Electrical Boxes, the Line Set, and Joist Cleaning

If you've been following our blog, you might remember a post that mentioned a battle of the light switches... Well we finally came to a compromise and it was time to start putting up the electrical boxes. Abbie took the initiative and started hanging the boxes. Some of them were in trickier locations than others, but Abbie got them done! She did say that her wrists were hurting the next few days because of the weird angles she had to use the hammer in. It is a tiny house after all, but her tennis two-handed backhand sure came in handy!

While Abbie was hanging the electrical boxes, Drew was working on routing the line set (refrigerant lines) for the mini split (laymen terms: the AC/heating unit). The evaporator half of the mini split is going to be up high on the wall between the two lofts and the condenser is mounted on the back side of the trailer. So the lines needed to make their way between the two.

Here are a few options we considered for routing the lines:

• Straight down inside the wall, through the trailer, and along the bottom of the trailer
• Through the studs in the wall all the way to the back of the trailer
• Up through the rafters all the way to the back of the trailer and then down the inside of the wall
• The normal method on a house, which is through the wall and then along the outside of the house all the way to the back of the trailer

After much thought, we decided the best option for us was to route the lines down the inside of the wall, through the trailer and along the bottom of the trailer. It was going to be the easiest (routing copper lines is not fun) while still looking good (not having a channel running along the outside of the house).

So Drew took a 1 1/2 inch hole saw to make three holes in the bottom plate and subfloor.

A 3 inch hole saw to the bottom of the trailer, and cut out the insulation that was in between.

Pro tip: don't cut a hole in metal from below while wearing a fleece jacket... it was not fun picking the metal shards out of it.

Then we had to route the line set from the outside to the inside up the wall, and finagle it over the axles and to the back of the trailer.

Before she went back to college, Grace, Abbie's sister, helped us out with putting a second coat of paint on some sample interior paneling. We wanted to see what it looked like up on the wall and with several pieces of the tongue and groove together.

We still are a little worried that it may make the house look a little busy with the close lines, but we can't really afford the weight of the thicker shiplap. It would add about 600 lbs to the overall weight?!

Now onto cleaning the Douglas fir joists before they get stained, and it was quite the task... The cleaning process involved clean rags, a scrub brush and some good ol' denatured alcohol. Abbie jumped on this task and did an awesome job, even though she hated every minute of it. She was ready to call it quits several times and just paint the joists. We persevered and while the joists aren't perfect (just don't look too closely if you come visit us), they look much better and are ready to be stained!

Next up is installing all the vents on Rosey Leigh and covering up the line set on the bottom side of the trailer to protect it.