Rainbow of Alpaca Wool
A rainbow in Yellowstone.
Opening up the boxes of alpaca wool for our tiny house insulation was exciting. We had waited months to be able to hand stuff the subfloor insulation, and the feel of the clean, soft wool in our hands was lovely.
alpaca wool
It even smelled good, like hundreds of wool sweaters! And it came in a rainbow of colors: snowy white, tawny brown, auburn, gray, and black. Now to get to work!
Fluffing and Stuffing Alpaca Wool
We had not been able to find any instructions either online or with the insulation company as to how tightly to pack the wool into the floor cavity or whether we should manually separate and un-bunch the fibers.
So, to figure out what we should do, we did a quick calculation of our subfloor insulation needs as a proportion to the whole. Since the subfloor represented about 20-25% of our total insulation needs, this meant we should only use 20-25% of what we ordered, which would be around 3-4 of 14 boxes.
With that in mind, and seeing how quickly we were needing to open that second box without fluffing, we decided to manually separate and fluff the wool.
It was a surreal part of the build, as Big Country and I were able to work side by side, sometimes sitting on pieces of plywood to allow us to reach the middle of the trailer, chatting and catching up while working frantically with our hands to fluff the fibers. The sky was covered in a sweeping, roiling gray cloud, as a storm was quickly rolling in.
surreal part if the build storm
the impending storm
When the drops began, we hurried to cover the entire trailer with the plywood subfloor pieces and then tarps. We had just bought more tarps at Costco the day before (how many do we own now?), and they were awesome. Ratchet strapping the tarps down on the front, middle, and back of the trailer, we did our very best to waterproof our work before it really started pouring.
Running around, gathering up children, a kiddie pool we had brought to keep them busy, and odds and ends, we headed back home for the evening. A bright rainbow soon appeared in the south.
We spent the next day at home, fluffing alpaca wool and watching the volume double or triple around us. A couple more days of fighting exhaustion and dodging thunderstorms, we got the insulation in, and we caulked and screwed the plywood down, the final step.
Caulking and Screwing the Plywood
Big caulking tiny
house subfloor
joists
Big caulking the tiny house subfloor joists.
Working with one three-piece plywood section at a time, Big used several tubes of non-toxic construction adhesive and ran a line of caulk down each 2″ x 6″.
He then positioned each plywood piece, fitting them together with a line of caulk in the tongue and groove. Carefully knocking them together with a hammer when needed, he then screwed down each piece with 2″ screws, having marked where the joists fell on the plywood with chalk line.
When we reached the center section of plywood, we realized that the little bit of moisture that had gotten in, as well as imperfect joist positioning, had caused a gap between the joist and where the plywood needed to go. So, to bridge the gap, Big used a couple shims so that the plywood pieces met.
We found out much later that we should have made each piece of plywood end on a metal trailer joist for maximum stability. What can I say except, oh well! We hope our other efforts create a relatively smooth floor with few creaks months from now.
Liberty finishing tiny
house subfloor
Liberty and new baby pulling their weight
Finishing the subfloor phase was a huge milestone for us. We have to laugh when we read other blogs in which the couple complains about the subfloor taking them a surprisingly long three whole days.
Well, one thing we’ve learned so far in our tiny house prep and build is that with a demanding job, a family with two kids and one on the way, and the necessity to learn from scratch how to do every task large and small, we are on a whole different tiny house timetable!
And we’ll roll with the punches as they come. I almost feel like shaking my fist at the mountain behind our build site when terrible thunderstorms or 80-mile-an-hour winds threaten to once again derail the build. You won’t make us quit!
But in all reality, we were feeling beat. It felt good to be able to hand over the build temporarily to our friend and his crew who are doing the framing, the next phase. And so, Big and I and the kids celebrated too completion of the subfloor with dinner and cherry-picking at the home of some good friends.
tiny house kids on trailer
subfloor
Tiny house kids on the trailer subfloor.