The Subfloor and More!

This past weekend The Wife and I were at a friends house for his annual party.  While she was off on a bathroom trip that I assumed must have extended into conversation  (as it turned out, she was cornered by a whiner.)   I struck up a conversation with a woman who was standing at the end of the eats table.  Pleasantries ensue.   It turned out we had worked in the same industry years ago, she had worked about three blocks from a company I used to own.   We knew some of the same people back then, and knew a few skeletons in a few closets so it was a fun time telling some stories of the old days. 

Then the conversations turned to what we are both doing now.   Well, I am sort of a one trick pony these days and so found myself rolling into the stealth camping story.   But then at a certain point of the lead in… basically first and second story in this blog narrated… I realize I am about to tell this beautiful woman, this nice classy lady I just met, this woman who looks like she lives in some placid subdivision somewhere, that I am working toward living in a cargo van on the streets of the big scary downtown of my city…  Well that was a whole kind of awkward moment for me.  I soldiered on, because by this point I was committed.  What was I going to do, change the subject five minutes in?  But I was really wishing I had come up with some other element of my life to impart.  By the time The Wife eventually returned we were back to the safe ground of war stories and old times until we parted ways with our new friend to fill our glasses.   Maybe this whole thing of van life is a little less crazy to the vanillas because they have seen TV shows about tiny houses.   It is still a rough concept to for them to understand though.

Toilet and furnace in place.

I’m not surprising anyone here when I say there is a social stigma against homelessness.  Particularly, I suppose, when you bring it up in conversation at your friend’s casual dinner party.  Though I am not homeless, there is certainly an element of all of this that feels that way.   No, it isn’t a cardboard box, it is a steel one and I have 62 square feet.  

More good progress on the van.   This day in terms of flooring.   Before I  could glue down the last of the floor insulation I had to cut two vent holes into the floor up near the bulkhead.   These are the vent holes for the composting toilet I will install.  I am going to cover a bunch of stuff about toilets but for now suffice to say I needed to cut two holes.  One for an air intake, the other for an exhaust.  The pipe itself is 1-1/4 but I felt like I wanted a little extra room so I cut them 2-1/8.  

It was a tough job using a hole saw in the truck bed flooring of the van.   Due, I think to the uneven surface of the bed, the hole saw would catch and edge right after the pilot bit went through.  I manage to break or severely bend three pilot drill bits in the process of drilling two holes.    I guess it might be a good idea to pick up a couple of spare pilot bits if you are following in my footsteps.   Another option, if I were to have to do it again is to drill through a scrap of 1/4” plywood first.  Then hold it in the spot where you want to drill the hole and proceed.  I am guessing the plywood would prevent the drill from slamming around.   After the drilling it is a good idea to spray paint any holes you cut in the body of the van.   That will help prevent rust from starting on the cut edges.

Toilet vent holes cut in the floor.

Once the holes were cut I glued down the last of the 1/4” plywood strips to the valleys of the truck bed.   Then I glued the insulation over the top of that.   I put a very heavy coat of glue around the vent hole edges.    Here again, this is for rust prevention.  I don’t want any salt spray getting up between the flooring and the insulation and get rust started.  The insulation, the subfloor and the flooring I will lay right over the top of the toilet vent holes.   Then, when I am ready to install the toilet I will drill up through the insulation and flooring.   Once the vent pipes are installed I will go under the van and use a little expanding foam around the edges of the pipe where it passes through the floor.   Both to hold the vent pipes in place but also to get a really good seal against water coming in.

After drying overnight I was ready to glue down the last of the sub floor.  I suffered from a bout of impatience here.   As soon as I got to the shop I took some expanding foam (Great Stuff) and went around the edges of the ridged foam insulation.  It took a whole can.   Actually, it really needed a touch more.   I ended up running out and leaving a spot in the center of the floor with a quarter inch gap.   I didn’t want to open a second can though.   Seems like you really need to totally use those up when you open them.   At this point I really should have waited another night.   But in this case I didn’t have the parts to do anything else.   So I puttered around on some stuff for about an hour, then came in and trimmed the foam off.   It was still a little wet in the middle of a couple of spots.  Then I was ready to cut out the floor.

The posters laid out on the
particle board for marking.

For this job I used a bunch of fishing posters I found in the recycle bin at work.   I taped two of them, end to end, down onto the insulation.  Then between using a scissors and a utility knife I cut out the shape of the wall as it met the floor.   I transferred this pattern on to 1/2” particle board and cut it out.   I tried to bring the entire eight foot long strip in and fit it into place but I couldn’t quite get it to maneuver into position. I ended up still needing to cut it half so I could fit the two halves in and get them test fit into the floor.   It was a perfect fit on the first go.  I brought the toilet in and determined where that was going to have to sit.   

The cement board pad in place where the
furnace will be mounted.  

Then, from that fixed position, I marked the area of the floor where the furnace is going to be installed.  I wanted it to be as far forward as possible but the toilet needs to slide in and out for operation.  If the furnace is too tight against it, this will be made difficult.   The toilet is narrower at the bottom and this allowed me to let it overlap some over the top of the furnace.  I think it is in a good spot.  Once this got determined I could move onto marking the location of the furnace.

The furnace needs 5/8” clearance on the top and sides between it and combustable material.   I’m not really a very trusting guy though.   I wanted to change that a little.   I made it 5/8” to non-combustable concrete board.  That gives me a little more confidence that any fire might be contained there for a little bit.   To prepare for the non combustable area I cut out a section of the subfloor that was the furnace width plus 1-1/4” (5/8 times 2).   I cut a piece of 1/4” and 3/4 plywood to fit the hole.   When I glued down the subfloor I dropped the 1/4” plywood into the hole first.   More glue, then the 3/4” more glue and then the concrete board on top.   I placed my dad’s big old red tool box on top of the stack and worked on some other stuff for the rest of the night.  My final product is 3/4” of an inch above the grade of the sub floor.   When I get the final flooring nailed in it should be right at grade.

Tonight I also mounted the propane tank switchover valve.   Again using some fish poster, I put a section over the back of the meter and pressed in with my fingers where the mounting holes need to be, creating dimples in the paper.   Once done I used a Sharpie to better mark the spots because my eyes aren’t what they used to be.   Then taped the paper inside my propane tank box and drilled through the marks.   I used some inch and a half, 8-32 machine screws with fender washers to secure the valve.   Because the mounting holes were just a bit too close together I had to grind flats on the washers.   It was easy getting the first screw threaded.   I just stuck the screw through the plywood and very gently turns the valve onto it.  Not near as easy getting the other three lined up right for the screws to start threading.   Lots of trips from the back of the van, inside to lay on the floor and slide back under the bed and get to the screw heads.   Eventually though I got them and got the valve tightened down into place.

The bathroom readers of the world have requested I make my blog entries a touch shorter.  It is true they can read Dostoyevsky on the toilet but they do not finish it.