After the Fire Came a Still Small Voice

We have been told we are too long in updating our progress, and this is true, but not out of negligence, dear reader. In large part, today’s post is made possible by the recent completion of a store with wifi near our house, as our host’s internet proved inadequate to reach us (soon to be amended). This was compounded by the abrupt and complete death of the Mrs’ laptop battery upon moving to the tiny, rendering successful Internet access even more difficult. Funny on hindsight, not so funny at the time!

Moving was a painful process. As always, we were disgusted by how much stuff we had, but this time, we had to find new homes for so much of it, and organize it according to “we are using,” “we will be using,” “we need to re-home,” “we need to recycle,” and “we need to store.” We do not like to throw things away, because the landfill has enough in it already. Organizing as we packed and moved proved logistically complicated. As it turns out, Americans on Craigslist like to look the gift-horse in the teeth. We gave away a lot of our very usable stuff for free, only asking that the new owners pick it up themselves (with our help), and yet it took a great deal of effort just to make that happen. We were amazed at how well people have been trained as consumers that they don’t even want free things unless they are in pristine condition or they are gouging the other person. There is no “fair price,” only “I win, you lose.” We did find some good homes for things, eventually, but it took a lot longer than we expected.

We are also happy to report that we are bibliophiles in reform. We have finally come to the realization that you can have too many books, and we both do. We took many boxes to Powell’s, as you can see by the truck bed full of books to sell/donate. A tear or two might have been shed. We won’t tell.

Books to Sell

Progress has been in the form of installing the metal flashing on the lip of the floor on the long sides of the house, to accommodate siding “hips”, in part because apparently pouring rain was the plan for late August, and it pools terrifically. Also flashing for the edges of the roof, so that the metal sheeting can finally be installed over it. No interesting pictures of these additions, because flashing is pretty boring and straightforward to install, and not much to look at. But believe you us, DRY IN your house before you insulate and panel if you possibly can. There is a reason it is always recommended in that order.

Second area of progress was the successful installation of the gas lines to the water heater and the stove. Although the name implies flexibility, CSST is indeed not very flexible. It is about as easy as routing a garden hose through a wall. The holes are almost as large, and the exterior coating over the corrugation provides an awful lot of drag. It took two people to route the gas lines through 15′ of wall, working really, really hard to yard that stuff through. And although we bought 1/2″ tubing, the actual outer diameter is at least 3/4″, so all the holes had to be drilled to 7/8″ to allow ease. On hindsight, we would recommend running your plumbing and gas lines before electrical, for this reason. The upside to the CSST is that the connections are very secure and easy to do well. As soon as possible, we will be installing the propane tank shelf in the closet and buying a very, very safe NEW multi-stage regulator. (We have heard horror stories firsthand of regulators failing and subsequent massive explosions.) We will be diligently pressure-checking the system before closing up the walls and going “live” with the propane.

Gas lines splitting off from gas tanks

We have been slowly installing lights in the house, although some must wait until the sawdust has settled or they will be immediately gross. We did install the bathroom vanity lights, which we really like. Our little medicine cabinet and sink will sit just under these.

Bathroom vanity lights

And the crowning glory of the bathroom – a bonified, non-stinky, non-tippy, pretty commode! In terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I think having a secure, easy-to-use toilet spot is pretty much up there with water and food and sleeping space. Take heed.

Commode

And we finally tackled the rat’s nest known as the kitchen sink area, as it contains hot & cold water lines, the water heater, the water heater exhaust, the gas lines, and the supply lines for the water heater. All in a teeny tiny space that can’t be an inch larger than allotted for. I think we posted a picture of the sink before, but it stands to be repeated. An area of real pride for us!

Rough kitchen sink

In preparation for insulating and siding the interior, we insulated and boxed-in the wheel wells, using leftover Reflectix in immediate contact with the wells so that no evil water condensation is likely to happen.

Wheel well insulation

And this was probably not immediately necessary, but the Mrs’ plants were languishing in the alternate scorching heat and pouring rain, with nowhere to go, so the bay window shelf was completed for the plants to have safe shelter.

Bay window shelf

Weekend 11 of Construction

This weekend will seem rather boring on virtual paper, as it was mostly logistic, and we have a pathetic number of pictures as the usual photographer was busy doing the work mostly alone. But fear not, that won’t stop us from boring you with the details! You want the authentic experience, right?

Drilling nice, perpendicular, centered holes in studs that are closer together than 16″ o.c. is difficult, so the installation of the plumbing was stymied by a seemingly minor detail. A right-angled drill would make the job magnitudes easier, but we couldn’t seem to locate one, oddly. Even the Craigslisters who advertised ones for sale didn’t call back. We are hoping the NEPTL will help. Tool libraries are the cat’s pyjamas, so you should see if there’s one in your area.

We did install most of the 12v wiring since those holes are smaller and if they are less straight, no one cares. And we picked up our interior paneling, some very attractive 5/16″ thick by 4″ wide tongue and groove fir. Again, it was salvage and in mostly short sections, but looked like clear, close vertical grain, suggesting old growth (without the guilt). Also, a friend of the family has offered to give us all of her pine trim from her house build that she didn’t use, for free. So supplies are coming together. Happy day!

One of us, who shall remain unnamed, was having a bit of a heart attack over the weight limit of 10,000 lbs, as we are currently sitting at a little under 7,000 less tools and extras. So, after some serious panicking, we learned the difference between linear feet (lf) and board feet (bf) when calculating lumber weights. They are not the same thing. Linear feet is what you’d first think of – the actual length of lumber, but it is difficult to calculate weight as widths and thicknesses vary. Board feet is an assumed 12″ wide by 1″ thick piece of the wood you are choosing, even if the boards you are buying are not 12″ wide by 1″ thick. So board feet is the more helpful but confusing number, as it is a volume of wood rather than a length when calculating the weight of piles of lumber. But bf was exactly what we needed when deciding on our future lumber choices for siding and paneling. Board feet is used most commonly for hardwoods (as opposed to the softwoods most often used for framing), and is calculated either as width (in inches) x length (in feet) x thickness (in inches) x 12, or as width x length x thickness (in inches) / 144. Then you can figure out the weight, for a given moisture content (wetness) of the wood, based on standard values for 1000 bf, which you can find in tables all over the internet. We realized we will be heavy, but not catastrophically so as originally miscalculated! Hence finding 5/16″ paneling, instead of using the ubiquitous 3/4″ thick pine tongue and groove. Fir is slightly heavier than pine, but when you are looking at something less than half as thick, it will be much lighter. And we did install a small wall’s worth of paneling, just to get the hang of it and feel like the weekend wasn’t a wash:

The wood will need to be sanded, but we kind of liked the “rainbow” effect. And we fluffed and filled with wool insulation as we went. Very gratifying.

Also, the weather portends rain in a few days, so we were very excited to have our Grace Ultra underlayment arrive. It was the least toxic waterproofing roof underlayment we could find, to go underneath our aluminum sheeting, so it had to be high temperature rated. Instead of being made from asphalt rubber or plain tar paper (all nasty fossil fuel based things that reek) like most, it is made from butyl rubber over a sheet of essentially Tyvek. Still fakey, but hopefully not as bad. We also ordered Reflectix, which is glorified bubble wrap with a metallic foil coating on it, to block radiant heat from the roof, as that seems to be the main source of the heat coming into the house. It has an efficiency rating of around 97%, which seems like a darn good number. So that will be installed just inside the roof sheathing, followed by wool and then paneling. Should be nice and cozy.

Last thing is the thorn in our side: the propane system. In addition to the abovementioned hole drilling problem, there are other obstacles. This one, it seems, the “Experts” have cornered the market on. As we see it, there are three main choices for running gas lines in a tiny house: black pipe, which is heavy, stiff, and a real pain to install, flexible copper pipe which requires careful installation and specific fittings to be airtight and has a much smaller diameter (at least all that we could find), and CSST (corrugated stainless steel tubing), which I have mentioned before. All brands of CSST have proprietary, non-interchangeable fittings. You can buy the first two types of gas lines at Big Box stores (the copper pipe can be found in the “icemaker” section, near the fridge stuff), and you can buy one type of CSST online from a certain Big Box store, namely AlphaFlex, which is the same thing as Homeflex. However, AlphaFlex/HomeFlex are made with PVC. There are other brands, such as ProFlex and TruFlex (I don’t know if they are affiliated with each other) which use less toxic plastic coatings, and their fittings also include a rubber gasket, which seems like a really good idea. However, all of the above types of CSST and fittings cannot be found in a brick and mortar retail store in this town. In fact, if you call any place that advertises that they stock gas line stuff, they get really huffy when you inform them that you are “doing it yourself” and tell you how you couldn’t possibly know what you need and should have an Expert determine that for you. Puckey, I say. So we ordered on Amazon. Even ordered the how-to booklet for installers who want to get “certified,” and it doesn’t look like a very long read! We’ll let you know how it works out. So far, the lesson learned is: do not be optimistic in your lengths of line. Patchwork propane lines are frowned upon, obviously. The good news on the propane front is that we have a sympathetic uncle who knows how to pressurize the system as required to check for leaks, and has all the fittings to do so! So don’t worry, we won’t be endangering anyone with our propane system, sans Experts.

This week, we hope to install the Grace Ultra in time for rain, and continue paneling and insulating as we finish installing the necessary pipes. May even wire up the switches and receptacles, so the house can be “plugged in” and have actual lights on!