts out. That's why the corner piece was the last piece.

The finished product!

Now onto some vents! First up was the LUNOS e2. If you look at the linked brochure you'll notice that they come as pairs. So we had two ~6 1/4 inch diameter tubes that needed to be placed. One in the living room and the other in the sleeping loft. We made a frame inside the wall for each LUNOS e2 unit and transferred the center of the frame on the outside using a drill through the wall. Then used a jigsaw to cut the hole for the tube.

The outside of the LUNOS is supposed to be flush with the outside of the siding, so we used a sample piece of the cedar lap and gap to measure how far the tube needed to come out and then sealed it up in place.

Below is the finished product from the outside after it has been properly flashed and sealed.

And here is what it looks like from the inside. We will just put finish trim up around the part of the tube that protrudes inside the house.

Next up was the vent for the composting toilet. We are using a Nature's Head composting toilet and it has a fan that runs 24/7 to expel the smells from the toilet. So it needed a way to vent to the outside. The easiest way to do that was with 1 1/4 inch PVC pipe that the hose, supplied with the toilet, can connect to and that will vent to the back of the house. So we used a hole saw to make the correct sized hole for the PVC pipe and then used some 2x4s to hold it in place.

This is what the toilet vent looks like from the outside once it was sealed up.

Next up is plumbing, more vents, and exterior electrical boxes!