Walls - Day 1-2 - 50% Done

 (~12 hrs)

(Photo credit: Rachel Escher--thank you!)

Walls! Dimensions! My house is starting to look like a house... if you face a certain direction and don't look up!

I had predicted that it would take us three days to complete the walls, but at our current rate of two panels per day, it's going to take four. That's okay.

Big thanks to Mom and Ellen, Chuck, Troy, and Rachel for helping Dad and me these past couple of days! 

Today's post will be photo-heavy because I don't feel like writing. (I feel like going to bed.)

Ta da! The 50% mark

Here is our end result: the four back panels are up and locked in. Woohoo! And we only had one or two major muck-ups...

Not only that, but as we're installing the panels, we're also running the electrical cables that need to go through the panels. We still need to cut the correct size and shape of holes for the outlet/switch boxes, but the cables are in place for all the panels that are up so far.

Here's how it went down:


Day 1:

First piece: installed

 The first panel went up. This was probably the hardest panel, because not only is it on the larger side (8' wide, though it has a door cutout), but we also had to lift it 11.5" off the subfloor surface, position it precisely, and slide it down over the wheel well arch. It was made trickier by that thin piece along the edge, which we were afraid would break.

I was super nervous. But lift it and slide it we did, and guess what?

Holy crapola, it worked! It fit! It was perfect!

But that was just a dry run. To install it for real, we had to take it off the sill plate, apply beads of the special SIP mastic to the top and edge of the sill plate, replace the panel, and then fasten the panel with a 2" screw every 6" along the bottom edge.

First two pieces: installed!

We were heartened by our success, so we forged ahead and installed the next panel. Woohoo!

We also decided on the final placement for the end sill plate, drilled the holes, and glued and bolted it down.

That was our first big mistake. That sill plate ended up being about 3/16" too close to the next sill plate on the other side. As we found out the next day... and had to use a sledgehammer to shift the sill plate. Yikes! But three guys who are more experienced with this sort of thing thought it was the best idea, so...

I just hope those new bolts I bought are good and strong. The hardware store didn't have the dull-colored, hot-dipped galvanized bolts that we were using before, so I had to get the shiny ones. Dad informs me that they are not as good.

I'm not sure what I would do it it turns out we've damaged our bolts...

Lesson 38: Finalize the end wall's sill plate placement after both adjacent panels are installed. In real life, the actual space between two pieces will depend on lots of factors, and when you need an exact fit, don't try to predict that space ahead of time. Measure and fasten as you go, if you can.

Too shiny and too close together. Sigh.

No hardhat, no problem!

 
Lesson 39: It's best to install the splines on the ground as much as possible. I had to climb way up on a ladder (wearing my bike helmet in case of a fall!) to screw in splines on Sunday and it was a bit nervewracking. It's impossible to do away completely with climbing ladders to fasten the splines, but some of them can be installed before the panel goes up. That's the way we'll do it from here on out. 

Dealing with a misplaced electrical chase...

When we went to run an electrical cable between the first two panels, we made a discovery: The electrical chases in the wheel-spanning panel were cut about 5" too high. 

Like... what?! Huh? How...? But I thought SIPs would just be perfect! Have the pros do it, they won't mess up, I thought...

So, Lesson 40: Even SIPs can involve some human error.

Oh, well. 

I suppose some people would try to get a refund or something. Whatever. We just dealt with it. What we did here was just gouged out a channel for the wire to bend and run down to where the chase in the adjacent panel was.

At the end of the day, we braced the wall with a 2x4 so it wouldn't fall over.

Goodnight, house.

 Day 2:

Back end panel, pre-installation

Today was Memorial Day and we had helpers! Rachel, Troy, and Chuck came over, and Mom helped too.

The next two panels went up: the first of the panels that bridge the wheel well on the tall side, and the back end panel (with the bathroom window).

The side panel worked like I thought it would: we were able to slide it to fit it over the wheel well, rather than having to lift it like we did with the very first panel.

The end panel was tricky, though. It was heavy, it didn't have many handholds, and we had to install it from the ground below the trailer, rather than the deck of the trailer--a big lift. Wish we had a forklift. But it fit!

The routine for installing corners is to install 2x lumber splines in all the panel edges involved in the corner, then screw through the end panel into the face of the other panel's spline to connect the corner. It seems to work pretty well. I let Dad do the screwing--those 6" SIP screws are serious business.

Lesson 41: Predrilling holes for the SIP screws is a good idea.

And RE: the second big muck-up of the day: Lesson 42: Make sure none of your sill plate bolts will be in the way of the lumber splines. We had to chop out a bit of one spline because the bolt head was too close to the edge of the sill plate, the lumber spline hit it, and the panel wouldn't fall all the way down over the sill plate.

This was our second biggest mistake of the weekend, after the sill plate misplacement. The language surrounding it was--potentially--influenced by the fact that we've been rewatching Deadwood lately...

But we got the panel to fit, in the end, and it feels solid, so all is well. I hope.

Whew.

 

These wires will connect to the circuit breaker box.

We also ran electrical cables. The tall side wall panel that we installed is the one where I plan to put the circuit breaker box, so all the wiring in the house will enter the wall there after coming out of that box. There will be six circuits--five interior, one exterior--so six cables have to find their way into the appropriate electrical chases from this point. We decided to drill three 1.5" holes about 12" apart to access the chase inside the wall, and fed the cable in to whatever destinations it had on that panel. We also cut a hole at the destinations--whether it was an access hole (where the cable will enter the bathroom wall) or an electrical box hole. 

I left lots of extra wire hanging out of the wall because I'm not really sure how much I need to connect to the circuit breaker box. In fact, I don't own my circuit breaker box yet. I need to get on that.

I was also surprised that Lesson 43: 12-gauge wire (for 20-amp circuits) is pretty danged stiff, which makes it hard to feed through the chases. Design your electrical layout to make it as easy as possible on yourself. The main things to remember are:
1) Don't try to snake cables around corners. Put an outlet or switch at the corner so you can pull straight runs only.
2) Keep your runs relatively short. Horizontal runs aren't so bad if you can push the wire straight, like from an unfinished panel edge, but if you have to go in a hole and out a hole along the same horizontal plane, the wire bends and gets stuck easily.

Label label label!

Lesson 44: Label your cables! This "lesson" is not in keeping with the other lessons, in that I already knew that I had to do this before I started today. It's important, though. Once a cable goes into a wall, you will forget which way it's going and where it's supposed to connect, and it'll be mess... if you don't label them. At both ends.

Yay, halfway!

Yay, shower!

Yay, bed!