I have not had a good winter project in about four years. As most know I have had a string of pretty serious health issues. Looking like I have those pretty much in the rear view mirror, just the left over damage caused by them to adapt to So back in 2008 when I bought the Small Farm I live on, I was living in a old 16' Taurus Camper. Not a lot of room in one of those But hey good enough for a single guy (Mrs T5R was not a legal and permanent fixture here yet) I don't spend much time inside so a place to lay down at night and get into some AC on a hot day was more than good enough for me. Long story short I needed to move to a bit warmer climate and moved out of the place I call the fortress 700 miles NW of where I am now. The Fortress is a very nice place 1870 Sq feet up top and 1700 sq feet in the fully finished basement. 4 barns, 1 work shop, 12 high tunnels and 4 smaller greenhouses sitting in the middle of 2400 acres of VERY remote land. Totally off grid and fully solar and wind powered with a 40kw CAT Diesel Generator to back it up and a Smaller 20kw Generac propane job to back it up. That is my Primary bug out location if everything turns to crap here. The Fortress SO I was out building the first barn here for the horses and mules I brought with me and one the what I learned over time to be one of the decent neighbors from about 5 miles away pulled in. Said he had a old mobile home he was going to collapse and burn off, but if I wanted it I could have it. Turned out to be a old 1971 Schultz (One of the better built mobile homes of that time) and a big one at 14x70 with a 12x20 tip out. Sadly the tip out had leaked and was rotten junk. The main part though was solid and no rot. So I hooked it on to the Big Red Thunder Chicken and dragged it the 5 miles home. Dropped on the edge of the woods and there it has sat since August 2008. I put new wiring in and silver sealed the hell out of the roof and called it home until 2017. It has taken some hits from tree limbs over the years and sprung a few leaks that I could not fix due to health and well I have a whopping $800 into it so was not real worried about it. The Old Junky Mobile home shortly after I pulled it in and made a Round trip to SD to bring one of the Rez Ride mini vans back Friends and relatives think I am crazy having 1.5 mil+ place back home and living in a .50cent mobile home in Southern IL. The locals all believe I am dirt floor poor and I like it that way Image is everything and plays a major role in over all OPSEC locally. I have BTW Inherited nothing, won no lotteries, don't have a trust fund. I have worked my ass off smarter and harder and earned every thing I own..... on my own. Left home with a grey dog bus ticket to Fort Leonard Wood for basic training and earned everything I have now from that point in my history. 2018 I finished up the 16x48 portable building cabin and moved into it. LOL I like it Its warm in the winter, cool in the summer and keeps the weather off my ass. SO feeling 1000X better than I was this time last year. I ventured over to the old mobile home to see if it was worth salvaging and refurbishing or if I was just going salvage what lumber was good, scrap the aluminum siding and cut the frame up for scrap steel. You never know what you will find in old mobile home walls..... Either a lot of ROT or Sound Structure seems to be the rule without much in between. After tearing the paneling off the north living room wall I was impressed to see insulation still dry and in good shape. LOL about 2 years ago my dog went after a squirrel and went right through that window. So I great stuffed a piece of plexi glass in as temp fix Did find some rot where the previous owner had cut a pipe hole for a wood stove. And some more rot around the door frame and a couple of studs to either side. Oops didn't flip this pic Poked around pulling pieces of leak damaged ceiling down to see how bad those 2x trusses they used in mobile homes back then were. Amazing that there are none that need repaired and no are rotten. The leaks were all inbetween trusses and leaked straight down onto the drop ceiling. The old Shultz Mobile Homes have earned their reputation of being very good quality after my inspection today of my almost 49 years old one SO it is going to be my winter Project. Stage 1 will be taking off the outside aluminum siding and replacing the 8-10 rotten wall studs. Then putting a good wrap or foam layer on it and then putting on treated Exterior Plywood siding. Then replacing any missing or rotten insulation in the walls. I am a fan of 5/8ths inch plywood for interior walls. Can prime and paint it, glue FRP onto it or just seal it and it look decent and the lower grades are cheap and actually look better with all the knots than the smooth better grades Will replace all of the classic JUNK mobile home windows with middle of the road cost windows. Also need to replace all of the plumbing and wiring between the squirrels and mice gnawing on it, there are some impressive shorts. All total it should be able to come in at $4000-$5000 and look like a brand new structure when finished. The Mobile home was off grid from 2008-2013 with 3,720 AMp Hours worth of batteries and a 10kw solar system powering them. Use a morning star digital charge controller, that give details of what is going into the batteries and what the batteries have in them. Pretty basic 12 Volt set up with a outback inverter to the Breaker box for the solar electric. The 12volt cables go into a fuse box for the 12V systems all of the lighting is 12V or rather was, also several 12V fans to circulate heat from the wood stove. The business side of course grid connected, solar is not so hot for powering big freezers, refrigerators and water heaters. But the mobile home stayed OG until the wife came and the power consumption greatly exceeded the solar production In a pinch I could use jumper cables from my truck to the battery bank to keep the batteries powered up and also have a generator that charges the batteries and can switch to power the now grid tied breaker box. The core parts of the system are fine LOL just all wiring has gotten gnawed over the last couple of years and needs replaced Going to put it all in conduit this time Old Mobile Homes if they are not too far gone can be picked up for nothing to less than $1000 and can be turned into a nice dwelling for less than $10,000 DIY. Pretty cheap housing if you have the carpentry, plumbing and electrical skills to do it yerself. Would cost 3X to 4X that to pay a pro to refurb one ...... Making it totally not worthwhile. They also make great off grid structures for the ease of wiring them up alone. If you require 3000 square feet of living space it ain't going to work for you
Back in the late 80s after my .mil days , my grandparents lived in an old 60s model mobile home , with one of those slide outs , With the help of my Dad , who was an electrical engineer for the local power company ,,, steam , hydro , and nuclear plants , me and a buddy of mine , went and did some major remodeling on it , exterior siding with insulation board , and framing , added a covered porch and an addition , and a gable framed roof , moved the slide out to the back for Grandma's pantry , skylights , and upgrades . A long hard 2 week job , turned that little mobile home into a real nice little home . Looked just like a small site built home . 15+ years later , during a storm , a 30 inch+ Oak tree was blown over , landed on the home , one limb poked a 4inch hole thru the roof decking . 4 shingles and a small metal plate repaired that damage . With a little knowledge , skill , and determination , you can make a decent little home with just a little bit of money . As long as your not trying to compete , and keep up with the Jonses. Glad to hear your doing well T5R ,, I looked forward to , and enjoy hearing your stories and experiences .
Nice project. Older ones can be a challenge. I used to do setup and service on them back in the day. I still occasionally work on them. One area most people ignore is the belly. Out of sight out of mind thing I guess. Critters and plumbers like to make holes under the home. Neither one has figured out how to fix it back up. What I normally do to repair is stuff insulation in the holes making sure not to go on top of any plumbing lines. Use Gorilla tape to hold up any pieces of belly paper. Cut a plastic tarp larger than the hole and lay it on the ground under the hole. Use 3M spray contact adhesive and coat the edges of the tarp and the belly as needed. Wait a few minutes and apply the patch. 2 inch deck screws with large washers can be used if you can feel the floor joists. Normally close to the sides of the home. Not in the middle. If you dare, shine a flashlight in the furnace duct to see what sins live in it. Luckily its a straight run from front to back. Most older manufacturers used a fiberglass board cut in a rectangle shape to fabricate their own ducts. Makes them hard to clean. At least try and shove a vacuum hose in.
Good points SDR,, I've worked on a few of them , and the ductwork on some were not energy efficient at all . They just took that straight run , cut a hole , stuck in another section to elbow up thru the floor , with no sealant at all , leaving plenty of heat and AC blowing out around the seams . I've taken those elbows and pop riveted and used duct sealant to make sure that air is directed into the room it was piped into , and not blowing out into the under home floor system .
The belly is the worst part of it. All of the insulation is on the ground under it It has the ancient brittle black tubing for waterlines, I bypassed all that stuff and put in PvC and CPVC back 2008 and ran it inside along the wall and through the cabinets. Need to redo it though as the wife wants new cabinets in it. The 2x6 sub floor is in great shape, will have to replace 3-4 of those but no big deal. For the underside insulation I am going to screw 1/8th plywood onto the bottom and put a new OCB floor on the top and fill the dead space with spray foam. Should give the sub floor some shoring up but the trade off is...... don't ever want to have a fire in the floor I have a big stack of the 1/8th ply I picked up for .75 cent per sheet at an auction that has been sitting in a barn for 8 years waiting for a purpose. The whole top floor is coming off. It is 1971 particle board (LOL Elmers Glue and Saw dust) and is just crumbling in places. Just replace it with modern OCB. No ducts or furnace at all, I ripped all that junk out year one and made a little pantry where the furnace was..... and sealed the roof hole up. I used the wood stove and wall mount propane heaters. Basically stripping the whole thing down to the structural frame and making a much bigger Second cabin for the wife out of it. I love the woman but we do much better with his and her cabins than in one smaller cabin Besides my dogs don't like her dogs and her dogs are not Pit Mixes with territorial issues. BTW got like $12 in change out of the ducts and a still in the package tampon in between two vents LOL no idea how it could have got there and probably don't want to know.
