Metal Skirting Project

We recently had our mobile home installed and before we could get it skirted, we became overwhelmed with interior renovations. However, the insurance company and the quickly approaching winter season, were pushing us to get it done, pronto. I knew I did not want to use vinyl, due to the fact that it does not hold up very well. Vinyl also does a poor job of insulating the underside of the home and keeping out pests.

After considering cement board and plastic imitation rock, we decided to go with sheet metal. The only problem, was a lack of information and material. .

 After calling every mobile home supply company within 500 miles and getting nowhere, I started my online search. The thing that kept me from doing this first, was freight charges. Fifty sheets of the skirting is over 150 pounds,so the shipping charges were outrageous. I finally found the sheeting at Lowes, and had it shipped site to store, at no charge to me.

The next hurdle was the installation. I could not find any step by step instructions, on how to install the stuff. The sheets are extremely thin, it is so thin, that it needs a solid structure to attach too.  A site called www.dmaskirting.com gave me the initial idea, and had installation pointers but no pictures. Using this sites recommendation, I built a 2x4 frame. I initially tried to build the frame, like a frame in a house, but the houses metal support structure was preventing it.  I instead build the frame without a cap board, the individual studs were then toenailed into the bottom 2x6. The frame has 3 stud boards, for every piece of sheeting, giving it plenty of support.

I then drilled 1 inch holes into the bottom board every 5 feet and drove 2 foot pieces of rebar into the ground. This kept the frame from moving laterally. The house previously had vinyl skirting and the vinyl top track was still on the house. Once this track was removed it revealed the factory metal track. This was carefully removed to be reused once the skirting was in place.
Once the factory metal top rail was put back on, it covered up the top of the sheeting, giving it a clean look. Here is a picture of the frame attached to the bottom 2x6.











Here you can see the frame

attached to the mobile homes bottom 2x6, and the rebar driven into the ground.

  Same area from the outside

As you can see from the photos, there was a gap between the bottom of the frame and the ground. This is a desired effect and necessary to account for future settling and frost heave. The frame is free to travel up and down, without causing damage to the structure.

 I initially purchased 50 sheets from Lowes, I used approximately 40 sheets, leaving plenty of sheeting to fill the gaps. We dug a ditch around the perimeter approximately 6 inches down. The sheets were then cut wide enough to fill the space between the bottom of the frame, and the bottom of the ditch. The ditch was then backfilled on both sides. If the house does settle of heave from frost, it will only do damage to a few inches of metal, rather than the entire structure.

I still need to seal up a few holes and paint the skirting and the exterior of the house, but the end result is much more appealing than vinyl. Overall the project cost me about $900.00. The sheeting was $800.00 with tax, and the lumber and fasteners cost around $100.00. Feel free to ask me any questions by posting them in the comments, if you decide to do this yourself.

Casa Kimber Kitchen Remodel

My wife and I recently purchased a single wide mobile home, in anticipation for the arrival of our second baby. We had originally planned to live in a rv, and save money to build a home on our land. Chance had other ideas, and there was no way we could squeeze one more child into a rv. We searched for a house that was ready to go, and thought we had found one. However, we did not do a thorough pre-house inspection, and once we started cleaning it up, black mold was found to be everywhere. So, our ready to live in mobile home, turned into a massive remodel project. We don't have original before photos, however these are factory pictures from the same model and layout. This is basically what the house looked like, with the exception of paint and some wall tile.

I found black mold in the kitchen, under the washing machine, under the sink, under the tubs in both bathrooms, and in the hot water heater closet. The only way to be sure the mold was removed, was to remove everything it was on. This included counters, wallboard, sub-floor, and floor joists. Here are pictures with all the mold and contaminated building products removed.

From here we did a full remodel of the kitchen. First we removed all the old cabinets and replaced the mold contaminated flooring with VOC safe plywood.

The length of the kitchen was then reduced by four feet and the width was increased by 2.5 feet. This made more room for the new master bath, reduced wasted floor space in the kitchen, and gave us more counter space.

We then put in cabinets with solid oak fronts and MDF free, plywood sides.

testing out the new drop in electric stove.

Here is a shot of the kitchen, with the bar frame completed, and the VOC safe plywood put on. The counter is now ready for cement board and marble tile.

The marble tile is installed and waiting for grout.

The slate look, porcelain tile has been installed, and is now waiting for grout.

To prevent further leak damage, I tiled under the dishwasher and refrigerator. I also moved the drain and water supply for the dishwasher out from under the sink and set it up under the house. In addition, I put in 2 - 1 1/2 pvc pipes up through the floor, and grouted them in. These two pipes are routes for the dishwasher and ice maker water supplies. Once everything is sealed up, there will be no place for the water to get into the substructure. Throughout the house, the previous owner put in pvc. This was all removed and replaced with freeze proof pex. Under the kitchen sink, I put glue in connections, instead of the flimsy 1 1/4 thin pvc screw together connections. 

The kitchen is still under construction and almost complete (as of 11/15/2013), once it is all done I will update this post.

Mold in your mobile

Black mold is a concern in any home. In a mobile home, the design of the home, sets up a perfect environment for mold growth. The bottom of most mobile homes is covered with a layer of sheeting. This layer keeps the insulation under the home in place. The insulation protects the plumbing, and keeps critters out of the home. In a perfect world, there is nothing wrong with the mobile home's underbelly being covered. In the real world, as the home ages, water finds the path of least resistance, and the plumbing will inevitably leak. More often the not, the leaks come from drains under sinks. Since we rarely mess around under our sinks, these leaks may go unnoticed for weeks. Once the leak is discovered, the particle board in the sink cabinet; the sub-floor board, and the underbelly insulation, has been saturated. Speaking from the experience, it takes a long time for the water to dry out. I pulled apart the floor in the house I recently purchased, the insulation was still wet, and the underside of the sub-floor had moisture on it, after sitting vacant for 6 months with the water shut off. This dark; warm, damp place, between the sub-floor and the underbelly insulation, is the perfect environment for black mold. Black mold is incredibly bad for indoor air quality, and is responsible for all sorts of health problems. If your home is 10 years old or older, it is almost guaranteed that you have some degree of mold growth, under your sinks and bathtubs/showers.

The only way to get to this mold, is to remove the sink cabinet/bathtub and the underbelly insulation. Once everything is exposed, it can be properly cleaned, by removing the surface mold and stopping its growth with vinegar. The only effective way to get rid of all the mold, is to remove the wood it is growing on and replace it with new wood.

The sheet under older homes, will inevitably sag from the insulation becoming saturated with moisture, and get holes in it. These holes will allow critters to enter the home, in particular cats. Cats/critters will then make their home, in the space between your floor and insulation. They will then find a place where the sheeting has been condensed by a water leak, and make a litter-box out of that area. They will also climb up into your house, through the hole under bathtub, which was cut in manufacturing for the pea trap. Once they are in this cozy little spot under your bathtub, they will have kittens, and or make a litter-box out of it. I have pulled up floors while doing remodels and found dead animals, and mountains of animal feces. Animal dander, feces, dead animals, and urine create incredible air quality issue.

If you have a black mold problem and animals, the best way to get rid of them and or prevent them, is to remove the underbelly insulation and the sheeting that holds it in. By removing the sheeting, it allows you to identify leaks easily, when the ground beneath it becomes saturated. It also allows the water to fall to the ground and soak in and evaporate, rather than staying in the insulation. 

An exposed underbelly makes renovations much easier, by allowing you convenient access to plumbing and some electrical. Another way to avoid leaks, mold, and water damage, is to change out pvc plumbing for pex pipe. Pex not only swells with freezing water to prevent pipe rupture, it also eliminates weak spots in the plumbing system. Since pex is flexible, it can flex around corners, eliminating cuts and eliminate 90 degree unions. Pex also eliminates questionable unions made with glue, that could result in a weak spot and a leak. Pex uses a barb and clamp system, this system has no glue so it is much more reliable, not to mention easier.

The black sheeting should only be removed if you have solid skirting, such as metal, wood, or concrete. It is also a good idea to insulate the skirting with foam sheeting, especially if your home is located in areas that get extremely cold in the winter. When a home has solid insulated skirting, it is no different than frame houses. If you do switch to solid skirting, a certain amount of ventilation must be installed for every square foot of crawl space, in order to minimize humidity. Solid skirting not only keeps out critters and the cold, it also looks much better than the vinyl skirting.

The best way to deal with back mold problems, is to prevent them. If you are in the market for a new home, a thorough inspection will save you heartache. If you do find black mold, either avoid buying the house or use the discovery to get the price reduced. When you are conducting the inspection of a possible home to purchase, a wall & pipe inspection camera will help you get to areas, that you can not normally get to. (Cameras are available on amazon for $70.00.) When you do your inspection, take the camera, a drill, a pale of joint compound, some black duct tape, and an assortment of magic markers. Drill a hole on the opposite wall, of where the bathtub plumbing is located and inspect area under the bathtub. After your inspection, put a little joint compound in the hole. By the time you finish your inspection, the hole will be dry enough to match the paint color, with your magic marker. Where the drain pipe and water lines goes through the sink cabinet, you should be able to get your camera in between the pipe and and the cabinet. Inspect the area under the sink cabinet. Pull the panel off the wall where the washing machine plumbing is located, and inspect the area. Crawl under the trailer, and push your camera through the sheeting and inspect every area, where plumbing fixtures are located. After each underbelly inspection, put a piece of black tape where you made a hole. While you have your camera handy, you might as well inspect the duct-work.

Whether you are in the market for a new used house, or have a house with possible mold issues, avoiding it or getting rid of it is imperative.

What Makes A Home, A Home?

As mentioned in a previous post, one of my favorite books is, "The Millionaire Next Door". One of the highlighted messages of the book is, you can't spot a millionaire, by appearances. The majority of self made millionaires, are hard core savers and tend to be frugal. They live in modest homes and drive used cars. More often than not, the owners of luxury automobiles and extravagant houses, live paycheck to paycheck. They may have high incomes, but they are no different than the average American. They spend everything they make, and then some. The authors of the book, call this the hyper consumption lifestyle.

The baby boomers, were perhaps the last generation to be raised by frugal parents. Their parents lived through the depression, and really understood the face of true poverty.

The baby boomers were raised by frugal parents, and many of them became frugal themselves. However since WW2, we have lived in a season of plenty. Even the poorest among us, have government programs to fall back on. When I am in line at a dollar saver type store, it is not uncommon to watch a customer pay for their goods with a foodstamp card, then walk into the parking lot and get into a $30,000.00 dollar vehicle. No one fears poverty in this day and age, so as a society we put nothing back for a rainy day. When you walk into a new car dealership, the price is discussed in monthly payments, not final price. Banks are still making loans on houses, with no money down. People are spending their money, as soon as it hits the bank.  It's no wonder we put so much value on material possessions, the entire country is spending instead of saving. its almost as if its a competition to see who can spend the most money.

We have reached a point in our society, where our social status is defined by a house and a car. From day one of public school, the classification starts. If children ride the bus, they must be the poorest, right? The majority of today's parents, drive their grade school children to school. The children then spend the morning, watching their classmates get out of mom and dad's car. Even at that age, I remember thinking how much better the lives of my classmates must be, when their parents drove new cars. School children are exposed to classmates who have hyper-consuming parents for 13 years.
Inevitably there is always some gated community kid, whose parents have more money to spend than everyone else, so no one is safe from looking over the fence syndrome. It's is not uncommon to drive through high school parking lots, and see $50,000 dollar vehicles with student parking stickers and shoe polish hearts over the drivers side window. Parents are conditioning their children and the children, their children attend school with, to become hyper-consumers.

The data speaks for itself. Only half of all Americans invest in the stock market. U.S. household debt rose from nearly zero in the 1950s to $12.9 trillion by 2012. The average credit card dept for a US household, is over $15,000. As a nation, we live on credit. It is unheard of for people to buy a home, purchase a vehicle, or even go on vacation without going into dept. What is all of this spending buying us? It sure is not happiness, only 1 in 3 adults claim that they are, "very happy" and we are working longer and longer to buy this unhappiness. The average retirement age is 61, and it is on the rise. I believe that we are trying to buy, status in society. To separate ourselves from the have-nots, even though we only appear to separate ourselves from the have-nots. What we are actually doing, by spending everything we make, is making ourselves into have-nots. My question is why does it have to be this way, and is it possible to live comfortably without spending all of your earned income?

This is a four bedroom 2300 square foot double wide, on 20 acres of land. We paid $65,000 for all of it, and paid it off in 5 short years. The land appraised for $2500 per acre, so I had $15,000 invested in the house, before I updated the flooring. After the updates, I had about $22,000 invested. What would a stick built, keeping up with the gated community, same square footage house cost on the same 20 acres? In my area they range from $175,000 to $300,000. A $200,000 fixed rate 30 year mortgage, will cost a person $440,000.00 Couple this with a new car every five years, financed vacations, and a boat or two, and its easy to see that the average American family, easily makes a million in their lifetime. Invest just half of that million, or 16,500 per year at the stock market average of 7%, and you will have a fat 1.5 million at the end of 30 years. Guess what, you never have to touch the principle either. Take out just 4% a year, and leave in 3% so your nest egg keeps up with inflation, and you have a very comfortable $105,000.00 per year to live on.  Could you live out the remaining 30-50 years of your life on $105,000 per year? All you have to do is stop playing the game. Stop judging yourself, and the people you know and meet, by the things they own. If you can do this one thing, you will be free to live a lifestyle that is simply about relationships and providing food, shelter, and dependable transportation. Instead of a lifestyle that seeks to live up to an image that some kid from grade school, burned into your deep psyche, with his Escalade driving parents and designer jeans.

A house is a place to keep your stuff, and a car is a slightly better solution than a bicycle. If we could just see these two things for what they really are, we would not judge people who choose to drive 10 year old Honda's and live in mobile homes.

Paid $3500 for it. 4 years and 50,000 miles later, still trucking.

 Maybe those people driving the old Honda and living in the mobile home, make way more money than us. Maybe they are sitting on a nest egg of 1.5 million, and about to retire in Cozumel. Maybe they got out of the competition, with the kids from gated community high and started to focus on their relationships, and not their meaningless status among people they don't know.

I know I said 30 years earlier, but that was referring to the average investor. If you could become a extreme investor. By that I mean live on 25% of  your earned income, and invest the rest. If your house and vehicles are paid for, you can spend most of that 25% on food, utilities, and insurance. If you could invest 75% of the average household income in the US, retirement could be reached in 10-20 years. If you are one of those people who say, yeah but I want to provide a nice home for my family, not myself. First I will say, pop on over to www.mobilehomeliving.com and see how nice some mobile homes can be. Secondly, do you think your grown children will remember the house they were raised in, or the father and mother who raised them? By that I mean, time is the most important factor in any relationship. Time will be remembered by your children, not the gated community.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/147206/stock-market-investments-lowest-1999.aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_debt
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/01/happiness-index-only-1-in_n_3354524.html

Very Cosmopolitan.

I started my mobile home experience in college. Since my parents believed that mobile home living was beneath them, I never got a chance to experience what living in a mobile home could be. I say beneath them, because my parents believed that providing a stick built home, was essential for our families happiness. They believed in this so strongly, that family vacations and trips to the lake(camping, fishing, outings, ect..) were sacrificed to pay the mortgage. They were sacrificed to save money and to free up more time to work. None of my fondest childhood memories are attached to the house we lived in, they are all attached to the people I shared them with. This seems to be part of the deeper psychology, attached to the homes we choose to live in.

When I started college, I moved in with my cousin, in a little mobile home park in Stillwater, Oklahoma. His house was on it's last leg, but it was clean and neatly decorated (college kid style, with mostly junk furniture). He had no cable and two movies, "Tombstone" and the "Man From Snowy River". To this day, I can recite every scene from "Tombstone". While living there I noticed that the mobile home next door, was vacant for a long time. I inquired about it, found out it was up for quick sale, and said goodbye to Kurt Russel.

While in college I; bought, renovated, and sold four mobile homes for profit. When I graduated from college, our newlywed home, was a mobile home that had caught fire in the bedroom. We poured our sweat and love into it, and made it awesome. To this day, I wish we had kept it. However, we sold that house when a job opportunity came up that required us to move out of state.

When we moved back to Oklahoma, we found a double wide on 20 acres. We remodeled the double wide and lived in it for 4 years.

The den from our old doublewide

 Another job opportunity came about that required us to be gone constantly. We put the house up for sale, and attempted to try extreme scaled down living, and live out of an RV. After a year of full time RV'ing, we decided it was not for us and purchased our current project, a late 90's model single wide. Since we paid off our land and house before we sold the doub lewide, we were free to pay cash and put the house anywhere on the 20 acres.

I have always wanted a house in the middle of the woods, so we located this one right in the middle of a 5 acre tract of timber on our place. One of the advantages of a single wide, is that if you have no codes to worry about, it can be located on any piece of dirt your heart desires. That piece of dirt can be prepped for a house in a day. A double wide on the other hand, takes a backhoe and about $3000.00 worth of concrete to prep the site.

The site for our new home

My entire life, I have thought of mobile home living as temporary, on my way to building a house. I have finally realized that happiness is found in Christ and relationships, not social status and possessions. The desire to live in a stick built house was programmed into me, by a society that looks down on mobile home dwellers. When you really stop to think about a home, it is simply a place to keep your stuff. Since a mobile home can have anything a stick built house can have, it would be logical to argue that some stick build dwellers, are seeking to create an image. That is a broad assumption, but it highlights the idea that we live in a country that puts way to much emphasis on possessions.  It is my hope, that I can lend my experience with remodeling mobile homes, free your mind to new ways of thinking, and share with you the most aggressive renovation I have ever attempted.

That New Cancer Causing Smell

If you live under a roof, you are probably living with formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is a gas, that is produced when certain adhesives vaporize at room temperature or "off gas". The CDC has classified it a known carcinogen and it is responsible for irritation of the eyes, lungs, nose, and throat. Formaldehyde is a leading culprit of poor indoor air quality, and if you own a mobile home, your house is full of formaldehyde producing adhesives. These adhesives are used in the sub floors, decking, and cabinets.

There are three types of wood sheeting commonly used for building in the US; plywood, OSB(oriented strand board), and MDF/particle board(medium density fiberboard). There are two types of formaldehyde resins; urea-formaldehyde (UF), and phenol-formaldehyde (PF). The majority of OSB's and plywood's use PF, which is more stable and off gasses slowly over a long period of time. MDF's use UF, which is much more toxic because it contains more resin than plywood and UF off gasses at a faster rate. Some new carpets also contain formaldehyde, but carpet is a whole different animal, and I will cover It extensively in an upcoming post.

To reduce the levels of formaldahyde you can.

1. Seal it in with a product like, AFM safecoat. Anything made of wood that is not solid wood such as; furniture, building materials, and cabinets, should be sealed. If your house is 10 years old or older, your existing MDF should be safe.
2. Replace cabinets and furniture made with MDF board, with antique or solid wood furniture and cabinets.
3. Replace carpet with hardwood or some other green floor covering.
4. Buy a home that is at least 10 years old. Studies have shown that the majority of offgassing will take place in 10 years. At this point, even mdf cabinets and flooring should be safe.
5. Avoid buying a home that has particle board flooring. Not only is particle board more toxic, it performs horribly when it gets wet. Mobile homes are available, that use OSB and plywood. Our 90's model Clayton has OSB flooring, they are very common.

http://www.epa.gov/teach/chem_summ/Formaldehyde_summary.pdf
http://greenhomeguide.com/askapro/question/im-concerned-about-toxic-offgassing-from-osb-subflooring-and-roofing-are-safer-products-available
http://www.doityourself.com/stry/everything-you-need-to-know-about-particle-board-outgassing#b

http://www.cdc.gov/nceh/ehhe/trailerstudy/pdfs/08_118152_compendium%20for%20states.pdf

Welcome to the site.

Welcome to the show come inside, come inside. I created this site to document the creation of my first green certified house, and it happens to be a mobile home. I wanted to do this, as their is very little content online, that pertains to green living in a mobile home. My primary concern, is air quality. This site will follow the green renovation of a home I just bought, and feature entries useful for anyone desiring better air quality in their home. I also have a very Tyler Durden view of the world, and I want to occasionally share this worldview.

I also hope this site will help to diffuse certain stereotypes attached to living in a mobile home. The inspiration to start this blog, came from Crystal at www.mobilehomeliving.com. Her site showcases remodeled mobile homes, articles on vintage mobiles, and ideas for redecorating. But my favorite thing about her blog, is that she is really making an effort to tear down the stereotypes, that surround the house on wheels. I hope to replace the stereotype, that people who live in mobile homes are; poor, uneducated, dirty, and lazy, with; people who live in mobile homes are frugal, family centered, adventurous, and creative.



A mobile home is a canvas, waiting to be painted. Since the buy in price is extremely low, there is no danger of decreasing the value (if you buy a home at its depreciated bottom) by expressing a home owners personal creativity. In a stick built home, the owner is always thinking about resale value. Stick built home owners, will likely shy away from what they really want, in favor of something neutral(I could be wrong, I have only had experience with mobile homes). In a bottom depreciated mobile home, anything you do is likely to increase its value.The only limit to a renovation, is a homeowners ultimate goal. If you plan on living out your days in your mobile palace, I say go crazy. Spare no expense when you set out to remodel your home. Because even if you drop $20,000, you still only have $30,000-$40,000 invested (if you buy it righT). For those who have never attempted a renovation, $20,000 in materials will let you remodel your homes entire interior, with the finest materials available. Granite counter tops, oak floors and cabinets, tile bathrooms with lavish claw foot tubs. Once you are finished, you will have a Home that would have cost you 100s of thousands, if it would have been a traditional "stick built" home. To me that is financial wisdom, not poor.

Looking towards the site of our single wide home

If you have not read "the millionaire next door", I highly recommend it. The books ultimate message is this, live below your means, invest wisely, and you can become a millionaire. The book Is basically a compilation of research. It looks at two categories of people; those that appear rich, and those that are rich. The majority of people who appear rich, are living paycheck to paycheck. They live well above their means, live in fine homes, drive luxury automobiles, and live extravagant lifestyles. The majority of those that are rich; live in modest middle class homes, drive used cars, and make an average middle class income. They became rich, because they lived well below there means. How much wealthier could they have become, if they could have gotten past the social stigma  surrounding mobile homes. I'm over it, how about you?