And so it begins!
Say hello to Tiny Tim!
Pic: Happy Christmas folks!
Tim is our ex-Warburton's 13 tonne, 29 foot #tinyhome! We bought him from a commercial vehicle company up north, Joe travelled up with a lorry mechanic friend of ours to check it all out, we put the deposit down and a couple of days before Christmas he headed down to us! It really was that simple. Possibly a little too simple...
We had good intentions of keeping a blog up to date with how the build was going, sharing our experience with likeminded folk and providing our friends (and anyone else who was interested) with an insight to what we were getting up to in trying to build our home. But as ever, good intentions often fall by the wayside with any number of other things taking over the time we had. We have however, kept some updates going through posts on instagram, after all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I'll be damned if I can find the energy at the end of a full working week plus a solid weekend of truck time to explain the in's & out's of how we built a wall.
Having said that, now that we are nearing completion stage 1; moving in to 'liveable' #tinyhome, we figured it was a good time to take a look back at what we have achieved.
From Day 1 we have had a plan drawn up of the design for our #tinyhome, having gone back through the shelf full of old notebooks (we're pen and paper kind of people) we have amassed designs spanning seven years from small vans, detachable rigid backs for the pick-up truck, overland style set-ups, medium sized vans which Joe can stand up in, shipping containers, you name it; we've also lived in some questionable situations through the joys of the rental market, from having not much more than just a roof overhead and being well familiar with the whole living in each others pockets with time spent on and off back in our family homes too. We know what we want, need and require, having learnt - often the hard way - how important our space, and equally our separation is, and how much we love our food, drink and music.
Pic: Masking tape day!
Our very first task was excitedly known as Masking Tape Day. Marking out on the floor and walls where the rooms were in order to actually 'see it' and make sure it works. While we all want our version of our dream home, we were perhaps a little overexcitable when we had measured out a few bits, so some sensible tweaking followed. The joy of masking tape of course, means you can whip it back up and move walls and rooms really easily, so we pretty quickly ended up sitting in our living room with a cup of tea one Sunday afternoon post Christmas!
We'd already worked out where we were sourcing a lot of the materials we would need to build our #tinyhome and so the beginning of this year saw a fairly constant stream (river seems a little negative at this point, considering the relative scale) of money flowing out of our bank account and turning into increasing amounts of timber, insulation, rubber matting and screws - I'd like to guess at how many screws we will have used throughout the process, we should probably have got shares in SPAX before we started!
So as January's rain set in, we huddled down in our metal box to start the arduous task of removing the metal retaining strips on the wall. At this point we didn't know how thick the walls were so we removed the screws before prizing off the metal work, not wanting to make any unnecessary holes, especially through the winter. There were many long hours doing this as well as hack-sawing our way through the racking frames at both ends of the truck too.
Pic: Sodding metal restraining tracks!
With our #tinyhome being sited at a friends yard for the majority of the build we haven't had a great deal of space to leave the rest of the building materials while we have been working, so by far one of the most amusing & frustrating challenges has been finding the space to measure, cut and erect, a house frame within an 8 x 8 x 26 foot oblong. Whilst the size of the box meant that Joe could be resourceful and use timber struts as extra hands to hold things in place, I was busy repurposing plastic folding steps into saw-horses, cutting the uprights to size (which all vary slightly due to the panels in the truck all being slightly less 'square' than it looks). The logistics of which walls get built in which order and remembering to mark where the batons are in order to get the following pieces in place, has certainly been entertaining!
Pic: Post removal of metal restraining straps, rubber matting laid and bedroom framework going up
Ahead of getting too carried away with the walls we had spent a lot of time looking at insulation, whilst there are endless options out there, we had a budget, and we have principles. They don't always go together. We finally compromised and ordered Knauf Earthwool Flexi slabs but due to lack of availability we ended up with Rockwool Flexi slabs instead, not what we wanted but having a time frame looming over our build we settled for a manageable option that arrived on a pallet a couple of days later.
When it comes to temperature, I don't get cold. In fact I'm often loving referred to as either a penguin or a duck, generally due to my preference of cold, wet and/or snowy weather! But I don't like summer temperatures; so then why are we moving into a lorry I hear you ask?
Well, aside from the fact that we spend most of our free time out and about exploring, riding bikes, and otherwise wandering around wherever we are; Joe got another opportunity to do some calculations over optimal amounts of insulation and venting, our dear #tinyhome will not only stop us getting cold in the winter, but will keep us at a vaguely sensible temperature throughout the summer too. Or at least that is the theory!
So having ordered 12 packs of insulation covering 8.64m2 each (103m2 in total!!) we were ready to start laying the insulation having started battening out our walls and rooms. We had decided on 50mm insulation for the walls, ceiling and roof, as well as adding a 10mm layer of rubber matting below to reduce noise/vibration from the aluminium floor. The floor is topped with 18mm OSB and the walls have a basic 6mm hardwood ply-board covering.
Now that we are putting our ventilation holes and flues in, we've found that our flimsy feeling fibreglass roof is actually hiding another 65mm of space on top of our 50mm ceiling. We also have a slightly curved roof too, so it'll be fun drilling through to install the roof vent we've got going in the bathroom too! While nothing is going to be comfortable in the heat wave we are currently having, it really is holding a nice temperature all things considered. Couple that with the windows that we've installed, a lovely breeze flows through on a good day. So far, so good!
Pic: Happy Christmas folks!
Tim is our ex-Warburton's 13 tonne, 29 foot #tinyhome! We bought him from a commercial vehicle company up north, Joe travelled up with a lorry mechanic friend of ours to check it all out, we put the deposit down and a couple of days before Christmas he headed down to us! It really was that simple. Possibly a little too simple...
We had good intentions of keeping a blog up to date with how the build was going, sharing our experience with likeminded folk and providing our friends (and anyone else who was interested) with an insight to what we were getting up to in trying to build our home. But as ever, good intentions often fall by the wayside with any number of other things taking over the time we had. We have however, kept some updates going through posts on instagram, after all, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I'll be damned if I can find the energy at the end of a full working week plus a solid weekend of truck time to explain the in's & out's of how we built a wall.
Having said that, now that we are nearing completion stage 1; moving in to 'liveable' #tinyhome, we figured it was a good time to take a look back at what we have achieved.
From Day 1 we have had a plan drawn up of the design for our #tinyhome, having gone back through the shelf full of old notebooks (we're pen and paper kind of people) we have amassed designs spanning seven years from small vans, detachable rigid backs for the pick-up truck, overland style set-ups, medium sized vans which Joe can stand up in, shipping containers, you name it; we've also lived in some questionable situations through the joys of the rental market, from having not much more than just a roof overhead and being well familiar with the whole living in each others pockets with time spent on and off back in our family homes too. We know what we want, need and require, having learnt - often the hard way - how important our space, and equally our separation is, and how much we love our food, drink and music.
Pic: Masking tape day!
Our very first task was excitedly known as Masking Tape Day. Marking out on the floor and walls where the rooms were in order to actually 'see it' and make sure it works. While we all want our version of our dream home, we were perhaps a little overexcitable when we had measured out a few bits, so some sensible tweaking followed. The joy of masking tape of course, means you can whip it back up and move walls and rooms really easily, so we pretty quickly ended up sitting in our living room with a cup of tea one Sunday afternoon post Christmas!
We'd already worked out where we were sourcing a lot of the materials we would need to build our #tinyhome and so the beginning of this year saw a fairly constant stream (river seems a little negative at this point, considering the relative scale) of money flowing out of our bank account and turning into increasing amounts of timber, insulation, rubber matting and screws - I'd like to guess at how many screws we will have used throughout the process, we should probably have got shares in SPAX before we started!
So as January's rain set in, we huddled down in our metal box to start the arduous task of removing the metal retaining strips on the wall. At this point we didn't know how thick the walls were so we removed the screws before prizing off the metal work, not wanting to make any unnecessary holes, especially through the winter. There were many long hours doing this as well as hack-sawing our way through the racking frames at both ends of the truck too.
Pic: Sodding metal restraining tracks!
With our #tinyhome being sited at a friends yard for the majority of the build we haven't had a great deal of space to leave the rest of the building materials while we have been working, so by far one of the most amusing & frustrating challenges has been finding the space to measure, cut and erect, a house frame within an 8 x 8 x 26 foot oblong. Whilst the size of the box meant that Joe could be resourceful and use timber struts as extra hands to hold things in place, I was busy repurposing plastic folding steps into saw-horses, cutting the uprights to size (which all vary slightly due to the panels in the truck all being slightly less 'square' than it looks). The logistics of which walls get built in which order and remembering to mark where the batons are in order to get the following pieces in place, has certainly been entertaining!
Pic: Post removal of metal restraining straps, rubber matting laid and bedroom framework going up
Ahead of getting too carried away with the walls we had spent a lot of time looking at insulation, whilst there are endless options out there, we had a budget, and we have principles. They don't always go together. We finally compromised and ordered Knauf Earthwool Flexi slabs but due to lack of availability we ended up with Rockwool Flexi slabs instead, not what we wanted but having a time frame looming over our build we settled for a manageable option that arrived on a pallet a couple of days later.
When it comes to temperature, I don't get cold. In fact I'm often loving referred to as either a penguin or a duck, generally due to my preference of cold, wet and/or snowy weather! But I don't like summer temperatures; so then why are we moving into a lorry I hear you ask?
Well, aside from the fact that we spend most of our free time out and about exploring, riding bikes, and otherwise wandering around wherever we are; Joe got another opportunity to do some calculations over optimal amounts of insulation and venting, our dear #tinyhome will not only stop us getting cold in the winter, but will keep us at a vaguely sensible temperature throughout the summer too. Or at least that is the theory!
So having ordered 12 packs of insulation covering 8.64m2 each (103m2 in total!!) we were ready to start laying the insulation having started battening out our walls and rooms. We had decided on 50mm insulation for the walls, ceiling and roof, as well as adding a 10mm layer of rubber matting below to reduce noise/vibration from the aluminium floor. The floor is topped with 18mm OSB and the walls have a basic 6mm hardwood ply-board covering.
Now that we are putting our ventilation holes and flues in, we've found that our flimsy feeling fibreglass roof is actually hiding another 65mm of space on top of our 50mm ceiling. We also have a slightly curved roof too, so it'll be fun drilling through to install the roof vent we've got going in the bathroom too! While nothing is going to be comfortable in the heat wave we are currently having, it really is holding a nice temperature all things considered. Couple that with the windows that we've installed, a lovely breeze flows through on a good day. So far, so good!
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