Easy way to insulate a trailer

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Colorado Girl
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2018 6:38 am
Location: Southern Colorado mountains

This is my first time posting, but, I had to share our insulation project after it made it through the first winter, unscathed, here in the Colorado mountains.

It was relatively easy and cheap diy project. Two of my favorite things.

List of materials:
* 2 inch thick 4x8 sheets of XPS hard foam insulation. (Blue or pink your choice, but not the cheap white styrofoam)
* Styro Industries Flexcoat (comes in a bunch of colors)
* 1 box of 3 inch deck screws
* Fender washers to fit screws
* Loctite PL Premium 300X construction adhesive
* Self adhesive drywall mesh tape.

The hard foam was glued directly to the outside of our 45 year old, original metal trailer siding. The screws and washers were used to hold the foam insulation in place, just until the glue dried.
I was careful to screw into the 2x4 wall studs. Once the glue has dried, you can remove them if you want. The drywall mesh tape was used over the seams between the 4 foot sheets of foam, and on the corners around the doors. The Flexcoat is made specifically to coat and protect exposed insulated foam foundations, and really makes the foam tough and pretty. It’s a heavy mix of acrylic paint and fine silicate sand.
https://styro.net/FlexCoatFoamAndICFCoating.html

I did not seal the foam at the top, between the foam and the trailer siding. I just put it up under the gutter. My reasoning was that any water that got in between the foam and the siding, would just run down the vertical channels in the siding and out the bottom. I knew it would all be covered by a new roof over the next spring. I’m sure a good caulk could be used to seal the seam, if need be.

We bought the Flexcoat in the color “linens”. I ended up using only 3 gallons, because we have so many windows and doors. I ordered extra 2” foam sheets to make faux stone moldings around the windows and doors. I wanted to give the wall some architectural interest, to help disguise the funky old trailer house look.

We only put this on the windy side of our trailer, just to see if our experiment would hold up to the wind, rain and snow. It’s been a year now, and it still looks great. The best part, was the difference it made keeping the house warm, and so much quieter. This past winter was the first time we were able to walk around the house without wearing slippers.

I got the idea from the Halloween Forum. These people build all kinds of structures out of hard construction foam. There’s lots of pictures, because they like to show off their projects. And, lots of ideas for faux finishing the foam to make it look like stone or rock.

I’ve actually have had practice with this technique in our yard. I’ve created faux stone arches, gluing the foam to painted plywood walls. But, I only painted the arches with exterior acrylic, and the paint shows hail damage. No hail damage at all on the trailer wall, not with the thin coat of Flexcoat.

Gluing up the foam was fairly quick and easy. I had it all up in 3 days. Faux finishing took a bit longer. I was in a hurry to hide our new pink panther trailer, and winter was coming. But, I took the time to use a 4 foot level to get all my faux stone carefully laid out. Drawing the grout lines with a pen. The time consuming part, is burning in the fake grout lines. For this you need a metal yard stick and a soldering iron. Practicing on scrap foam, is a good idea. You need to go slow enough to get a consistent depth and width.

After I had my faux grout lines done, it was time for the Flexcoat.
I found out, that once this stuff is dry, the soldering iron will not burn through it. I tried brushing on the Flexcoat, but, it was hard to keep out of my grout lines. I ended up squeegeeing it on to each section of “stone”, much easier to control. Before it could dry, I stippled each section with a damp paint brush, to remove the marks left by the squeegee. The directions said to only apply the Flexcoat in the shade, as it dries really fast.

My faux stone insulation wall was only a small part of much larger, 3 phase project. My husband and I are just now finishing phase 2, a new roof over.

You can see pictures of everything we’ve done so far, in my google album.
https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipN ... pYVTh5Q0JR
Questions?
If it can be done to an old trailer, we’ve probably done it.
1976 Skylar 12x60’
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