More stuff and progress.

We’ve been working hard on the trailer. I got the screen doors cleaned up and am almost done putting new screens in. We also got a new sewing machine ordered so I can do the sewing for the Rv. We spent $330 on that which can’t exactly be counted for Rv costs but I’m hoping to make a new awning and this machine can handle canvas, vinyl, etc. Mine died. We spent $45 on screen supplies and a few miscellaneous parts and we spent another $140 on light switches, bulbs, exterior replacement lights, bearing grease, adapters, wing nuts, replacement plug, valve bracket, Stabilizer pads, and a breakaway cable which puts on the breaks if the trailer would ever break away from the vehicle. I hope to get some pics today. We are getting a lot of the little stuff done and plan to get real far this week. We might even take the trailer for a road trip to San Antonio this weekend if we get the floors replaced. We’ll see how far we get. I want to post too, what are options are.

Caulk and clean

Joybelle and I finished scrubbing the dirty ceilings tonight! We both worked for an hour and a half. Ben worked for about 3 hours tonight removing caulk. He is almost done. Caroline worked for about an hour on cleaning the refrigerator and cabinets. She is such a hard little worker. Victoria was the American idol announcer and would run out to tell us who they kept and who went home.

Lots of stuff

Ben ordered lots of stuff for the travel trailer. He got 2 40 lbs propane tanks and base and center rod, $175 and $17. Shower hose and head that regulates water pressure $31, 2 replacement vents with fans $185, tankless water heater door and water heater $540, 45 amp converter replacement $210, 30 amp portable surge protector $90, 5 tires $525, miscellaneous $20. He also got the trailer brakes working. We’ve decided to take off all the old caulk and recaulk everything. Ben worked on all that for 10 hours. We took the old awning off. He fixed the original door handle. Caroline and I cleaned for an hour. She did great washing windows. I spent another 2 hours cleaning ceilings and I washed all the screens and washed some of the inside window frames. It still doesn’t look any better or put together but we definitely are getting things lined up. Very soon we will have all the systems up and running. I am glad we are going all the way with repairing it well. It will come together pretty quickly once the pieces arrive. Ben has a budget all planned out for the rest of the stuff like built ins, sub floor, paint. We are using a lot of pieces from our house like dressers, storage benches from Ikea, so it will be quick when we get to that point. He has put in a lot of research time for each system so he can understand and upgrade or replace if needed. It’s been very nice to see him work so hard and be so excited about it. We have 5 extra kids this weekend so I won’t be working on it till later next week.

This weekend’s progress!

Friday night Ben worked for 3 hours. He ripped out the rest of the built in cabinetry that we wanted to remove and pulled up more of the flooring in the bunk room. Ben and Joybelle put in about 5 hours today and I put in 4 hours. The other kids worked for about an hour. We scrubbed and washed the outside, top, sides, and windows. We also did a hose test for leaks. It could be much worse but there are several places that are leaking a little and two that are leaking a lot. We also checked the water lines, no leaks. Potable water, only one mystery, what is the yellow cap or pipe leaking water out of the potable tank? Water pump works well, it is kicking on and off which we think is because our hose connection was leaking and pressure was dropping. Still to be determined. A replacement, if needed, is $50. No leaks in drainage pipes. Gray water tank and potable tank drain nicely. Faucets all work.
Our next step is to caulk all of expected sources of leaks, tear out the rest of the floor so we can see any water running down the walls and make this ship tight. Then we’ll do another hose test to make sure there are no more leaks and find and remedy them. Then we will proceed to lay new subfloor and replace the wall paneling as needed. We need to replace 2 of the skylight vents.
As far as systems go, we still need to get propane tanks and check the furnace and stove. Stove needs 3 pipes that feed to the burners.
We also worked on designing the dinette with four of the ikea benches. It will work but we can’t decide if that’s what we really want to do. I probably spent 4 hours working on the table design.
Ben gets a bonus this spring which will hopefully pay for the majority of materials.
We are also searching the web for an owner’s manual. So far no luck as these trailers are rare.

Composting toilets and storage!

Well, Ben and I spent another 5 hours working on the rv Saturday. Joybelle worked for an hour scrubbing ceiling panels with me. Ben ripped up the rest of the carpeting under cabinets, ripped out tub, toilet and vanity, tore out the rotted floor in the bunk room, and pulled off some wall panels to discover that there was no mold or water damage behind the panels. So we can leave the ceiling and walls except for under one window where the window obviously leaked for some time ruining the paneling. We will replace that panel. The subfloor needs replacing on the right side from front to back and on the left side front half and rear, and of course the whole bathroom. We may end up redoing the whole floor. So far we spent $88 on 2 sheets of plywood.
We also spent $7 for 2 urine specimen collectors. Hmmmm? Yes, you read that right. I have spent the week researching composting toilets. I did not want us to have to pay $2000 for a new composting toilet that would need emptying every other day! So after my initial research and ideas, Ben jumped in and we think we have come to a decision about the toilet/sewage system that will best fit our needs for 7 people full-timing and our desire to be off grid if necessary. We are going to build a simple do-it-yourself system that will require a urine diversion. It takes much longer for waste to compost if urine is added. We could buy a kit for $169 that has a ready made urine diversion for composting toilets but we thought there must be a better way. I spent 3 hours wrestling the old rv toilet and taking it apart with saw zaw and drill to see if we could recycle some of the toilet pieces but we didn’t like how that was going to turn out. So we hopped back on UTube to see what others have done. There are some great ideas out there, but we have decided to convert a in-toilet urine specimen collector to divert the urine into our black 30 gallon tank. That can be dumped on the ground in the woods if necessary in an emergency, or at a dumping station at an rv park for a small fee, $10-$15. But our solids will miss that urine collector and fall to the back and down into a large rubber made tub. We will compost that with peat moss. All of this will sit in a wooden box with a toilet lid attached to the top. There will be a vent out the back of the box to take away the “earthy, slight smell” of the composting toilet, and piping from the urine collector running down to the black tank. The whole top will hinge open for removal of the large Rubbermaid tub. When it is full, we hope that takes several months, as poo is 90 percent water and breaks down to about a a tenth of its original size, we will lift it out replace it with another or the same one if emptied. We will be able to put a lid on it and add worms if we want and it will be soil in 1 to 2 years or we can add it to a composting bin with oxygen and it will compost even faster. We can build a simple composting bin from a used water barrel and 2×4’s and compost it much faster that way. It is good for non-edible plants and trees. Some people do use humanure on their veggie gardens, but it is not recommended by most. Diluted urine is highly recommended source of nitrogen. We are not sure if we will go the lidded worm route or the compost bin route but either one would have to be in our storage unit/second trailer garage. The benefits for us using this system is that it is waterless. We would use none so our water tank could be used for washing dishes and baths. We would not have to pay for dumping our tanks as often. On our own land we would need no sewer system. I am not a hippie or new ager or liberal but I do like to be more responsible with water usage and resources. I also love that we could build this on our own and not be dependent on sewer systems! I can’t wait to see this done. We would like to do this soon and test it out at home before we live using it to get a better idea of the quantity and time to compost. We have three normal toilets in this house and I think I will tape them shut so we are forced to use this one to see if it really works and the smell is not too bad. I have used a composting toilet once and it did not smell. I guess I would have to divert the urine line to the toilet for a test run. We needed to figure this out for the floor plan and make sure we have the right layout. It looks like this system will fit beautifully in the current bath space as long as we get rid of the 6 gallon hot water holding tank. We plan to get a propane instant hot water heater and not need the tank anymore. Price is about $250 or more depending on what unit you want.
As far as floor replacement goes, we just have to wait till payday to get more sheeting but we have plenty to do in the meantime. I have 2/3 of the kitchen scrubbed and about 1/6 of the ceiling and walls scrubbed. Ben can work with the 2 sheets in the bunk room and by that time, payday will be here again.
I also have designed the whole storage/media area using stuff we already have. Once the floor is in we just have to put it in and screw it in. The area I am working on is about 11.5 feet. Part of it is in the living room which is also our bedroom and then into the bathroom. It runs from one door to the other in the middle of the right side of the trailer. We will put a small wooden dresser under the window. Then cut off the legs of the matching long wooden dresser which will sit on top of the boxed in wheel wells. The tv will sit on top of this dresser and they will serve as our dressers. At the end of the dresser will be our printer and computer screen. Over all of this will be a shelf that will hold our homeschool books. Then there will be a sliding door to close off the bathroom. Then 2 of our Ikea storage benches will stack on top of the wheel well box and make three storage areas (the top space being the third). These two will house the boys clothes and the top linens. The wheel well box is empty there and has an outside storage door. We will use it for the fourth storage compartment in this stack. This stack is across the hall from the bathroom. Then there will be another sliding door for the bunk room.
I was also delighted to find that two more of these ikea storage benches will fit in the kitchen where I wanted to build a banquette bench. So we will put 2 more there that house the toys. I will make Velcro cushions for those and we will be set. That really lowers the building costs to just the table and the other bench and built in bunks. Maybe I can use 2 more Ikea benches for the second bench? I was thinking I wanted to be able to scoot the table and bench over to make more kitchen space sometimes but I like the idea of more storage! Hmmm. I’ll have to give that some more thought. I have 7 total and I would like to use what I have. I also plan to make Velcro vinyl covers for these for a neater look and for the contents to be protected from kitchen spills. Nothing like finding last weeks peas in the Legos, or milk spilled in the baby doll box! Right now 5 of the Ikea benches house all 5 kids clothes and personal things and the other 2 hold all of our toys. There will also be built in storage in the bunk room once we build in the bunks. For a plan B, we have a bunk bed that sleeps 5 that we could set up in the bunk room for our trip.
We have also been thinking of flooring options. There is such a small amount of floor that will actually show. We have found the vinyl sticky squares for 50 cents a foot at the dollar store, or we might just finish or paint the sub floor. I installed our mobile home floor with vinyl sticky squares and loved them! We are also looking on Craig’s list for vinyl or floating floor systems. We don’t want to install junk but also need to stay on budget.
The next step is to water test the trailer and patch any leaks before we replace the flooring. Then we need to test the water system and tanks to see what needs replaced. I hope some random person will find this post and be helped by it! Maybe they will not have to spend hours watching videos for urine diverting kits only to find that a urine specimen collector will work! And only costs $3.50! I will post pics once some of this is done. Right now most of this is going on in our heads.