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!

Ordering Windows, a Door, and a Roof

This was brushed over a little bit in the plans and purchasing post, but we wanted to make a post specifically for it. Because these are kind of big purchases.

Windows

We decided early on that we would go with Jeld-Wen builders vinyl because they are good windows, available at Lowe's, and in our budget. We also ended up ordering our windows after we had Rosey Leigh framed up so knew exactly what size frames we needed Normally you would want to order your windows so they would arrive right after you are finished framing, but it was a good thing we didn't do that. Because we changed one windows' size in the middle of framing, but we did at least know what the standard sizes were so we didn't have to pay extra for a custom window. The window that we changed was the breakfast nook window. We originally had it at 4 feet wide and a sliding window like all the other windows in the house (except the one picture window), but decided to down size it to 3 feet wide. Now a standard size casement window would be able to go there. We are really glad that we decided to downsize the window and go with the casement. It looks amazing and will be great when we are using the deck that we are going to have just outside that window.

Our original design had over 11 windows of different sizes, but after discussions with family and other tiny house owners, we reevaluated and removed 2 windows - one in the loft area and one in the kitchen. The concern with our original number of windows was that we would have a difficult time keeping the temperature regulated. The decision to go with sliding over single hung was purely aesthetic. Abbie really liked the contemporary look of this style and we wanted to have as much consistency as possible. 

Loft egresses are a very important topic for personal safety and coding. The purpose of a loft egress is entry or exit in the case of emergency. Appendix Q in the IRC states that tiny houses are not exempt from meeting Section R310 for emergency escape and rescue openings. This means to meet this standard we needed a minimum opening area of 5.7 square feet. Proportionally, for tiny houses, this is a very large ask. Originally we had thought about doing awning windows in the lofts, but they are not permissible because the clear opening isn't big enough. Unfortunately after reviewing all of our options, meeting this requirement was not feasible for us at this time. We have installed a very large sliding window that both of us are able to escape through if needed, but is not 5.7 square feet. In the future, if appendix Q is adopted in our jurisdiction, then we will likely reconsider  putting a casement window in the sleeping loft to satisfy the requirement. 

Door

The door was one of the easiest thing we have decided on for the tiny house thus far if you ask Drew. Abbie did a little looking online and knew exactly which one she wanted, and then we both walked into Lowe's and the door was front and center and Drew didn't even need to look at any other options. We knew that this one was the one. Then we quickly both agreed that we wanted the door to be an out-swing to not take up room inside the house when it is open. Also for the door to open away from the breakfast nook window so if we wanted to keep the door all the way open we could and not have it blocking our view.

Roof

According to Abbie the roof was the easiest thing we have decided on thus far. We knew we wanted a metal roof, so Drew did some research on it to see what companies were available locally and also what roofing style could be used on such a shallow roof (we have a 1.5:12 pitch roof). Drew's dad recommended Mueller Inc. because he had used them on their house in Oklahoma and they came with his recommendation. So Drew looked them up and they have a location in Fort Worth and Glen Rose (there Glen Rose location is closer to Granbury, where we are building). They also had 2 types of panels that were recommended for our low pitch, R Panel and MLK Standing Seam Panel. After Drew's dad called to ask them some questions (since he had installed two metal roofs before, he knew the questions to ask), we decided to go with the R Panel. We liked the look of it and more importantly it came in the color that Abbie had dreamt the color our roof would be (deep river blue).

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.