A New Floor

So the last two work days were very productive, thanks mostly to my brother-in-law, Jake. The first day we broke down some of the scrap material and assesed what we had to work with. At the end of the day I patched some holes in the floor with fiberglass.

This hole is about 1 1/2" wide

This was a nice long tear. It's rock solid now.

Although slightly hazardous to your health, fiberglass cloth and epoxy is pretty easy to work with and did a nice job. I guess we will see if the patches break when transported, but they are pretty solid right now.



Look ma, no bracing!



I've found a bunch of other holes and tears that I'm going to continue to cover with the fiberglass until I run out. I'm not sure how crazy I will go as there are a ton of little screw holes. I'm sure Jake will tell me to cover them all, and he's right. I've found from the rot and water damage that all it takes is a little hole to cause plenty of damage. Big holes also cause damage: When we took off more paneling in the bathroom there was a whole brace missing. Now, there was another one right next to it, but still it was all gone. So, more rebracing is needed.

The main project was bracing the floor and putting in new 'joists'.  It went really well and I'm really happy with the result. What helped the most was attaching the joists to the actual frame of the trailer, something that the PO hadn't done. I'm not really sure why, because it was very simple and the whole trailer feels more stable.

Carriage bolt from the top...

and the bottom.

We put about 3 or 4 in every frame piece, so I think it should be good. I know I said it before, but it really made a huge difference. Jake helped with the logisitics so we made lap joints and notches used a plethora of pocket screws. The (almost) finished product:

Jake points.

We ran out of 2x4s and carriage bolts, but only have about three more pieces to cut. I'm still hoping I don't regret not taking out the kichtenette, as I know the floor is in bad shape underneath it. Oh well, not enough time right now.

So we started putting together the plywood puzzle of the floor and think we have it figured out. So after I get ther est of the lumber and more carriage bolts, the plywood will get screwed down and ready for the vinyl tile we picked out.

Still have to cut one piece of plywood, but looking good.

So, I feel pretty good about the progress we made. The deadline for having the project finished is the end of April, so that is a little over a month. I'll save time by not bothering with the plumbing and stuff, so I don't think it will be a problem.

I'm going to work more next week, hopefully the forecast is wrong (highs in the 30's). Either that or I will try to get the furnace working, I haven't even tried, although the fan works. Anyway, thanks for looking.