Am I missing something?

[Muggnz]

I'm planning on using something I think are called coach screws to hold the ply & base of the walls to the metal frame. Placing 1" x 1" beams along the base of outside walls to hold them up. Screwing through them & the plywood.

How far apart should I place the screws? 1", 6" or . . . ?

tia
david

[RebeccaH]

I do not NEED to frame out and build up the floor?
Also, from the sounds of a couple posters, I possibly could get away with not framing out and insulating the walls? Just use 3/4 in plywood? We might do some winter camping, but it's Texas for Pete's Sake. It gets cold but nothing below zero or anything. It wouldn't be worse than tent camping, right?

This would speed up the construction for me, be a lot simpler to build and also save us a ton of moola. Could you later add in the framing and insulate?

[dh]

Wow this an old thread.

If you want to insulate the floor later on just use the trailer as your frame, put in foam the thickness of the frame rails attached to the floor, and slap on another layer of ply attached to the bottom of the trailer frame. Insulating the walls later will be more difficult.

[Deryk the Pirate]

Well Gage, I admit when tumbleweed homes had their vardo plans on sale for less then 20 bucks I bought it. I like the way they did the roof and I was gonna do the same with 2x4's and the metal plates to mount it. I went all proudly to HD and after tossin 15 2x4's in my cart I had an epiphany of how dam heavy my roof would be....so I put half back and ripped the remaining ones in half lengthwise for the stringers for my roof....just would have been way too much of an oveerkill.

[2bits]

I do not NEED to frame out and build up the floor?
Also, from the sounds of a couple posters, I possibly could get away with not framing out and insulating the walls? Just use 3/4 in plywood? We might do some winter camping, but it's Texas for Pete's Sake. It gets cold but nothing below zero or anything. It wouldn't be worse than tent camping, right?

This would speed up the construction for me, be a lot simpler to build and also save us a ton of moola. Could you later add in the framing and insulate?

Rebecca, I think your thoughts represent alot of the reason for the thread, it is so common to keep the metal frame separated in one's mind from a wood frame. I think this is a big driver to why people put a frame at all.

To Gage's why to peoplr use 2x4's specifically, I think that is another "I've always used them" thing. You build "stuff" with 2x4's right? So you go to the box store and pick up some 2x4's it's just doing the norm, and not stepping back and taking in the scope of the actual project.

In your case you probably do not need to add any more frame unless like in Planovet's case, the frame was oriented in such a way as to make you do some additional build up. Or like in my case where there is a large open space in the metal frame.

I live in Lake Dallas just South of you and my teardrop was built with 3/4" plywood walls with no insulation, and it is toasty in the winter and cool in the summer.

My frame was basically two squares so there was a fairly large space in the middle sections.


The floor was 1/2 plywood and I did add some 1x2 framing to stiffen it up but it fit inside of the metal frame not on top of it, that way the floor is supported my both frames and there is no duplication of support.

[campmaster-k]

When I started my build I had read alot on this forum. My plan was to build a 1.5 x1.5 framed floor on the metal frame. My brother, who has much more building experience than me, told me to screw the plywood directly to the frame. He had not done any reading about teardrops certainly he cannot know of the wisdom here, I thought. He said just stop and look at what you are doing. He told me it was a waste of time and resources to do it the way I wanted. I built the frame. It came out beautiful. It was clearly a waste of time. Why did I do it? I did it because I did not know better.

I did it because I was under the spell of this forum. There is powerful magic here. Be careful how much time you spend here. Next thing you know you will be sleeping in a tiny box on wheels in your driveway when there is a perfectly good house 5 ft away. You will be wishing you had a waffle wrapped around your hot dog. You will scent yourself with white gas. You will tell all your friends about your "Fantastic Fan." And you will love it!

Try telling that story to the beatcop with alcohol on your breath!
"No really officer I live here!"