Cladding

After much deliberation between secondhand and new materials for the  cladding, new zincalum won.
Progress wasn't as much as I'd hoped but what has been done looks fantastic.

French Doors

Doors are now both hung �� however door hardware still to come

Door Frames and Hanging

It was time to fit the secondhand doors that I purchased months ago. Before they could be fitted the door jambs had to be measured a made.

 

 

The tiny house is coming together well and it is approaching "lock up" status.

 

 

One of the two French doors was hung, the one that doesn't move as frequently as the other. The hinges on the other door, the one that moves the most, need replacing so unfortunately it wont be today.

Experimenting with Cladding

Mismatched and short lengths of zincalume that I had on hand were temporarily screwed to the frame in order to help decide on cladding material.

I like the horizontal orientation and am torn on whether to use second hand material or buy new. . . .

Lining Eves

The eve was lined with match board which his tongue and grooved. 

As I dont want paint to drip on the wall cladding, too the time to prime the barge board, eve and the ends of the rafters.

Completed the Roof

Its been so long between activity on the tiny house.

I injured my finger quite severely at work and required surgery. The end result being no activity on the build until now.

Placed the last section of insulation and roofing iron.

Not that the fascia board was cut extra long and will be trimmed to length at a later date.

 

Roof Insulation & Cladding

I was going to fit traditional sisalation paper however after some research it became apparent that blue and silver sisalation is old technology and has been replaced with bubble wrap like insulation. 

A roll of "Air Cell" insulation and aluminum tape were purchased off ebay. The plan is to also use it on the walls.

The insulation was cut to length on the ground and secured with shade cloth "nails".

Underside of the Air Cell

Air Cell insulation was overlapped and the join covered with aluminum tape. Note that the Air Cell overhangs the lower roofing batten so that condensation can drip off without wetting ie rotting, the batten. 

As I am constructing the tiny house without assistance, I have had to develop ways to compensate for lack of hands. In the case of fitting the sheets of roofing iron, blocks were temporarily nailed bottom roofing batten to stop them sliding down while securing them.

The first sheet of roofing fitted.

. . . . . and the second.

Gables

Batten screws being fitted to battens.

The barge board will be secured via the battens and in order to stop flex, blocks of wood are cut to butt against the last rafter and back of the barge board. The picture below shows the barge board prior to fitting. Note that the end rafter has been infilled with framing and the rectangular framing will be were the loft window will be installed.

The angle of the cut for the top of the barge board should be the same as the angle that the rafter was cut. Im my case 45 degrees.

Barge board fitted and held in place with batten screws.

Front view of the barge board that forms the gable and eve.

View of where the eve lining will be fitted.

Color Bond Commercial Building

Was driving past a color bond commercial building so stopped into see how the corners were handled.

Roof Battens

The roof battens were placed over length and 3 per side. They were positioned straight by using a string line and held in place by nails. 

View of the fitted battens from above.

Note that batten screws were subsequently using to secured via batten screws.

Batten screws will tend to split wood if the wood is not pre-drilled and they are also hard on drills due to the torque required to screw them.

Batten is held in place at the ridge board via skew nailing and hoop iron and clout nails.

The battens have been trimmed in preparation for the fitting of the gable ends.

Rafters and Ridge Board

Having never done this before it was a case of phoning a builder friend to ask a few questions.

For terminology, have a look at:

http://collections.infocollections.org/ukedu/uk/d/Jgtz006e/14.3.html

 The advice went as follows.

1. In order to work out the location (& depth) of your birds mouth cut, cut over length rafters at the desired roof pitch. In my case the pitch is 45° to maximise head space in the loft.

2. Cut a short length of the ridge board and stand it on its end (see left of the orange nail gun).

3. Place the length rafters horizontally on the bottom plate to replicate how they would look when placed on the roof ie along the centre line of the two long walls.

4. Mark the desired overhang of the rafter.

5. Mark the position where the rafters contact the edge of the wall. This is where a "birds mouth" cut will be made. Make the depth of birds mouth cut with consideration to maintaining the structural integrity of the rafter.

6. Cut the birds mouth and reposition back on the ground as per step 3.

7. Measure the distance from the bottom plate to the bottom of the ridge board and write it down.

Before cutting more rafters, the ridge board should be installed to check that the two rafters fit.

To position the ridge board, nail a long length of timber to one side of the centerline of the frame. This structure will be removed later however it needs to be firmly secured.

Position a block of wood at the height of the ridge board as noted in Step 7 above.

The ridge board will rest on this block. Repeat this for the other end of the tiny house.

Position the ridge board on the blocks and clamp. Loose fit the two rafters that were previously cut and make any necessary adjustments in the position of the birds mouth, the angle that the rafter meets the ridge board or the height of the ridge board.

Note that I wanted an eve at both ends of the tiny house so the ridge board is over length.

Cut additional rafters as required. When cutting and fitting rafters, the assumption is that the walls are straight, level, plumb. Note that the rafters will want to spread or push the two long walls apart.

In order to minimize the potential of spreading, the loft bearers were fitted prior to the installation of the rafters.

The long length of timber that can be seen in the photo below is a plant that was worked off when fitting the rafters. Much easier than working off the top of a ladder. 

Construction was during an Australian winter and due to shorter daylight hours the majority of work was undertaken on the weekends. Black builders plastic was placed over the whole structure to stop the chip board floor from getting unnecessarily wet.

Internal view of the rafters. This was the first time that the internal space of the tiny house could be "felt". Note the working plank.

Sub-frame Construction - 3

In these photos you will see that the whole frame has been moved away from circular bulb garden bed where it was originally placed and it has now been moved and placed on levelled concrete blocks.

The area beneath the concrete block was dugout to a depth of 400mm and crushed rocked placed and compacted with the blunt end of a crow bar. In order to stop the double concrete blocks from moving away from each other, they were glued utilising "liquid nails".

Sub-frame has been nogged out with additional floor joist placed at 450mm centers and whole structure is quite rigid.

Love the nail gun.

 



Concrete blocks have been liquid nailed together and are placed on compacted crushed rock.

 



Sub-frame Construction - 2

Just realized that I neglected to state that the tiny house I am building is designed to be "skid mounted" so that it can be tilt tray moveable and/or retro-fitted for towing.

 

The draw bar and axle arrangement are conceptual and remain in my head. We have friends who have a farm so at worst case the distance to be moved is about 15km away.

 

Now that the sub-frame is parallel, the next challenge is to pull it into "square". This was achieved by the use of ratchet straps and a large plasters square.

Dimensions where still checked by measuring "corner to corner", noting the measurements then measure the opposite "corners to corner".

 

Once square, metal floor joists were welded to the ends of the RHS.

 

In order to ensure that the structure was kept square, diagonal bracing was welded beneath the floor joists.

Parallel RHS prior to welding in the end metal floor joists, one of which can be seen on top of the floor.

50mm x 50mm galvanized RHS welded beneath the floor joists to provide rigidity to the whole structure.

Means of securing the cross bracing.

Some of the floor joists had knots in the timber and appeared weak. In this case the weak section was strengthened by "doubling up" and securing with nails.

Sub-frame Construction

 

The next step was to decide on the dimensions of the floor.

In Australia materials such as flooring come in standard sheet sizes so it worth considering this to minimise waste eg 900mm x 3600mm yellow tongue flooring. Pine comes in a maximum length of 6000mm. Additionally thought has to be given to transport regulations eg maximum width, length and height (4.2m for most loads on trucks).

 

Larger dimensions are possible however permits and restricted routes may apply.

I settled on floor dimension of 2300mm x 4800mm to sneak within truck width constraints and standard material lengths.

 

The RHS beams have been cut to length and leveled using blocks, wood and packers.

In this photos below I have cut the floor joists to achieve the overall width of 2300mm. 

 

Previously I mentioned that the RHS had tabs welded at 600 mm centres. The result of welding the tabs is the bowing of the RHS by approximately 25mm, hence the blue ratchet strap to pull the sides in.

 





Note the ratchet strap to pull the RHS inward so that they are parallel.

The floor joists were ripped on a Tritton work bench so that they would slip either side of the tabs on the RHS and a bold would supply clamping force.



Floor joist secured to the RHS



 

In order to stop the floor joists from falling below the level of the RHS, short blocks of scrap wood were added. Remember I am essentially undertaking the construction by myself.

 

 





Sub-frame Materials

Only learnt about tiny houses about 6 weeks ago and my partner and I decided to construct one. After searching on the internet for trailers a friend suggested that perhaps we could mount it on skids and move it on a tilt tray truck.

Sounded like a great idea. I located 2x150mmx100mm rolled hollow section (RHS) in a demolition yard that had tabs welded at 600mm centres and three vertical tabs on each side. The tabs will act as brackets for the floor joists and wall foot plates respectively. 

These will be perfect.

150mm x 100mm RHS

Note the metal tabs that are welded at 600mm centres