Hey guys!
It's been a busy month, so i haven't had as much time to post as I'd like.
I did however, get some work done in the trailer!
A quick rundown:
The old floor was ripped out, water damaged 1/2" plywood.
Floor was sanded down and cleaned, then glassed with a single layer of mat.
A hole (totally not by me...) was patched.
new 3/4" plywood was laid over and glued with subfloor adhesive.
Frame for the back bench was constructed.
Door was removed from frame.
We decided on a 2.5 gallon electric water heater, a old GE point of use tank that I cleaned up and will be installing a 300W heating element in.
Math seems to show a max of 8 gallons of 80ish degree water before emptying the tank, which is over half the fresh water...
Had fun with the anode rod, which was rusted into the tank itself, took 5min with a heat gun and a pipe wrench and a 8" pipe to break it free
replaced all the insulation as well as the
fiberglass was water soaked.
I ended up doing a rough hot water test by quickly throwing together all the required parts of the system and doing a test of it. due to the temporary nature, I used tube clamps... on PEX, we'll get to that in a sec...
I was surprised that the pump could self prime from well over 3 feet above the bathtub "water tank". The pump did however never completely shut off, i believe due to some small
leaks in the setup. I didn't care too much at the time as it was just a proof of concept before starting to install plumbing.
The heater with its stock 1.4kW 120V element got up to temp (140F) in around 15 min, so our to-be-ordered 300W element should take just over an hour 15. that seems fine enough, we'll probably heat it when
solar is available...
After around 3 minutes of messing with the system, I was about to shut it down and take it apart (it was 10pm and my in-laws had decided to drop in unannounced earlier in the day
) that's when a poorly/over-tightened clamp gave out, causing a water explosion all over the bathroom.
Well, that's why you don't use tube clamps on PEX! It didn't even last a temporary setup!
Now onto the earlier stuff...
I took some photos but can't seem to find them at the moment...
the previous owners basically decided they didn't want to mess with the old spongy 1/2" ply sub floor, so... why not just cover it with shiny clean 3/4" and call it a day!
after removing the layer of "new" plywood, I discovered the original 1/2" plywood in all its dry rot glory... It appears an attempt was mad to remove it, with little success, hence the new layer over it.
The Havusa appears to have what a separate member who re-did a Perris Racer called a "Bathtub" design, or a complete
fiberglass bottom. I personally think that those are nicer due to less maintenance required, but this ran into the issue that the wood was glassed right into the floor...
I learned how to remove this the hard way, originally trying to cut the floor into smaller squares and prying them out, resulting in
light crisscross cuts into the
fiberglass as the area I had aligned the height of the blade to was slightly lower then the rest of the body
...
I ended up using a chisel to pry out all the glass, sometimes losing a layer of fiber in the proccess, probably a bit more once I used a grinder to buff out my crisscross marks. getting tired and also being hooked into an online class resulted in me punching a hole right through the floor of the trailer with the chisel!
I later patched this up, but still was a real let down...
I ended up purchasing around 6 cans on 28oz Bondo resin, around one per square yard of fiberglass mat...
I used a cardboard shoe box lid lined with a layer of tinfoil to mix the resin, this seemed to work well for me, as long as you don't puncture the aluminum foil in the edges. (I'm not a fiberglass expert, take what I say with a spoon of salt)
After sanding:
First half glassing:
Done glassing!
After glassing I cut and placed 3/4" plywood for the floor, securing each piece with a tube of subfloor adhesive, I haven't repositioned the bolts to their final position so I'm not sure how well its holding...
we plan on laying a 1" layer of solid foam over top before laying down our water-proof vinyl planks, may place a 1/4" plywood over the foam but we'll see...
Finished(?) Subfloor
last week I built the frame for the back bench out of 2x4s, realizing that some were a lot more warped then I wanted... it should work out fin though...
you cans see where I'm dry fitting the water tanks in the front right now...
Back bench:
I also took off the old door, which was in worst timing as its started to rain a lot recently...
anyways, the previous owner decided to redo the door by completely using silicone! tubes and tubes of it! It took around 2 hours to remove break the hold on all the edges with a scraper...
I still haven't decided quite what i want to do with it yet as I have to raise the door about an inch to accommodate the new higher floor...
I do have a question though, how do you guys normally seal windows/doors?
as far as I've read, butyl tape should be good enough right? I plan on running a bead of silicone around the edges just to be sure, or should I glue that door back on with silicone again?
in addition, the screws go all the way back and lock into a wood frame, something you can see leaning by the door opening. the original wood was poorly glassed by I assume the factory, should I use a construction adhesive, silicone, or just glass it back in? I'm tempted to glass Err.. resin it back in, but that might take a lot more resin and resin is quite expensive here, around $30 per quart...
Door:
Hopefully I can reattach the door soon, it might be actually clear this week!
Undecide Yet!
should've gotten a spotter to help...
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