First night of trailer living

        Well I survived the first night of trailer life, May 29th 2011. To be honest it was from 5 pm to about 6:20 am. It was not all that dangerous with driveway camping etc, I was still close to home with a bathroom & other stuff I needed. I just had to make a kitchen run at 9 pm to the main house as the trailer kitchen is not done yet. The trailer itself makes a lot of noises, metal creaking etc. It also seams like it picks up all the exterior street noises, since I had the TV on and was playing DVDs it was not all that bad. This must be why it wood be a good idea to park in quiet locations, if you like to sleep the whole night. It did get very cold however, when i woke it was down to 55 deg, that was about 5 deg above the exterior 50 deg temp, there is a gap in the rear cargo door for the electric cord, I am thinking once all the appliances are installed they will heat the interior about 10 deg above the exterior temp. The rest of the heat required will need to be supplied by other means like the floor heater or the stove etc. I was able to charge the 400 amp hour batteries a little yesterday , the reading went from 12.4 volts up to 12.68 volts after using a mickey mouse 15 amp charger all afternoon. I have been very surprised as the Surrette Solar batteries have been sitting around for 4 weeks unused and did not loose any of their charge, as I had tested them at 6.2 volts each when they arrived. I still have to install the solar panels, so there will either be 8 or 16 holes in the roof, that is sort why I am holding off.

A few more trailer pictures

      Blogger seams to be not wanting to work with Safari today, so I am trying Firefox for the first time. Here are pictures of the 12 volt fan I installed. To be honest it was a pain in the ass to install, for $99 they gave you a 12" cord & did not even include the 6 mounting screws, cheap as hell is all that I can say. Getting the sheets on was a 3 man job, maybe when it comes time to change them I will have to stop at a motel and get professional help. The typing between the pictures seams to be a problem. The bottom picture is of my little weatherman. Most of the items installed are temp, as I am just getting a feel for the final layout that I would like. The final install will be more professional. For now I'm just enjoying my first night at trailer living, believe it or not !!

Just Installed the Vizio 27" LCD TV

      Now I just need a antenna or internet connection form my lap top and I am all set to go. The TV can be watched from the bed and the kitchen area both. This is the latest version internet TV. WOW it was super light weight, seamed like it was less then 3-4 lbs. Well to be honest it will need an electric outlet also, but that is no problem.

The queen size bed has landed

      It was a little tough getting it turned inside, takes 2 people and a lot of pushing, but finally its done. Its a queen size and a full 12" thick. Now I just gotta find room for the tv.

View from the inside.

This morning I also installed the fan,

 it will sit in its own box right under the a/c unit.

View from the outside with the rear door open.

Next week by friday, I will order the rest of the cabinets next week

approx. another 5 ft on each side will be installed.

Here is the $78 fan - 1320 CFM installed under the floor.

I can't really imagine how it would be worse then the $300 fantastic roof fan ?

See the small vent to the right side.

That is the exterior exhaust for the a/c unit.

The first cabinets have arrived

     WOW are those cabinets massive. Well you know what they say, you can never have to many cabinets or enough storage inside your little trailer. As you can see the a/c fits between the cabinets. The bed will sit on top of the cabinets, there will be about the same amount of space as inside a coffin while you are sleeping. I also painted the roof white and that really helped to drop the inside temperature, of course at night time it will also make the trailer require more heat.

The cabinets facing the rear will have a 30 gallon water tank between them.

I will also have a 2nd 20-30 gallon tank up front.

The queen size bed will sit on top of these 4 cabinets.

The a/c unit will sit right under the bed.

The 2 Lazy Susan 33" cabinets, for extra storage space.

The new white roof coating, only one problem, 

can says coverage is 25 sq. ft. per gallon- 2 coats, 

coverage does not say what kind of  roof ? 

Seams metal roof coverage is 1 gallon for 2 coats over 112 sq. ft.

anybody need an extra 4 gallons, or I can paint on 

8 more layers to make it nice and thick.

5 gallon can is $85

Whole trailer under floor fan

      Coming next will be a normal house attic fan, this blows about 1320 CFM and costs about $80. I compared this to the fantastic fan that everybody raves about, that costs $280 and does about 350 CFM. The fan will be a little tricky to install under the trailer, in the same space directly under the a/c unit. It will also have its own little closing hatch, to keep the cold air out when not in use. The fan has a switch where it can come on between 50 to 120 deg automatically, I will also install an on / off switch & maybe a timer - there is a similar set up in my house now. I figure at 25% of the cost and 400% more air flow, how can one go wrong? Time will tell !!

Took the new LG a/c for test run

      Would it not be so, just when I installed the new LG 7,000 btu a/c unit, its ice cold outside.

Here is picture of the new faucet, still needs final install.

The new LG  model LP0711WNR - rated at 7,000 Btu for up to 200 sq. ft room. 

That would be about 1,600 cubic feet of air. The trailer is only 112 sq. ft x 6.5 tall.

About 750 cubic feet of air space - less 50% for all the cabinets & stuff,

so the unit is only cooling about 350 cubic feet of air space.

Its working about 20% of its rated capacity at 40 sq. ft. 

So now we need a hot 100 deg exterior day.

This is the newer R410A Freon by the way.

Cost of the unit was $250

The unit is connected to a small floor air vent

approx. 3 x 6". I did notice it makes a hell of a lot of negative

air pressure inside the trailer when running.

I may change the duct to a regular insulated house duct

rated at R-6 fiberglass - as this will be more flexible

and easier to work with. Lots of people complained about the 

duct in the product review.

Cabinets are coming soon

          First I just need to figure out how to install the 4 large solar panels on the roof, as that needs to be done first. Here is my selection for the cabinets, from Kingway Cabinets in San Jose California. They are right across the street from Fry's on Brokaw off of the HWY 17 - 101 interchange. They have really really great quality stuff, at very reasonable prices and their stock cabinets will arrive in 3 - 5 days. So how can you beat great price, quality cabinets and fast service ? Here are the samples of what I have in mind so far.

If you want friendly service, great prices, great cabinets 

& counter tops, go to Kingway Cabinet Outlet.

Here is the trailer lay out that I am thinking of ?

Maybe there will be some more cabinets in the rear section also ?

I am still thinking about that.

Here is the style and color that I like :-))

Where can you get a lazy Susan in a cheap, off the lot camping trailer ?

Grout is done

      Grouting is finally done, I will install the shower fixture next. In case you wanna do this project with these little tiles, be aware it takes forever and a day.  I would say about 4 to 5 x longer then a standard shower tile install. The directions on the grout bag say the grout, should be misted 3 times a day for the next few days and the temperature should be between 50 to 70 deg. Last night I left a electric heater running inside the trailer to keep the temp at around 60-65 deg.  As I drilled for the 2 faucet holes this morning one of the tiles cracked as I drilled between 2 different tiles for each hole. Since it was already cemented down and it did not pop out, I will just leave it in place. My best advice is, if you have to drill a 1 3/8" hole - drill in the middle of the 4 x 4" thick tile. The color I installed for the grout was a light blue, to match the tiles. I really hate white grout - don't know why so many people use it?  In the next week - or two, I will also install a grout sealer to keep it looking new.

Getting ready for the grout

       After the grout I just need to cut some holes through the glass tiles & install the faucet, seams like the end to the kitchen is almost in sight.

The lost entry , 2 days of missing blogs

        I lost 2 days of entries, seams the blogger had some software problems ? Just a little bit more to go, I found a new faucet that I liked a little bit better, so I will see if the new holes can be drilled and installed.

Seams at different tiles of the day, tiles have different shades.

90% done with shower tiles

     Here we go , this weekend we will see the final product coming together. I will try to finish the tiles tomorrow, as long as the new faucet is available.

Getting there 70% done, believe it or not

      Well I can't say its easy or fast setting and cutting all those thin little tiles. Having done many tile showers and baths with standard tiles, my guess would be that this job involves about 3-4 times the normal amount of labor. You can only stand to work about 4 hours on a section of tiles. Too little mortar and the tiles do not stick well, too much mortar and you need to scrape out miles grout lines before the mortar becomes hard. Mostly you will spend a lot of time scraping out miles of grout lines, as I would assume you would want your tiles to stick really well ? Cutting the tiles is also lots of fun, many times you get smaller chips along the edges , unless your have more special tile cutting equipment.

Pictures look different with and without flash

A little more progress on the shower tiles

Slowly there is some progress, here are the latest pictures.

Believe it or not, it takes a long time to cut all those tiles.

this little 2 ft x 2 ft square below - took 3+ hours

Problems with mortar solved

         It took a little extra time to experiment around with 9 different combinations, to see what would work best. I came to the conclusion that special mortar for glass tiles was the best combination. Also a little expensive $13 for a 4 lb. box. This did not require any add mix & worked fantastic for  the thin glass tiles. After 2-3 days I could not break them from the plywood. Other then the light weight the Schltuer board could be skipped if one wanted the cheapest possible combination and the extra weight was not a problem. Because I am using a lot of metal trim & it would be very hard to set in glue or mortar, I decided to install the trim with screws attached directly to the plywood behind the Schluter board. The smaller trim tiles around the metal strips I also installed with regular tile glue.

Here is where we are so far.

Here is the faucet with darker blue tiles under faucet.

Can't decide on what color to install inside the frame

The sides pieces will support a shelf latter.

This was the best thin-set for these glass tiles.

This was junk to the max. 

Here is my sample board to test the thin-set.