Installing Tongue and Groove Cedar

Pete and I spent the second weekend in May putting up the last of the vapor barrier and starting on the tongue and groove. It’s so satisfying to see the tongue and groove go up; things are really starting to come together.

The trickiest part of the vapor barrier was the sleeping loft and of course we left that for last. By the time we finished with the vapor barrier we jumped right in to the tongue and groove. We started at the easiest location, the wall behind the future couch. When we were finished with that we moved on to the ceiling in the sleeping loft. We were trying to work on areas that wouldn’t have any seams because our chop saw can’t do the cuts we wanted for seams. Instead, we would be borrowing my coworker Brian’s miter saw the following weekend. We borrowed this same saw when we put up the exterior cedar siding. When we finished with the ceiling in the sleeping loft we put up plywood in the kitchen area. Not only does this save us a few bucks but the metal plates covering the gas lines keeps us from being able to nail the three-inch wide cedar boards to parts of the wall. The following weekend we continued to make progress with the tongue groove.

Couch nook.

Vapor Barrier Going Up

May 4, 2014 – After taking the last few weekends off from building it was time to get back on track. I was working without Pete for the first time; he stayed in Marquette for the weekend to supply sugar maple logs for a shiitake mushroom growing workshop. The trees were cut from our property and in return for supplying the trees we were given 10 inoculated logs. It will take about a year before they produce any mushrooms, but once they start the logs should be productive for at least 5 years. I was able to make it back to Marquette in time to attend the workshop and I took some photos that I’ll post soon.

I finished spraying foam around the windows and filled the cavity of the wheel wells with spray foam as well. I was very fortunate to have help from my mom this weekend. She helped stuff extra insulation in the areas the blower hose missed and helped me put up most of the vapor barrier. It definitely would have been a near impossible task for one person; thanks mom!

Initially Pete and I were going to skip the vapor barrier. It’s been important to me to use as few toxic/off-gassing materials as possible within reason and I really did not want to wrap the house in plastic. We’ve also seen several other tiny house builders hand place wool insulation behind the tongue and groove walls, skipping the vapor barrier. However, my brother the builder strongly suggested we put up a vapor barrier. Not only will it help keep condensation out of the walls, it will also increase our R-value which is super important in our climate. Especially since we will be heating with propane and propane is not cheap! So, we sucked it up and bought a 100′ roll of 6 mil poly vapor barrier. I did read on some website that this type of plastic doesn’t do much off gassing and isn’t that toxic; however, I had a hard time finding any sort of information regarding environmentally friendly vapor barriers. Either way, I’m telling myself it’s perfectly healthy because it’s a done deal. I do plan on keeping the windows of the tiny house open all summer to help speed/eliminate construction material off gassing; it is after all a very tiny space!