Even more milestones!
The Shack is a split level Shack! It seems like I keep repeating the same thing over and over - it's a year of milestones for the Shack. With the addition being delivered, the new wall being built, the doubling of the battery bank, and the new inverter.
Left: Photo of the doorway into the old side of the Shack. Because the addition is at the height of the old mobile home, there is a two step height difference making this the world's only split level Shack!
This time, it's the finishing of the addition! Well, 90% finished. One thing that needed to be done is cutting the doorway from the addition into the Shack (which I suppose makes it "SuperShack") which I did with reckless abandon.
Of course there were difficulties. Our handyman, Dann, observed that for cutting the doorway, the reason why God made chainsaws was for this very situation. Sadly, it didn't go as planned. I fired up the 'ol chainsaw and had at it. The issues started pretty quickly because the plywood wall on the Shack side was just vibrating away and not cutting. With a chainsaw it's pretty difficult to do precise cuts in wood, especially with several varieties (plywood, siding, 2x4s). The other important issue was the plywood wall on the old side of the Shack. Since there are long sections that don't have any support behind them, they sit there and vibrate so you can't get a good cut. So it was running from one side to the other which took even longer.
So the Sawzall to the rescue. What I wound up doing is cutting the doorway out in sections and going back and forth between the addition and the Shack. It took a few hours of sweating, cursing and cutting but in the end, the doorway is cut out.
Left: The insulation, fiberglass on the walls, Reflectix on the ceiling. The Reflectix that you see is the second layer, making that R-21.
The next step was insulating the addition. The walls, I had planned on using fiberglass - even though mice love the stuff - because not only did I have enough to do all 3 walls that needed insulation but since it's on the shade side of the Shack, the Reflectix double layer R-21 wasn't needed.
Before any of that happened, I put in the switch and junction boxes and ran the Romex wiring. Since this is a totally off grid and low amperage (using LED lights and low amp appliances), there is only one circuit in the addition.
With the wiring done, I moved on to the ceiling insulation (Dann did the fiberglass because that stuff bothers my skin and breathing) and I did a single layer of Reflectix because the Amish builders already put in a great insulating layer on the roof.
Left: The big delivery day of 20 sheets of underlayment and kitchen cabinets. Yes, that's my world famous Dodge Stealth (see article on The Drive)
Then came the next big delivery day - Lubo and his assistant from Lowes brought out our kitchen cabinets and 20 sheets of Sumauma Plywood Underlayment which as it turns out is exterior rated, for the paneling inside the addtion. With the wallboard we're using in the Shack side, we'll have a brick wall on the common wall with the addtion, distressed barn wood on the ceiling and white oak on the window side of the Shack, I thought doing the addition as one single style of wood would be a nice touch.
Left: Part of the kitchen cabinets with a temporary counter. We're using the Sumauma Underlayment as paneling in the addition.
A side note: I've been overordering our lumber because you can always use extra lumber for various projects. For instance, I need to build a wall for the bathroom in the addition and made sure I have enough for that but building shelves as well.
So for the first time in over 40 years, the Shack now has cross ventilation since we have windows in the addition now that the doorway has been cut.
It's important to note that this is a fairly long term project but most of it will be done this summer. Once I have the doorway into the old side finished off and put permanent steps to go from one side to the other, everything on the old side has to be moved to the addtion to being the teardown of the old side.
Overall, this was a very physically demanding and rewarding trip to the Shack.
6-16-21
The latest update concerns the kitchen and the tearing apart of the old side of the Shack. There's the new side (the addition) and old side that was the porch. The entire old side needs to be gutted. But first, let's get the addition under control so it's livable. I now have in my hot little hands a single bowl bar sink, a bar faucet (it only provides cold water) and a most excellent propane range top. The great thing about this is that everything fit together perfect right out of the box! No adaptors, no fumbles. Hook up and go. The whole idea behind the tiny home thing is to use RV type appliances from the sink to the fridge to the stove. First, these are usually less expensive and are designed for a little rougher use than a home appliance. For the water supply (having a well put in would run nearly $6,000) we're using a 30 gallon tank that sits next to the kitchen counter. Since we're using a composting toilet, the only waste is greywater which the drain field will handle just about forever. The whole idea is that when it's done, it will have as close to a self contained infrastructure as possible. We make our own power, store the potential for power in deep cycle batteries, use all LED lights, a fridge that uses only 40 watts. We've got solar panels in case the generator can't be run, the security lights are all solar powered.
The entire kitchen counter job from running the propane feed to drilling and connecting the drain field, mounting the sink and stove and building the counter itself took just over 4 hours. The hardest part of everything was drilling the holes in the floor for the drain.
Now that the Shack is progressing toward true tiny home status - we've expanded the battery bank, have a better inverter, a state of the art fridge and even have an air conditioner. All that means we're running the generator at 60%+ which means that it's creating more heat. Since the generator is in the soundproofed storage shed, that heat needs to be extracted. The sound baffles also insulate the space around the generator. Until now, I've used a Wal-Mart 12 volt camping fan for that. The new fan is a 12 volt auto radiator fan that blows a massive 1,750 feet per minute. That will do the trick. Over the years, I've typically used 10% of the capacity of my generators. My old one, a 2.5 kw 100 pound monster ran at full speed all the time, going BBBBBRRRRRRRAAAAAAWWWWWW even when it was in the soundproofing baffles in the shed. It did however have a long and productive life of nearly 2,000 hours. I got a great deal on it and when I sold it, I passed the savings on to the new owner.
With the Ryobi inverter generator we've got a couple of things going for us. First, at low usage (That would be 2 12 volt, 10 amp battery chargers, a laptop, smart USB charging station, lights, refrigerator, a couple of fans) we pull around 350 watts. The nice thing about the Ryobi is that it's Bluetooth and as such it shows me the real time wattage usage so I've created a spreadsheet of what every device uses.
The big power sucker, the one that shifts the low revving Ryobi inverter generator into full power mode is the air conditioner. That thing uses nearly 900 watts by itself so we're using 1200 watts of the 1800 watt capacity. Which means that it produces more heat which means that I need to cool it better which is where the new fan comes in.
