I’m finished covering the subfloor with 3/4″ plywood. With all the pipes and wires coming up from underneath, there was a lot of careful measuring, whole drilling, jig-saw cutting, etc. necessary, and everything needed to be fed through these wholes before the sheathing could be glued and screwed down. See images of some of these details below.
I just got the subfloor sprayed with foam insulation! Freedom Foam Insulators came early morning and the whole thing was finished in a few hours. They were currently set up with open-cell foam, so instead of paying a $350 fee for him to switch to closed-cell, I opted to just use the full 3.5″ of open-cell foam in the floor. For the walls and ceiling, I will give him more notice so he can schedule me in right next to another closed-cell job, so I can avoid the switchover fee.
Once the foam was sprayed and given a minute to dry, they came through with a saws-all with a massive flexible blade, and shaved off all of the overflow foam to the height of the studs.
Now time to start sheathing and wall framing! This step will take a little longer than normal, because I have to cut holes in the plywood sheathing and framing base plates for all of the various plumbing and wires I’ve got coming up from the floor. Once finished, the walls will also need to be lifted into place carefully (and wires threaded through holes), which will require help from a few strong guys to get done quickly so I don’t block the floor space around me which is used daily by forklifts in the Creative Edge warehouse.
The subfloor gets foamed first thing Wednesday morning. Before everything is covered up, never to be seen again, I wanted to document it. This way, if I need to be reminded of where the pipes and wires are (so I don’t screw or saw into them later), I’ve got it all mapped out. I took a bunch of very distorted photos and then painstaking adjusted for perspective and lined them up as good as I could. Makes for a pretty interested image. Enjoy!
I was recently asked by my rep at Carroll Supply about the exact sizes of each roof section that required metal roofing. I had given him approximations before, but with the supplier willing to cut the pieces to size, now I needed them exact.
After some careful measurements and basic math (a²+b²=c²), I came up with the following measurements and illustrations. (note that these also show a few minor changes to the length of the both the middle fold-up roof section and to the deck).
1 – Main Roof
22′ 2″ x 8′ 4 11/16″
2 – Entry Door Overhang
3′ x 9′ 3″
3 – Top Fold-up Section
22′ 2″ x 2′
4 – Bottom Fold-up Section
23″ x 2′
5 – Storage Shed
3′ 6″ x 2′ 2″
6 – South Wall
8′ x 11′ 6 1/2″
7 – North Wall
8′ x 10′ 6 1/2″
I’ve realized that being able to illustrate my ideas really helps a lot during the quoting, materials gathering and production process. My trailer, for example, would likely not have come out quite right without the sketches and illustrations I sent them along the way. I think the same will be true in getting the exact metal roof sizes to fit my plan (and hopefully the actual framing, once constructed).
It’s been a while since my last post, and that’s for good reason: now that I have all the materials I need to get started, I’ve been busy building instead of blogging!
Over the past week I’ve accomplished a lot:
The pictures below show the completed framing with aluminum underneath and everything bolted in place.
Aluminum under subfloor framing
Another angle
Inside bolt detail
Outside bolt detail
Placement of walls/plumbing
Placement of walls/plumbing
The first few days were fun putting the miter saw to good use. The last two were less fun, squeezed in the dirty, dark space under the trailer, drilling holes and ratcheting for hours to insert so many bolts. My added brackets and my desire to have the aluminum extend beyond the trailer deck to wrap around the framing made things more difficult and time consuming. Lifting the finished framing sections in and out of place (to be fit to within maybe a 1/16th of an inch inside the custom brackets) was a big challenge, as was the work under the trailer, managing a drill, changing bits, changing ratchet extensions to fit within trailer framing, plus keeping track of all the bolts, washers, etc. (All the while trying not to get sawdust in my eyes or drop the drill or ratchet on my face — this only happened a few times!). An automotive dolly to help slide in and out from under the trailer would have really helped here!
Now I’m off the store to get some plumbing supplies to start the rough plumbing in the floor. Once the plumbing is in I can spray foam the whole thing and top it with 3/4″ sheathing. Then wall framing begins!
