Mothra Metamorphosis

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Eagle Transmission Shop in years past does appear to have good reviews and happy customers, but with all the mechanics chiming in on this forum, it would be good to get a second or third opinion and see what you can check on your own, and even that mobile mechanic option sounded fantastic.
 
Treehugger said:
Eagle Transmission Shop in years past does appear to have good reviews and happy customers,

Yeah, they've got a window full of BBB stickers going back to 1990.
 
Tearing out the rest of the cabinets and interior walls today. Getting as much torn loose as possible. Fortunately, I love less than a mile for a landfill. I can easily drive over there and dump all the crap right out the door.

Raining today. Yup the thing leaks a lot worse than I thought it did.

My son said his divorce paperwork will be signed on Monday. The movers are coming on Friday. Still don't know when the cleanup and repair crew are coming.
 
GrantRobertson said:
Tearing out the rest of the cabinets and interior walls today. Getting as much torn loose as possible. Fortunately, I love less than a mile for a landfill. I can easily drive over there and dump all the crap right out the door.

Raining today. Yup the thing leaks a lot worse than I thought it did.

My son said his divorce paperwork will be signed on Monday. The movers are coming on Friday. Still don't know when the cleanup and repair crew are coming.

Sometimes, when it rains, it does literally pour. Any decent but affordable pay-by-the-week (or month) motels around?
 
Use some Peel and Seal for a good, relatively cheap roof fix Grant. Not only will it fix your leaks now, it will work fine with whatever roof solution you end up choosing.
http://www.amazon.com/MFM-Building-Products-50036-Peel/dp/B0004I0MG0

Keep in mind that there are very different qualities of very similar products. All I can tell you for sure is avoid Home Depot's flavor, and check your local building supply yard, where roofers might go shopping :)

Also, there's nothing wrong with using this product over entire roof. The only real weakness of good quality P'n'Seal is UV degradation. So you'd apply an acrylic elastomeric coating over top, which could then be easily maintained over time just like paint.
 
WriterMs said:
Sometimes, when it rains, it does literally pour. Any decent but affordable pay-by-the-week (or month) motels around?
If I have to, I can set up a "tent" inside the thing.
 
I got all the remaining cabinets and bathroom walls torn out. Just that much stuff formed a pile that filled my RV 4' deep. So many layers. So much excessive wood. So many staples!

I'm glad I did it now, and not AFTER I moved in. I had no idea that little bit of cabinetry would take up so much space. If I had done it later, I would not have had the room to pile everything I tore out, and would have had to do it in smaller phases. Now I can get rid of it all at once.
 
BradKW said:
Also, there's nothing wrong with using this product over entire roof. The only real weakness of good quality P'n'Seal is UV degradation. So you'd apply an acrylic elastomeric coating over top, which could then be easily maintained over time just like paint.

So, wait, are you saying to put down this aluminized film, and then paint over it? Seems as if that would defeat the purpose of having it aluminized.
 
Just wondering if you are going to cross brace the house structure somewhat in case you have to drive your rig?

With all the cabinets gone there is now a greater possibility of the structure flexing if driven?
 
29chico said:
Just wondering if you are going to cross brace the house structure somewhat in case you have to drive your rig?

With all the cabinets gone there is now a greater possibility of the structure flexing if driven?

Yeah, I was also wondering about how this could affect your structural integrity.
 
Now it is time for me to get serious about the design of my roof.

I have decided to skip the arched ceiling, as there is plenty of head room in there. However, I have decided to follow a previous suggestion and put a few layers of foam insulation on top and shape it into a gradual curve, sloping toward the edges.

First Question: About how much drop do you think I should have from the peak to the edge? The RV is 8' wide. So, 1/2" per foot gives a 4" drop. I think that will be plenty. What do you think?

I am also seriously considering following another suggestion and useing an industrial roof covering sheet/fabric over the foam. However, I am a bit concerned that the coating may not be compatible with DiCor and other regular RV sealants. Might it be best to stick with a covering that is more commonly used in the RV community, thus sticking with a known family of products that are well known to work together?

Now, I am also concerned that, if I just lay the roof covering directly over the foam, that will leave the covering vulnerable to damage when I walk on it or mount solar panels. Might it be a good idea to put down some underlayment on top of the foam and under the covering?

I also plan to put a drip edge on both sides to keep the water from running directly over the edge and down the side of the RV. (Later, I could install little gutters under those drip edges to catch rainwater for reuse.) The drip edge would go over the edge of the plywood (or OSB) and under the edge of the top foam, then down at a 45 degree angle. I would then extend the roof covering all the way over the free edge of the drip edge, fold it around the edge, and then put another strip of metal over the edge of the covering, underneath the drip edge. In this way, all the screws holding down the edge of the roof covering will be below the edge of the roof and cannot allow water to enter the roof at the edge. If I can find a metal strip that just press fits over the edge of the drip edge (with the roof covering wrapped around it) then I won't need screws at all.

I plan to use 2x4 joists on 16" centers to support the whole thing. Measuring down 3.5" from the top surface of the existing steel beams, still leaves me with about 6" of head room (I am 5' 11"). I will use either pre-treated wood or coat each board in deck sealant after cutting but before installation. I thought about 24" centers, but with that much space between the joists, if i am standing up there, then it is possible that one, single joist would be supporting all my weight. Yes, I know I won't break it. However, that would be much more likely to cause flexion in the roof which could cause leaks.

The big question is what to lay on top of the joists, to support the foam. It needs to support my weight but shouldn't be too heavy. What is up there now is either 5/8" or 3/4" plywood. I think that is a bit of overkill. (This is what the previous owner (PO) threw up there and slathered with roof sealant from Home Despot.) I am thinking of using 1/2" OSB. I know I just sent shudders down the spines of some of the people reading this. However, I have yet to find a sheet of normal plywood that will stand up to water damage any better than OSB. Besides, I would drench it in deck sealant before putting it up. And OSB is a heck of a lot cheaper than plywood these days.

I plan to use about 3" of polyiso foam insulation between the joists. These will sit even with the bottom edge of the joist, leaving about a half inch of air space above the insulation. I am considering finding some way to ventilate that space, similar to a regular attic. That would help reduce moisture buildup and get rid of any hot air that may accumulate up there. As the ventilation ports would be under the drip edge (discussed below) and designed to be water proof anyway, there would be little chance of water getting up in there.

Under the joists and polyiso, I will put a vapor barrier and then my ceiling.

For my ceiling, I want to use the cheap bathroom panels that can also be used as dry erase boards. I have been stewing and stewing on a way to put lots of dry erase boards in my RV, but couldn't justify a whole empty wall with nothing but dry erase. So, while laying in bed last night, I thought about making the whole ceiling a giant dry erase board. It would also reflect a lot of light and make the space seem much brighter. I have used these bathroom panels as dry erase boards before and they work great, as long as you wax them first.

Finally, the back corner of my roof is currently curved. That may look more aerodynamic, but it is not. A sharp edge is actually better. A curved edge is only more aerodynamic IF it follows the direction that the air would naturally follow if the back edge was cut off flat. Otherwise, it just creates more turbulence. Though said back corner is in good shape now, I am considering making that corner square when rebuilding the roof. That would also allow me to put a drip edge along the back as well.
 
29chico said:
Just wondering if you are going to cross brace the house structure somewhat in case you have to drive your rig?

With all the cabinets gone there is now a greater possibility of the structure flexing if driven?

I plan to put other cabinets up there. Just much better designed ones. The ones that were there weren't adding any structural integrity at all anyway. The ends came off with a single blow of a hammer. Then I just ripped down most of them by hand. They were a bunch of short pieces of wood held together with a bunch of staples. Now, the frame of this thing, on the other hand, is currently welded steel. Yeah, a hell of a lot better original construction than most RVs. However, all that steel has now turned mostly to rust, so it has got to come out.

I plan to use 2x4s for the ceiling/roof joists. Then I will use 2x3s for the sides. I will use right-angle steel plates, like are used for building decks and or roof joists, between the vertical and horizontal members. I will also design the brackets that section off the cabinets such that they act as giant angle brackets between the roof and the sides. I will do the same for any construction where the walls meet the floor.

But thanks for asking. It caused me to think of even more ways that I can brace the structure of the shell, especially now that it will be wood instead of welded steel.
 
If I were in your shoes, I'd take all the time currently being put into posting here and put it into BUILDING AND GETTING OUT OF DODGE.

That's not a criticism, just a form of encouragement. :)
 
TMG51 said:
If I were in your shoes, I'd take all the time currently being put into posting here and put it into BUILDING AND GETTING OUT OF DODGE.

That's not a criticism, just a form of encouragement. :)
I build when I have daylight and until I am pooped. Then I relax when it gets dark.
 
TMG51 said:
If I were in your shoes, I'd take all the time currently being put into posting here and put it into BUILDING AND GETTING OUT OF DODGE.

That's not a criticism, just a form of encouragement. :)
I also work the night shift, so I am used to staying up late now. Plus, I type really fast when on my pc, so it doesn't really take me that long to write a long post.
 
INcorporating a curve in the roof is going to greatly increase the difficulty of building it.

I think instead of 2x4's, I'd use 1x3's closer together, perhaps 12 inch centers, Skin over these ribs with thin but multilayered marine grade plywood and fiberglass over that with epoxy resin and a thick fiberglass biaxial cloth/matt, then elastomeric white paint over that as epoxy is not UV resistant. In between the at 12' 1 by3 center ribs i'd cut and stuff foam board panels to the inside edges of the ribs, then one more layer covering the ribs, then some sort of ceiling material like the marker board you describe...

Perhaps one by 4's tapered to account for some curve to 2 inch width at the edges. The HD by me sells some fairly nice s4s ( sanded 4 sides) doug fir 1"x4" x8's if one goes through the stack and eliminates the boards with strength compromising knots in the wrong place. I found several boards which would qualify as vertical grain and could have been sold for much more money than they were asking for them.

Incorporating a curved roof and an attic, seems a bit ambitious to me, and I'm not seeing foamboard without some fabric composite wetted with resin being strong enough on its own to ever support a human walking around up there. Regular polyester resins, often called fiberglass resin, will likely dissolve the polyiso foam and much more expensive and more temperamental to work with epoxy resins would likely have to be used, or some kind of sealer/barrier coat applied to the foam first, and then polyester resin used on that. Polyester resins are more heat and UV resistant, and much cheaper, and easier to work with as epoxy MUST be mixed with precision or it will not cure properly. Polyester resins, one just needs to make sure to not use too much catalyst. Too little and it will still eventually cure.

Either way it sounds like a huge process and sometimes one needs to hit refresh and go back to a K.I.S.S. mantra This roof might evolve into a very time and money consuming project if not kept simple.

Not that I am good at Not complicating my personal projects, but when time and money is a factor......KISS.

I am currently building an extremely labor intensive hollow Cedar surfboard and strength and weight durability and water imperviousness, and the venting of each interior chamber to the next, are all huge factors in the design. I work with a lot of expensive epoxy and fiberglass, and some carbon fiber too. With surfboards, everything is curved, flat spots are the enemy, so when I see something than can be built flat easily, like a roof, but is possibly being overcomplicated, a huge question mark dances before my eyes.

Best of luck, if you need some pointers regarding composites and working with large amounts of epoxy, or polyester resins, lemme know. I could build a kick ass well insulated curved roof a human could walk on for a minimum of weight, but it would be a huge undertaking, costing many hundreds in materials, make a huge amount of dust and noise with various steps requiring overnight dry times, before work could continue and require protection from the elements during the process and my labor charges would be exorbitant as it is a shitload of work requiring a fairly involved skill set, and I'd need a helper for a lot of the drudge work as it would be like one annoying long run on sentence/paragraph without seeming to ever end perhaps taking my sanity with it.
 
GrantRobertson said:
So, wait, are you saying to put down this aluminized film, and then paint over it? Seems as if that would defeat the purpose of having it aluminized.

IF you plan on having it as a permanent solution, then yes, you definitely would paint over it. I generally use the white faced flavor, but this applies to any color. I'll try to address your questions about membrane roofs later when I have time....
 
Grant,
Well you have got yourself a project for sure.
I know you have done your homework on this project and I wanted to offer you some info I gathered over the last two years while doing my own research into a DIY venture.
A couple examples of what other folks have done. Not saying any of these are right or wrong. Just some examples to ponder.

First thing, buy a larger than you think you need... tarp.
photo 2 is a reminder to put in wiring.
photo 3 is a rubber roof install.

A new roof framed.jpg
A new roof wiring.jpg
A new roof rubber sheeting.jpg
 

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