AGNEW TINY HOUSE: September 2014

There's a slight chill in the morning air, and cool breeze blowing. The leaves are turning shades of orange and red and letting go of their grasp to the branches as they fall to the ground, and the geese are making their way south. Needless to say Autumn has begun and is making itself noticed. We are happy to say that as of the last official day of summer our tiny home was officially weather proof! All the windows are in, the doors are on, the door handles and locks are in place and the house is covered in house wrap. We are still in the process of putting the shingle siding on but even without the those the will stay dry. We've been at a point the last couple of weeks where a lot of subtle work has to be done. Things that take time but aren't necessarily noticed. You will see with the pictures that follow as they can tell the story better than I can.....

Going back again in time....

Before we could put any house wrap on we had to put metal flashing all along the bottom of the edge to help a rain that hits the trailer to just slide of the bottom edge and not pull up and create problems.We also needed to finish up framing around the overhanging edge of the trailer so we can fill it with insulation when the time comes. You can see what I mean from the picture below. Each side has about a 9 inch overhang that is technically inside the house but was not insulated when we did the bottom.

Trailer demonstrating overhang

The over hang that has to be insulated

Intial framing. Insulation will filled in the gap.


Close up

Working around the lights

Adding the Flashing

Working around the Wheel wells is always a challenge. Fionbharre did a really nice job figuring this out. By cutting 1" strips to the midline of the metal and both sides he was able to create curves that fit perfectly around the wheel wells. Caulking was then placed all along the edge.

Side Light Before

Side Light After

This is What the back end of the trailer originally looked like. Notice the tail lights reseeding in the back a little
The tail lights are being completely removed, from their original place and put in a new box to look flush with everything else

Preparing the wood boxes to go on trailer frame

First box created and screwed on

light removed

hand cut sheet metal for light to stick in and hold it place. Metal frame will then be nail to new wooden box attached to trailer frame

Carefully made to fit perfectly!

The finished product! ( When we move the scaffolding out of the way I will get a complete picture with the full end)

House Wrap and Windows:

We did debated for a while what to use for house wrap. We were going back and forth between tar paper and Tyvek. We ruled tar paper out, and ended up with a combination of Tyvek and the GAF Tiger Paw. We had a bunch of the Tiger Paw left and figured if it's good enough the roof it has to be good enough for the siding. We had just enough to go around the entire once. from there we used Tyvek. The windows and house wrap were put in simultaneously. It was just working out to be easiest that way. All in all the whole installation of house and windows was easy aside from where the walls and the roof meet, which just requires more time and patience. And allow me express another moment of deep gratitude for the fork lift. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Go Fionnbharre Go!!!

Tool Comment: The staple Fionnbharre is using is a "Arrow Fastner Heavy-Duty Hammer Tacker"
This is been an EXCELLENT tool for us. Arrow takes the term heavy duty seriously when they made this product. The first staple we had was junk. After only THREE staples it was jammed never to be fixed again. Needless to say it was not even worthy of picture and did not survive in this life.
If you need a hammer tacker go with Arrow!

Initial window prep

Sometimes you just had to get into the tight spaces... He's still alive don't worry

Wrapped and Ready with a few windows in!

This may seem odd to some, which is okay, but we are using gorrilla tape for our window flashing. As the label says it's Tough Wide and should do the trick along with the sufficient amount of silcone goop we are using.


Measuring the "window flashing" and installing it.

This picture is very deceptive but Fionnbharre is actually about 10 ft off the ground on the lift getting ready to put the first loft window in.

Beginning the treatment for the window trim. We are also using Hemp Shield as well for all exterior window and door trim

One of the trickiest challenges we have faced yet is how to install the wood stove pipe flashing on the roof. Because we have decided to use a full on wood-cook stove we have too also install the chimney, stove pipe, and flashing. Learning how to install the flashing on a metal roof has been a challenge to find over the internet. We went withthe guidance from Obadiah's Wood Stoves, the same placewe bought our wood stove from The have installed quite a few of these. So we figured we could trust their expertise. It made sense to both of us and seemed sturdy and leak proof!

Its unfortunate that they have make the stove pipe flashing so ugly I wish they would on the beautification factor a littler more. I guess we will just have to do that ourselves.

We've opted to put the chimney on the roof as opposed to the side of the house like we've seen people do. It's far better to have the stove pipe take as few 90 degree turns as possible. It creates a better burn and better draft, especially for the stove we have. Putting it through the roof allows the stove to go straight up and out. Now one challenge we do still face is we are basically at our height limit. I haven't mention before but height and weight are VERY IMPORTANT factors to consider when building a tiny house. I will discuss that in another post. As it looks right now our chimney pipe is going to exceed our height limit. So we will have to somehow make an adjustable or moveable chimney pipe. I'll keep you posted on how that works out.

Here's the link to the video we watched on the installation process. For someone I can't seem to get the video on the blog.

Obadiah's: Installing Metal Roof Flashing