Subfloor
Feb. 11
Temp: 52°/ mostly sunny
Laying the subfloor felt really good. It sealed in all the insulation in the trailer cavities, giving us a really clean deck to start to build up on.
The most important part of the subfloor was the first piece, because from here, all the other pieces would line up.
In order to give the floor the most strength, we began by laying 3 - 4x8 pieces of Advantech in the middle of the trailer. The two outside boards extended past the trailer, but that’s ok, because we then went around with the circular saw to get the edges correct. We positioned them to ½” from the right tire well. We left roughly 1/8” between each board because wood will expand. We are working in 30 degree weather and the house will see 100 degree weather so it was important to give some breathing room so that the wood wouldn't buckle in warmer temperatures.
Using a chalk line we aligned the centerboards perfectly. Then, we pre-drilled holes through the wood and the steel. We spaced our screws about a foot apart along each joist.
The remaining pieces are now working with the tongue and groove sides of the boards. Additionally we have the steel rods to consider. To make this work, we measures the board sizes we would need, continuing to leave ½” around the tire wells. We then created a pill shaped hole for the rod to slide into and slip into the tongue and groove. As we worked, we realized we could make the hole for the rods pretty small in order to get them to slide into its adjacent piece of wood. To get the tongue into the grooves we held a scrape piece of wood to the subfloor and hit it with a hammer to get them tightly in place.
Lots of screwing to get it all down and an additional line of screws around the perimeter of the trailer to get the subfloor held tight to the 2x4 below it.
It was BEAUTIFUL weather all day, making it to 50 degrees! It’s amazing what good weather will do when you’re building. We worked until dark without noticing we had been working all day. As I start to get the hang of tools, get better at measurements and start to understand the building process better, the more I’m understanding why my parents love this so much.
From here, we build up!
