KTM_Guy wrote:I didn’t do a skirt on mine. My thought is if water gets between the bottom of the floor and the frame, I want it to fine an easy way to get out. The skirt seems to me to restrict the movement of that water. Also may restrict air flow that would aid evaporation.
Is the skirt 2”? Maybe a 2x4 with a 1x4 next to the skirt on both sides.
You can take the tires off the trailer to get the frame closer to the ground. Have the frame on some cribbing.
Todd
As we think about it, Shelly and I are reaching the same conclusion: the skirt is liable to cause problems with water and rot. Much better to leave it off. Especially since our trailer is black, and we are thinking of a light top color with black trim anyway: It'll look just as good.
I think when we started this, I naively thought the extra bonding surface between the wall and floor would help structurally, but I don't see that now.
Think we'll still build on the trailer. Without the skirt, we can lay the wall on the floor and the spare tire carrier won't be as much in the way as when we planned to slide the wall in. The trailer frame is an inch less wide than the floor on each side, so I'll be able to get under and put screws up into the wall. We'll probably put some in at an angle from the outer wall into the floor too. (Have to learn how to use my Harbor Fright version of a Kreg Jig.) By building on the trailer, we won't have to try and line the bolt holes up between the floor and trailer again.
Funny thing, I designed the interior height based on our thinking that we would have a skirt cover the 3" frame, and that we would use 4 x 8 ply for the outer skin. Now, we are using 5 x 5 BB, and anyway we have no skirt, so we could have made it a few inches taller. Shelly has an inch and a half on me, and I measured her sitting on the 8 inch futon mattress we plan to use. Just fits as it is. She says she would have liked an extra inch or so, but I don't want to buy more plywood and start over! Told her if she doesn't like it, we can buy a firm 6 inch mattress and she can get back the two inches that way. I suspect once we start to use it, we won't even think about that. I'm beginning to see why folks build more than one of these things!
Yes, we may take the tires off if it'll make it easier to reach the roof during construction. Alternatively, I might build some scaffolding 18 inches or so high, similar to a bench I've used for that purpose before.
Thanks again Todd and Tony for the good advice!
Tom