ris 8.5 X 18 new trailer build 11/1/17

[ris]

In this pic we have finished putting two, 1" layers on the ceiling and one 1" layer on the walls.


It is nice to have a 6'2" neighbor when you are putting up the ceiling plywood. We used 1/4" sanded plywood from Home Depot. We primed it, which raises the wood grain then sanded it smooth then put one coat of satin latex enamel white on the ply. After we get the walls up we will second coat with the satin. We used satin because it is a little shiny but not as much as semi-gloss.


Here are the tools we use the most. Drill which we use to pre-drill a small pilot hole before using self drilling screws to attach 1x2 to the metal studs, drill driver is better than a straight drill for putting in and taking out screws, the yellow box has all kinds of bits in it, square bits, phillips bits, star bits ect. The small pouch with a belt clip is for putting screws and bits into to make them easy to reach it is also easy to remove and then put back on, it is very handy to have. Last but not least is a tape measure, the one inch wide blade can go out about 9 feet before it will bend, and the razor knife.

I know you can do this whole build with a circular saw but we also used a small table saw and a electric miter saw.
This weekend we will install the windows. If you have any questions feel free to ask here or in a pm.

[featherliteCT1]

That ceiling looks great!

[ris]

Did not get any windows installed. Central Florida turned into the south pole on Saturday. For us Florida Folk it was cold and rainy. My son is a Civil Engineer and was notified that he passed his PE test. He is a happy camper and we are proud parents. He came over after reading over the window install stuff in this part of the website. We would have put one of the windows in but it was just too cold and wet. We did a lot of talking and figuring. We also cut out a tight fitting pattern for the window so we now have a pattern for the window hole that is only 1/8 of an inch larger than the window. We used 1/8" masonite to make the pattern. It is a little more rigid than cardboard. Just want to say thanks for the comments, and the helpful info. This is a great website.

Richard

[McDave]

Hey ris,
Congrats to your son, and also to you and Mrs. Sounds like you did a great job raising up a man. Nice that you can spend time and work together.
It has been a strange winter so far, to say the least. It was 70f on Thanksgiving, and I took the Harley out for a few hours today. Montana is usually 2 months into the deep freeze by time of year. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. Every day above zero is gift, and another day closer to spring. But it is strange to see snow in Atlanta and Baton Rouge.
Y'all are doin' some quality work there, keep that stuff up. I've been watching.
Merry Christmas to you and family.

McDave

[ris]

We decided to start our window installs with the barn door window and the RV door window. We will put the 2 side windows in next. The windows are 14" x 21". We bought them from Vintage Technologies. He has many different trim rings to fit most wall thicknesses. Our RV door was 1.5" thick and the rear barn door was 1" thick. We lost the rear door pics in the tiny pic disaster. Same window but different trim rings. The first thing we did was make a template out of 1/8 inch masonite. We had to make a couple of them to get it just right. We left an extra 1/8 inch of space vertically and horizontally in making the template.
Here is the template on the window when we were checking the fit.


We next taped where the window would go so we could use our dewalt saber saw with a fine metal blade to cut the opening for the window. When using the saber saw it is important to have a long enough blade, the correct blade for your material, cut slowly and hold the saw flat against the surface so the interior and exterior hole will be in alignment and the same size. If you do not put the tape on the door or your saber saw you will scratch up the finish on the exterior of the door. We measured and put pencil lines for the top, bottom and sides of the window. We measured from the top, and side of the door as a reference point for our measurements. We then held the template in place to check our vertical and horizontal lines and used the template to trace the corner curve on the door.


THE rest of the pics were lost during the tinypics downfall. We then checked the fit of the window and the trim ring. If the inside is off a little by being to small, you can cut from the inside making sure you do NOT cut the outside any larger if it is the proper size. We had to enlarge the inside of our first window. We then screwed the trim ring to the exterior part of the window. We are going to have a wall 22" from the back of the trailer which will give us an area to put our water heater, battery chargers, propane bottle ect. We will mount a 5000 btu ac in the wall it will exhaust through the window we just installed. There will also be a window in this back wall. The passenger side barn door will have a maxair fan in it. This fan will pull air from the door window across the back of the trailer if the a/c makes it too hot with just the window. Also if we are not running the a/c we can open the window in the back wall, turn on the fan and it will pull air through the trailer when the door and windows are open to keep it cool. Here are the two windows installed.


We will make the A/C opening in the wall with removable blocks to fit a 8000 btu A/C if the 5000 btu A/C which we already own is not large enough. I think Don and others said they use a 8000 btu. Our trailer is 8.5 X 18 with the V-nose. We have 2 inches of insulation in the ceiling and 1.5 inches on the walls. Comments and suggestions appreciated.

Richard

[flboy]

Richard, I think an 8,000 BTU will be more than adequate with the insulation you have and the size of trailer. Since you have the 5,000, go ahead and try it... nothing to lose by trying it. It may surprise you given you have insulated so thoroughly. It will run a lot in the heat of the day... but at night and mornings... it will be fine.

I started with a 6,000 BTU in my 18*7 (with 2'V) with 7.5' ceiling and it cooled just fine but worked hard during the day (not a bad thing... keep the moisture at bay well), but the brand I had didn't like to start with my Gen. in ECO mode. That was my motivation for changing it. Honestly, it was the same size (coils and etc.) as a 5,000 BTU.. Not sure how they claimed the 6,000 BTU.. but they did. Maybe overstated. I went with the Brand of AC and 8,000 BTU because I read it would start in ECO with my Honda 2000.. and the larger capacity gives me some margin on the hottest of days.

Good idea to make the AC mount flexible so it can take a larger unit if you find that you need it. How are you planning the mount? Something to slide in and out with a door, or a more permanent mount in a cabinet?


The build is looking great!

[BigDave_185]

I have a 27 foot and watching your build so I can follow. Looks great!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[featherliteCT1]

Thanks very much for the detailed explanation about how you’re going about installations. You have given me much help as I am him in the process of determining how to cut holes in my trailer. The photos are also great.

I am especially interested in about how you will install your window air conditioner

[PigTrail]

Great start to your build. Thanks for the photos and detailed description!

[jr9744]

Looking Good! That is a monster trailer.

[McDave]

A good template is worth it's weight in gold. You can fine tune them and make any mistakes and adjustments without any permanent flaws. When it is time to do the deed for real they give you a lot more confidence and if you need to repeat that operation the outcome should be identical.
Nice work on those windows.
That is a good size trailer, I like the utility room idea. It will be nice to have access to all that stuff in one place without having to crawl into or under something .

McDave

[ris]

I guess I need to figure out how to upload drawings. About 22" from the rear barn doors is a wall that will go all the way across the width of the trailer and to the ceiling. McDave called this area between the rear doors and the wall the utility room, which is a good name for it. Forward of utility room wall and attached to the wall is the queen sized bed. The bed is across the width of the trailer. The bed frame top is at 32". So we have from floor to where the bottom of the bed is at 32" and 8ft wide, in which to store stuff. There is 5ft from the utility wall to the front edge of the bed. There will be 4 shelves 22" wide and 15.5" tall on the bottom row and 4 shelves 22" wide and 10.5" tall on the top row. The shelves are all 26" deep. There will be 1 set of 8 shelves to access from the back of the trailer and 8 shelves to access from the inside of the trailer. All these shelves are under the bed and fit sterilite boxes of different heights. The inside set of shelves may be slightly different because the back shelves end right at the wheel well so the front shelves will be between the wheel wells and over the wheel wells. Remember the back wall continues up above the bed to the ceiling. The A/C will set on a shelf on the driver side of the wall, with approx. 4 inches inside the trailer and the other 14" sticking out into the utility room toward the rear barn doors. Which means the back of the A/C will be about 8 or 10 inches from the rear door. I hope this wordy explanation answers Don and Featherlites' questions about the A/C.
Our objectives of this build were to have no roof holes, and minimum holes in the sides of the trailer. Also to make the build as lite as possible. This is why there are no cabinets under the bed or drawers under the bed. Also why we have only a 12 gallon gray tank for 2 sinks and not one for the shower. We will also have a 30 gallon water tank. This tank will be right over the driver side axels. Hopefully after the holidays we will get the other 2 windows in the sides and the utility room wall and bed built. All our water lines and 90% of the electric will run down the driver side of the trailer, under the bed and through the cabinets all the way to the shower and sink in the bathroom at the front of the trailer.
thanks for the questions and comments
Richard

[sodatrain]

Looking good! Nice detail on the ceiling insulation. How/why did you go 2" vs 1"?

[ris]

We put 2 inches on ceiling because we live in Florida. We put 1" between the roof supports, running the width of the trailer. The second inch went from front to back of trailer glued over the roof supports. You really need to cover the wall and ceiling supports because they transfer a lot of heat. We could have used 1/2" on the second layer of the ceiling but chose to put another inch over the ceiling supports. We are only putting 1" between the wall support and 1/2 over the wall supports. So the total on the walls will be 1 1/2". The insulation was not cheap. It cost right at $500. Hopefully this answers your question sodatrain.

Richard

[ris]

Sat. my son and I cut the wall studs and installed two extra metal studs and crossmembers for the 20x30 side windows. We first took out a lot of screws that were near or where we were cutting out the window holes. We then drilled two very small holes about 20" apart from the inside to the outside right against the stud on one edge of the window. Next we put a small nail through the two holes and used the nails on the outside to line up the pattern on one edge in order to trace out the window on the exterior wall. We measured down from the roof of the trailer to get the top edge. With the top and one side straight we traced the pattern out on the exterior of the trailer. We then put 2 holes on the top, bottom and the other long side of the window tracing. Make sure to stay away from the corners when putting the holes through the trailer skin. This allowed us to transfer the window opening to the inside of the trailer skin. We then went inside and placed a new stud 1/8" from the side holes opposite the other stud. In our case it was 20 1/4" from stud to stud.(the pattern is 1/8 inch oversized length and width and we allowed another 1/8" to the stud) This stud was screwed from the outside top and bottom as we did when we added studs where we will build walls across the trailer. We then had to cut a stud out that was in the area of our window hole. We did this with a small grinder with a metal cutting wheel on it. We placed a 3/16 piece of wood behind the stud we were cutting so we would not cut the trailer skin when we cut through the stud. We had to cut the stud off 1.5" above the top of the window line as the stud metal is 1.5 inches wide. We had to do this at the bottom of the window opening also.


Next we went back outside and put painters tape close to the line we had for the window opening. We only put it outside the window tracing. We then used a dewalt saber saw with a very fine metal blade to cut the window opening. My son went inside and used a piece of wood to follow the blade as I was cutting so the metal would not vibrate.




Next we checked the window fit.


We then welded the upper and lower window metal in place. This pic is of the metal in place but not yet welded. You will notice the metal cross piece is about 1/8 below the window cut out. It is this way on the bottom and one side of the window.


We will install the windows after we get the plywood on the walls. Our next project is getting the utility wall and bed frame built. Also insulating the interior wheel wells. For some reason the 2 exterior window pics are sideways. Not sure why they turned themselves that way.

Richard