Groot 2.0 Build Log

[tony.latham]

Now, the question is, do I want to switch to XPS for the roof? R 7.5 vs R5.6...

You'll sleep with the windows and vent fan cracked. You'll never notice the difference in R value.

Tony

I understand what you're saying there. But, I have a diesel heater that will be used, as well as the fact that my wife and I both use CPAPs, which really cuts down on the condensation. Now, my kiddo, well that's a whole different thing. But, I want a uniform foam on those panels, so it's either going to be R5.6 (which is what I have for the 1.5 inch already, and is what's in the floor), or it's going to be r7.5 XPS foam. Would the XPS foam give me more rigidty in the roof? Are there other reasons to go with one type over the other, when making sandwhich panels?

Either foam type will support 1/8” Baltic for the headliner and roof.

[working on it]

Now, the question is, do I want to switch to XPS for the roof? R 7.5 vs R5.6...

You'll sleep with the windows and vent fan cracked. You'll never notice the difference in R value.

Tony

Of course, that depends on where you camp, and the weather conditions.

I didn't insulate my roof, of 3/4" plywood (thoroughly waterproofed), because I would never need insulation up there in colder weather (I've only camped in 36F minimum temps) and the small inner space of my 4'x8' gets enough heat from the one or two Lasko "My Heat" (200W each) ceramic heaters I'll use, my body heat, and I'll use a winter sleeping bag. Stays OK for me, as I solo camp.


In moderate weather, for N.Texas-S.Okla., in March-early April, I'll use opened awning windows, side vents (with computer case fans sucking outside air in/blowing cabin air out), and/or the 11" fan (Honeywell Turboforce Fan, mounted hanging from the overhead shelf at the front of the trailer. That works ok, unless the pollen and allergens get real bad, then I'll shut the windows, direct the vent fans outward, and use the A/C unit (with filter) to help with cabin cooling, sans the pollen (the A/C recirculates the cabin air, so no extra allergens get introduced). Actually works well.


But, the warmer months require a different approach, as some days I've camped got up to over 100F. With direct sun heating up the trailer all day, I'd depend on my LG 5000 btu window A/C (mounted in the rear wall, between the cabin & galley, behind my head) to cool it down. The A/C unit is placed up high, where the output is first directed along the underside of the hot ceiling, then redirected back towards me by the 11 inch overhead fan. That works OK at night when the sun goes down, but it takes awhile.


The delayed cooling during 100+ days and hot nights was defeated by using a pop-up canopy placed over the whole 4'x8' camper, shielding at least the roof from the direct sun (I lower it as close to the roof as possible). That reduced the heat by a bunch! I use the canopy as a rain shield also (it always rains, at least one T-storm per trip, ever since I camped with the BSA in the '60's), and it overhangs my "front porch" (the door I use to get in & out, my sitting & cooking area, and the entrance to my pop-up potty tent), giving me a 4'x8" area out of the sun or rain. I'll stay cooler and drier outside under the canopy, and the cabin will stay cooler, with the roof shielded from the sun, as well (I have reflective aluminum "silo" paint on all upward facing surfaces...roof, front sloped roof, and raised rear hatch), but the canopy helps more. You might consider using one for warmer weather months, too.

not the neatest arrangement, but it suits my purpose, arrived at after a decade of different arrangements

trailer set-up with canopy.jpg (957.27 KiB) Viewed 1620 times

[reaver]

Now, the question is, do I want to switch to XPS for the roof? R 7.5 vs R5.6...

You'll sleep with the windows and vent fan cracked. You'll never notice the difference in R value.

Tony

Of course, that depends on where you camp, and the weather conditions.

I didn't insulate my roof, of 3/4" plywood (thoroughly waterproofed), because I would never need insulation up there in colder weather (I've only camped in 36F minimum temps) and the small inner space of my 4'x8' gets enough heat from the one or two Lasko "My Heat" (200W each) ceramic heaters I'll use, my body heat, and I'll use a winter sleeping bag. Stays OK for me, as I solo camp.


In moderate weather, for N.Texas-S.Okla., in March-early April, I'll use opened awning windows, side vents (with computer case fans sucking outside air in/blowing cabin air out), and/or the 11" fan (Honeywell Turboforce Fan, mounted hanging from the overhead shelf at the front of the trailer. That works ok, unless the pollen and allergens get real bad, then I'll shut the windows, direct the vent fans outward, and use the A/C unit (with filter) to help with cabin cooling, sans the pollen (the A/C recirculates the cabin air, so no extra allergens get introduced). Actually works well.


But, the warmer months require a different approach, as some days I've camped got up to over 100F. With direct sun heating up the trailer all day, I'd depend on my LG 5000 btu window A/C (mounted in the rear wall, between the cabin & galley, behind my head) to cool it down. The A/C unit is placed up high, where the output is first directed along the underside of the hot ceiling, then redirected back towards me by the 11 inch overhead fan. That works OK at night when the sun goes down, but it takes awhile.


The delayed cooling during 100+ days and hot nights was defeated by using a pop-up canopy placed over the whole 4'x8' camper, shielding at least the roof from the direct sun (I lower it as close to the roof as possible). That reduced the heat by a bunch! I use the canopy as a rain shield also (it always rains, at least one T-storm per trip, ever since I camped with the BSA in the '60's), and it overhangs my "front porch" (the door I use to get in & out, my sitting & cooking area, and the entrance to my pop-up potty tent), giving me a 4'x8" area out of the sun or rain. I'll stay cooler and drier outside under the canopy, and the cabin will stay cooler, with the roof shielded from the sun, as well (I have reflective aluminum "silo" paint on all upward facing surfaces...roof, front sloped roof, and raised rear hatch), but the canopy helps more. You might consider using one for warmer weather months, too.

trailer set-up with canopy.jpg

Insulating is pretty important to my build. I live in Idaho (as does Tony), and it gets very cold in the winter, and very hot in the summer. We tend to go to higher elevations when it gets hot, but having a well insulated trailer with heat, might actually convince the wife to come out when it's colder...

Now, as far as build progress goes, I took yesterday off, and spent the day coating the interior walls with poly. While that dried, I worked on assembling the main storage for the cabin.



I still need to stain the front, and cut out the holes, but it turned out pretty much how I planned.

[reaver]

The aftermath of this weekend is as follows...

Got the front of the main interior storage stained:



After putting on a second coat of stain, we then glued and pin nailed it to the front of the main storage. After it dried, we managed to slide it onto the supports:



We the focused on building the rear galley cabinets.

I forgot to take pictures of the counter supports, but cutting voids out, allowing for me to get my arm in there to run wires and water lines, leaves them weighing only a couple of lbs, at most.

We put those in, making sure we had room to clear the door frame, and glued and screwed them to the floor.

We the put the counter top on, and started working on the upper cabinets.

Got them cut, routed, glued and stapled, and set in place, prior to staining.

Very happy with them!





That's it for now. The goal next weekend is to get the spars and sidewall skins on, and start running wires!

[reaver]

Got a whole bunch of small stuff knocked out that needed to be done before we put the outer side skins on today, as well as the headliner skins.

Galley is stained, and temporary switch plate is in.

These four switches control the water pump, tank anti freeze mat, overhead lights, and part lights.



Dave got all the insulation cut for the sidewalls while I was working on the galley.

We also let the girls draw all over the side of the skeletons. Nobody will ever see it, but they loved it, and we all know it's there.



I then proceeded to start working on figuring out how the latches were going to work on the cabinet doors.


The latches have just enough room to catch, and keep the doors from opening.

I guess I can order the other 4 now.



I still need to pull the door off, and decide if I want to stain it, or keep it naturally colored. And round the corners, but I now have a template for the other 3 doors.



The last thing we did was worked on the front overhead storage.

Got the face stained earlier in the day, and got it all assembled.



You can see a void in the skeleton on the left side... This is mirrored on the right side. These will get aluminum panels that house a 12v socket on each side. This will allow us to plug in the cpaps, and leave them up there. That way we don't have to pack theme up everytime we move.

The holes on the front are for switches and usb charger outlets.

Today, we start putting the final skins on the outer wall, and putting in the head liner.

[reaver]

So, update from sunday. Throughout this whole process, we've been dealing with warped 3/4 ply for the skeletons. Spent much of sunday morning building a frame for the front spars that would be used to basically pull the whole front to be more straight.



We went through a whole 28oz tube of PL Premium adhesive gluing on the side walls, front interior wall, and framework



We also slid the front interior skin in, and got the front storage glued and clamped into place.



We should be able to permanently attach the rear cabin storage, and galley cabinets next weekend, as well as finish up the interior roof panels and spars. Then we start running all the wires...

[ghcoe]

Now, the question is, do I want to switch to XPS for the roof? R 7.5 vs R5.6...

You'll sleep with the windows and vent fan cracked. You'll never notice the difference in R value.

Tony

In a foamie you will. I always thought it was much warmer in the foamie than outside when I open the door in the mornings. By how much I could never tell but it was enough to notice. Finally on the last trip out I took an indoor/outdoor thermometer with me. There was nearly a 13 degree difference in the morning. I was surprised that there was that much difference. I have 4 2" Non closable vents in the corners, and I sleep with the window open about 1".

What was even more interesting was that the inside humidity was lower than the outside humidity. It did rain on us for most of the night though so that may have been the difference.

Inside/outside temperature

Inside outside temp.jpg (303.26 KiB) Viewed 1083 times

[reaver]

Now, the question is, do I want to switch to XPS for the roof? R 7.5 vs R5.6...

You'll sleep with the windows and vent fan cracked. You'll never notice the difference in R value.

Tony

In a foamie you will. I always thought it was much warmer in the foamie than outside when I open the door in the mornings. By how much I could never tell but it was enough to notice. Finally on the last trip out I took an indoor/outdoor thermometer with me. There was nearly a 13 degree difference in the morning. I was surprised that there was that much difference. I have 4 2" Non closable vents in the corners, and I sleep with the window open about 1".

What was even more interesting was that the inside humidity was lower than the outside humidity. It did rain on us for most of the night though so that may have been the difference.

Inside outside temp.jpg

I had a full sheet of 3/4 Inch left over after insulating the walls, so I ended up double layering it on most of the roof, and using the 1.5 inch to fill the gaps in a few places. I figured I'd rather use all of the more expensive stuff first.

Also.... she's ready for paint!

[philpom]

Are the pictures playing games or is your door on the driver side? This will make things a little odd at camp. Maybe you have good reason for it or maybe I am seeing something that doesn't exist?

[reaver]

Are the pictures playing games or is your door on the driver side? This will make things a little odd at camp. Maybe you have good reason for it or maybe I am seeing something that doesn't exist?

There's doors on both sides. That would definitely make things a bit interesting, having it only on the driver's side!

[reaver]

Finished getting the trailer painted this weekend. After that dried, I got the doors mounted with butyl tape. I also got the camp side porch light and roof vent mounted.

Tonight I need to make the faceplate for the battery monitor made, and mount the overhead light, then I'm done with the interior of the cabin.





This week, I'll be getting the trim on, sorting out the rack mounting, as well as the kitchen box mounting (I need the rack in place before I can mount the kitchen box - more on that later).

I'll also be building the drawers for the galley.

I have an additional USB outlet, as well as a dual powerpole outlet I need to install in the galley as well.

I stopped and got a quote to have the axle moved and squared up. I thought I could get away with not moving it right off the bat, but as soon as I started lowering the jacks when I went to bring it home, the back end started to drop. That's going to happen the weekend of father's day.

[reaver]

I got my drawers built:


Then got the trim mounted, awning installed, and stove box mounted:


We then loaded it up, and took it out over Memorial Day weekend!


There are some tweaks that I'll be making. I'm planning on building the fridge box this weekend,since I need to use the trailer again next weekend for a Girl Scout event. After that, it's off to overland expo pnw!

[reaver]

Spent this weekend working on the fridge box.

Got the framing and plywood done on Saturday:





Then attempted to PMF it on sunday. Unfortunately, I ran out of canvas, then I tried spraying the box with my new spray gun. Paint can fell over, then as I was trying to clean it up, it got caught on the hose, and fell over again! FML.

I had enough canvas for the sides, and the top. Unfortunately, I need to use the trailer this weekend, and the fridge box, so I'll have to pull the canvas off the top soon, and repaint it. I decided to not do the final color, since it would be a waste.

I'll be ordering more canvas and paint in a couple of weeks, and re-doing that part of it.

[reaver]

So, I've not had as much time to use the camper this year for various reasons. I have been making adjustments and tweaks to it though, as I have time.

I was scheduled to go on a week long trip with Ghcoe, but the weekend before, my wife broke her foot, and needed surgery to put pins in. I told her there were much easier ways to get me to stay home, but good on her for committing!

I got my driver's side modular rack installed, as I needed a way to carry an additional fuel can. This also gives me a space where I'm planning on mounting the diesel heater, and swapping that for a shower during warmer months.



I also re-wrapped the fridge box, and got it painted.



And finally, got the bullk of the tv/entertainment system installed for winter camping, and when the weather turns to crap. my 8yo daughter loves to go camping with me, and if the weather is crappy, we can climb inside, watch a movie, or play some retro games. The whole system draws less than 1A, and uses a micro-usb powered google tv box, and a USB-C powered portable monitor, and rechargeable bluetooth soundbar.



My 2k diesel heater should be here tomorrow, then the fun of building that box begins.

[featherliteCT1]

Looking great!