Mystery Water and Hurricane Ties

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, in between all the planning and purchasing (outlined in our last blog post), we also did a small amount of work on Rosey Leigh.

Buddy (Abbie's Dad) really helped us out during the week. He was able to get some of the scrap OSB over the windows and door so the wind wouldn't tear up the house wrap or make a racket when the wind blew. He also installed some temporary lighting inside the tiny so we would be able to work inside until the windows get installed and at night.

The only other thing that we did was install the hurricane ties on the rafters. The hurricane ties make a more secure connection between the top plate and the roof rafters. That way we won't lose the roof when we are driving down the highway with the house.

We also found a little surprise waiting for us inside the tiny. After a hard rain in North Texas a few little water pools were standing on the subfloor.

They seemed a little odd and it wasn't immediately obvious where the water was coming in, but we think we narrowed it down. Either that it was coming in through the vent area for the rafters, that will be covered up after the roof is installed, or underneath the bottom plate, which we will be caulking before we move forward. So hopefully we don't see any more water inside Rosey Leigh after we get these two things done!

Framing Weekend

In the span of 72 hours our Rosey Leigh morphed from a trailer into a house!

Thursday evening Drew's dad, Rick, flew in from Montana to help with framing. After Drew picked him up from the airport and we indulged in some ramen, Drew and Rick drove out to Granbury so they could get an early start Friday. Also during the day Thursday, Hensen's Lumber delivered our supplies for the weekend.

Unfortunately we weren't able to get started right away Friday morning, because we had to take the trailer to be inspected.We really should have done this earlier, but it definitely needed to be done before we put up walls and a roof. In the state of Texas if a trailer has a maximum gross weight (trailer weight plus payload) of over 7,500 lbs it is required to have a safety inspection and be titled and be registered. So we hooked it up to Abbie's parent's truck and once we fixed a minor issue with the left tail light of the trailer we took it for it's first spin. It passed with flying colors and we were ready to start framing.

After re-leveling the trailer, Rick began laying out the boards for framing and Drew cut the studs.

And pretty soon we had the first half of the first wall up!

If you don't count the missing cripple studs and sills, then the second half of the first wall was up by noon.

By the end of the day on Friday we had both long walls up and framed.

Subfloor and Bottom Plate Complete

Weekend #2 - we were able to finish our initial project. We installed all of the floor insulation, glued and screwed down the subfloor and cut the bottom plate to get ready for framing.

The insulation install went fairly smoothly, but it was a multi-step process and required a bit of math.

Step 1. We installed two 1" thick strips of foam insulation on the outside edges of the trailer. In this compartment the metal flashing on the bottom of the trailer is 6" deep.

Then we installed one layer of 1/2" thick insulation board over those strips of foam insulation on the edges of the trailer (for those keeping track, that is 2.5" of foam in the side compartments) and also in the center of the trailer where it was only 4" deep to the metal flashing on the bottom of the trailer.

Step 2. Then came time for the actual batts of insulation. Each batt is made for a 2x4 wall with studs 16" on center. We decided to go with Rockwool insulation, a mineral wool, for it's added R value and moisture and fire resistance. It cut like a loaf of bread and was easy manipulate into place. Just remember that unlike fiberglass, it does not have a vapor barrier attached. Side note: it is considered a greener alternative to fiberglass insulation. 

Step 3. Next we had to coordinate putting the adhesive on and screwing down the subfloor piece by piece. As mentioned in our previous post, we only had 15 minutes to get the board screwed down from when we started putting down the adhesive. On the bigger boards we pushed right up to the 15 minute mark, but managed the challenge with two people. Pre-drilling all of the holes was critical to getting each board secured within the allotted time.

On Sunday we took it a little easy and did a little pre-work for our big framing weekend. We just cut the bottom plate and the headers over the wheel wells.

Next we frame up, so it will actually start looking like a house! And we are so lucky that a few experienced out-of-towners are coming to lend a hand.

First Weekend Working on The Tiny House

It's official! We've finally started! Last weekend progress was made installing the subfloor. We went out to Abbie's parents Friday evening; stopping at Lowe's on the way (because the Granbury Lowe's didn't have what we needed in stock). Good thing we didn't bring the Fit, because the bundles of insulation were much bigger than we realized! We managed, with the help of some rope, to fit all 4 in and on Abbie's car. Luckily it made it the whole way!

Saturday morning was spent prepping the trailer for the subfloor. This involved:

• Cleaning out the branches and dust;
• Sanding down rust spots and then painting back over them;
• Caulking openings in the metal sheathing on the bottom of the trailer;
• Welding 4 metal plates over holes in the wheel well left open by the manufacturer.

After all of the trailer prep was complete we were able to start cutting the 3/4" OSB tongue & groove subfloor panels to fit on the trailer. We decided that we would cut all of the panels before we glued and screwed them down. This was to make sure everything fit and so we could hopefully get in a groove of cutting the panels.

We picked up where we left off cutting subfloor panels Sunday morning. Other than an impromptu Lowe's trip for the last OSB board, the panels fit together beautifully! Before we pulled the panels up to put the insulation in we elected to pre-drill all the screw holes on all the panels. This will allow us to quickly screw down the panels when we put the adhesive down. This is important because there is a 15 minute drying deadline for the adhesive, and not having to pre-drill holes will make it more likely that we will meet this deadline. As we learned, pre-drilling the holes through the 1/8" steel is time consuming and pretty physically tough. It would have been nearly impossible to complete all of these steps in the 15 minute time frame if we didn't do the pre-drill in advance. Abbie will tell you we drilled a million holes, but hopefully it was less than 500 or else we'll need to go get some more screws.

As the weekend came to a close, we were racing the setting sun to get all of the all of the holes pre-drilled before dark. So we kicked it into overdrive and finished strong. Meaning this coming weekend our Thanksgiving goals are to:

• lay in the insulation, 
• put down the subfloor adhesive, and 
• screw all of the panels in place. 

Then once all that's done it will be on to framing!