Saturday, November 28, 2015

Why you no post long time?!?

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posting, winter has kind of stalled our project (like we expected).

For those of you looking for an update, we just bought our fire place, and it's the Cubic Mini Wood stove we talked about getting.  This bugger is small but packs a punch (say the people who bought it). It's capable of heating an RV, boat, etc. up to 40 feet long. Yep, that's 40 large ones! Our humble abode is just 25 feet long, I think we'll be ok. Especially with the type of insulation we are planning to install in the ceiling. 
It even has the metal shielding like the one photographed here :) It should arrive within 3-4 weeks, and when it does, we'll test it out and be sure to make a video of our review. For those of you interested in reading more about this stove (or seeing the reviews I mentioned), check out the link here.

One thing I wanted to mention about our experience so far with the fire place and the company we bought it from is that we attempted to contact the sellers twice within a week and a half time period and didn't hear anything from them. Once we get the product, we'll send an official review letting them know of this initial frustration. 

I (Travis) am the kind of person who likes to get a sense of a company before buying from them (if possible). The reason I didn't wait until they responded is because they had a black Friday deal on the fireplace for 30% off. Anybody who knows me knows I'm a sucker for deals, Kiah knows this all too well. You say "free food" and I'll coming runnin'!


The wood on the inside hasn't gotten completed removed yet (due to cold weather and a lack of knowing how exactly to remove it in the most efficient way. Once we have that removed, we'll move on to cutting the window and ceiling, building the interior wood framing, then putting up the insulation and floors.

Once we have all of that done we could (if we wanted) actually sleep in it! We'd have heating, insulation, and walls! Exciting stuff :) Stay tuned!!

Friday, November 13, 2015

Budget plan (so far)

What a productive week!

This week has been crazy both for Kiah and I, in both our work places and working on the tiny house. I'm glad the weekend is here to get some serious work done.


We are still working on the wood on the inside of the trailer. We got the shelving off, now we just need to get that nasty old wood that is nailed to the metal of the trailer.  Photos will be provided.

Good news is we have enough wood from the shelves to build a ramp to get in and out of the trailer while we build it as well as some heat shielding for the fire-place; did we say we were gonna get a fire-place?!?

One I've had my eye on for quite some time now:


I think it's absolutely perfect for our tiny home. There are specific regulations that everyone should adhere to when installing a fire-place. I hate regulations, but these are one of the few I'll follow to a T.


This is called the Cubic Mini Wood Stove. It's only about $400!! It'll heat RV's up to 40' long, which is much longer than our tiny home :)



Anyways... I finally got to a rough budget plan (several weeks a little late). As you all know, we are shooting for $10,000 maximum. This means we need to save as much money as possible in as many areas as possible. I'm all for saving money in every little nail, but with the rough estimates I've made thus far, the big purchases add up way more than the small ones.






Here is our rough budget plan:
Wood studs: @2.39 a piece (I'm sure we can find cheaper)= $263

Insulation: 
Option 1) with an R value at 13 (higher is better, our region should be 13-26 for walls): $153.45
Option 2) with an R value at 15: $149
Option 3) with an R value at 26 (if we double up on them): $688.48

Ceiling insulation: with an R value at 38: $70

Floor insulation: with an R value at 13: $26.48

Dry wall: $230.58 (we might be able to find cheaper)

Fire place: $400

TOTAL: $1,649. This means if we get anywhere under that number ^^ we'll be doing alright. If we spend about this much, we'll have about $6,896 left to spend on things like solar panels, a fridge, doors, windows, wood flooring, etc.

Sunday, November 8, 2015

Up next...? Nasty old wood... yay!

What's next?

Kiah and I are super excited that we got the foundation finished and are now moving to the interior of the trailer! Yay!!

If you haven't already seen it, check out our earlier posts on the foundation, pretty intense stuff. It took forever. Bleh. I'm glad to be done with it :)


Next we have the inside of the trailer, which looks like this;

We will be posting a before and after series of the inside with and without the wood. The wood covers all of the metal that makes up the shell of the trailer, it's gotta go. It smells funny, it's rotting... we aren't keeping most of it. Although it may seem like a burden, buying the trailer with this wood in it has it's PROS and CONS....

Pros:
-extra wood for other stuff, like; building a ramp, construction of the porch and loft, etc.
-we could use it for firewood

Cons:
-it smells funny
-theres a lot of dust and sand everywhere, when we remove it the dust gets into the air
-there's a lot of it covering most of the inside of the trailer
-most of it is old and not usable for anything structural




We'll see what we can think of once we remove the wood, but for now, we're gonna get that old, nasty stuff out of here! Be sure to check back for a before-and-after comparison!

Saturday, November 7, 2015

Foundation finished!



Hello again all :)


I'm happy to say that Kiah and I have officially finished with the trailer's foundation!! We will be making a small addition to it much later but for now, the photos below depict the primary and secondary foundation support systems.






<< This is the front of the trailer with the two trunks holding it up. The trailer stands up on it's own (without these trunks), but the trunks add obvious support for the front of the trailer. The sit right under the main part of the frame.

The photo below is just a wider view of the front of the trailer.




^^ These next two photos are of the back of the trailer, with two smaller trunks holding up the axle and the main weight of the entire trailer. 

You can't see with these photos, but the tries closest to the camera are off the ground whereas the ones further away are not. The reason for this is because of the slant in the ground. The two trunks under the axle are of different height but the difference wasn't enough to get both sets of tires off the ground.

I'm actually more comfortable with this set-up, rather than having both sets of tires off the ground. This adds some stability but also ensures us that if the tires end up deflating somehow, the entire tire won't become unleveled again.

We'll eventually have to get under the trailer and WD-40 everything to get it read for winter, but this is what we have so far! Thanks for reading :)