Summer project: Installing the rooflight

We have this proverb in Finnish: Vaikeuksien kautta voittoon (Through difficulties we shall conquer). That pretty much sums up the latest truck project. Instead of painting the container, as we thought we'd do when I last posted in January, we decided to install the rooflight (or hatch) and windows first.

Dometic / Seitz Heki, ordered from Germany.

We had a minor side project during this spring, which delayed our plans for a few months. We bought a building plot, sold our house and moved. That meant we had to move the truck quickly and we ended up moving it to our off-road-guru's yard in Tuusula (40 minutes drive form our new place). Out of sight, out of mind, we concentrated on planning the new house and getting our stuff together in the new place.

We had quite a miserable summer here in terms of weather, but of course it was one of the only hot days when we drove to see the truck and get started. No ventilation or holes - so it was enjoyable. The next two project days were ominously rainy, but miraculously we succeeded in the end without a total heat exhaustion or water on the floor.

So, what happened? First we just assessed the situation and cleaned up a bit (of course this vacant space filled pretty quickly during the move), and got ourselves some new tools.  Then we started by measuring the hole and drilling 12 mm diameter holes in the corners.

 

Then we cut along the lines from corner to corner with a metal sandwich saw blade. We drew the lines on the inside too to be able to check the straightness of the cut.

 A-ha, the clouds!

Then we took off 3 cm of filling out from the sides of the hole to make room for the enforcing wood pieces. The wood we had oiled for better weather proof.

After this we had to leave and let the hatch on the roof to protect the hole. We decided to come back soon to finish the installment. This, turned out, wasn't as easy as we'd hoped...

There is no photographic documentation of this next phase, for an obvious reason. We were being extra careful to avoid any cold bridges and moisture problems, so we decided to add a little bit of sealant behind the wood. Of course it kept on growing and growing and we feared the wooden pieces would come out too much and make it impossible to install the hatch. We tried to install the hatch anyway, but decided against it. After a lot of sweating and good old Finnish cursing, we left the part of the roof we had cut out inside the hole and left, defeated. We had met our first real obstacle, it seemed!

But with the sisu of a true Finn, Riku returned for the fourth time (!), to check on the situation. And it was worth it, he got it installed!

It opens wonderfully, there is a mosquito net and a curtain to keep the light out and it's right where we wanted it, on top of our bed. So Loppu hyvin, kaikki hyvin - all's well that ends well. Next project? We shall see!

- Tiina

And almost everytime I say we, I mean he :)

Container renovation Part 2

Riku took out all the mounting rails from the walls and roof. And then we cleaned the inside of the container again. So this is the container waiting for some improvements:

 

And this is working in October, before the heater and lights:

 

As it turns out, the wallpaper glue requires +18 Celsius to dry, and it was about + 5 in November. But the heater borrowed from a friend worked great and with the powerful lights it was easily over + 20.

We chose a smoothly textured glass fiber wallpaper for the walls and roof. From mint green to white:

The gymnastics approach:

The artistic approach:

And now we're in 2015 with the whole container finally wallpapered! We've got the base paint purchased, so that'll be the next phase.

Stay tuned!

/ Tiina

Container renovation Part 1

Happy New Year everybody!

We've been trying to work on the truck through our precarious Finnish early winter (slowly though, with Christmas and everything). The temperature can go from -20 Celsius to 0 in a few hours. There's rain, there's snow, there's freezing and it's dark. But hey, the container doesn't have holes in it anymore, so there's nothing a heater and some construction lights can't fix!

Last time you saw the container it was in the middle of the measuring and planning process. Some things have happened since then.

We ordered 12 aluminium plates from a metal shop to cover all the holes in the container left by the heater and other appliances. Riku painted them in our garage and drilled all the holes for the screws. We also cut out right sized bits of polyurethane foam plate and foamed them to the aluminum.

Then we needed to lift the  driver's cabin to reach the back of the container. It turned out to be a bit more tricky than planned.

The locking mechanism of the shift stick extension was leaking hydraulic fluid, so it wouldn't open and the driver's cabin wouldn't rise. It took some time to fix it, but finally we did it!

After installing the aluminum + foam plates from the inside, we filled the sides of the holes with foam to minimize cold bridges which could prove problematic in the future.

After all this cutting, spraying and taping, we finally got to covering the holes with the aluminum. First we scraped all excess dried foam and then glued the plates on.

We also took out all the original plates and glued them to get rid of the screws that would show under the wallpaper.

Speaking of which, this was next:

To be continued in Part 2.

/ Tiina