Walls - Day 3-4 - Almost There

 (~9 hrs)

End of Day 4: 7 of 8 panels installed!

Today started with discovering a puddle of cat vomit on my subfloor. Gee, thanks. To whom do I owe the honor?

The upside to it was that really, things could only look up from there.

And they did! That is, two more wall panels went up today, which, after yesterday's work, brings me up to seven of eight panels installed--and three of four walls completed.

I feel good!

Progress as of yesterday (Day 3)

Puzzling over how to stand the panel up

The biggest challenge of today was the 8'x11' panel with the large window cutout. Mom and Ellen helped yesterday with the opposite side--the panel with the low bedroom window in it--and Ellen helped today with the smaller panel spanning the wheel well on the tall side. But by the time we got to that big panel, Dad and I were working on our own. 

We tried a few things, flipped the panel back and forth a few times, and nearly hurt ourselves a few times. It wasn't so hard to get the panel onto the deck; standing it up and sliding it over the sill plate was the puzzler.

We finally opted for the following procedure (not pictured):
1) Brace the bottom edge of the panel against the opposite wall
2) Lift the top edge up and lean it gently against the wall
3) slide the bottom edge back across so it was braced against its sill plate
4) Walk the top of the panel up until the panel was upright and more or less on its sill plate
5) Fine-tune, stuff cables into chases, and pound the panel into place with a sledgehammer

Lesson 45: I would not necessarily recommend installing such big panels with just two people. Three tall, strong people would have gotten this panel in place easily enough, which translates to maybe four weak-wristed equals to myself...

We couldn't quite get this panel to sit tightly against its neighbor. There should only be a 1/8" gap between the two edges of the panels (although the spline bridges in between, so it's not like it's a hole in the wall). We managed to get the bottom of the seam tight, but the top gaped open by half an inch! The only way we could close it was to wedge the panel up off the floor by a similar amount. We can't really have the panel half a inch up off the floor, so we left it. It wasn't that awesome a feeling. We might go back and fill in with spray foam or something, I'm not sure. I'd like to go back and fill some of the unused electrical chases with foam, anyway, so we could kill two birds with one stone there.

Bottom: nice and tight. Yay!

Top: half-inch gap. Boo!

 The only reason we can think of for the problem is that maybe the trailer bed wasn't a perfectly flat plane. I hope it doesn't cause problems when we install the top plates!

We also appear to be running out of the special Premier SIPs mastic that they sent along with my SIPs order. We have two bottles and a bit left over, and we started with a case of twelve... and we still have most of the windows, the top plate, the cap plate, and the last panel to go. Oops. Either they sent us too little or--quite likely--we've been using too much.

The mastic that we've been using is--according to the bottle--a sealant, to close up any gaps that might let air through the wall assembly. It seems to cure to a rubbery consistency. (And, just to add to the general knowledge base: it's not too hard to wash out of hair. I used dishwashing liquid to spot clean the tail of my braid.) I've been trying to apply just enough so that a little bit squelches out from between the panel and the spline or sill plate, like so:

Squish

 But we might have gone overboard in a few places. Better too much than too little, eh? Except when it runs out... I emailed Matt, my project manager at Premier SIPs, and asked if there was an off-the-shelf substitute for their proprietary stuff. It really depends on the SIP manufacturer and what they recommend to use as an alternative to their product. He got back to me within a couple of hours and recommended using PL Premium Polyurethane Construction Adhesive, which appears to be a Loctite product. It's readily available at Lowes or Home Depot, so I'll pick up a couple bottles of the stuff tomorrow.


If I can get out of bed after the feats of today...