The Demolition
Here's where it all comes apart.
Oh the humanity!
Enjoy the carnage.
Here's where it all comes apart.
Oh the humanity!
Enjoy the carnage.
Hard to believe the window stayed in there.
Water, plywood and age don't make good bed fellows.
The hole in the lower right was made by some kind of rodent squatter. We found piles of nuts and bedding in multiple places - even under the heater - obviously a smart rodent.
Notice also the angle of the bumper - no need to adjust your monitor - it's really got the Detroit lean goin' on.
Some of the wood flaked off just like paper.
Another shot of the rodent entrance to the Chateau de HiLander.
Now you can see why the corner was bursting, nothing solid left to hold it back.
I marveled at how this joint came together. Not at all what I expected to find before the skin came off.
Rotted right through the inner skin. Now I see why the paneling was needed.
Yep, just scary.
Interesting how some of the things done since the walls were just 1/2" of plywood. We'll be changing that also. The new walls will be a sandwich as you'll see down the road.
The white stuff you see in that hole is caulk. When a spot rotted through they just tried to fill it with softball sized gobs of silicone caulk.
Uh, wait...what?
Under the rot, you can see the seal bead that was between the walls and the roof panels.
Yep, the wires just ran under the 1/16" of insulation and the aluminum skin.
The staples just couldn't hold on anymore.
From a few steps back you can pretty much see exactly where the water came in and spread out over time to compromise the wall.
What more can you say.
The roof was not spared from the rot.
Water just followed the curve of the roof down, eating away as it went.
The roof vent was an obvious source of leakage.
Yummy.
This one was an all time great. They replaced or "reinforced" the bottom rear with a 2x4. But it stuck out from the wall at the bottom by about an inch, so they could never get the skin to follow the wall anymore, so it was left to bulge around the 2x4 and they tried to fill in the hole again with a half a tube of caulk. Nice work, fellas.
More of the same.
Another bit of factory fun visible here. The craggy line to the left of the door opening is a groove routed in the side of the wall where they ran the propane line from below the trailer to the propane light inside. Remember those walls are a hair more than 1/2" thick and the OD of the copper line is about 3/8". To stiffen that back up they just put big staples across the groove, hehe, wow. And yes, I did say propane light inside. Just like an old camping lantern, but mounted to the wall by your head as you enter.
This was probably the worst of the rot on the whole trailer. I'll have to use my imagination when using that part for templates later.
Yes, sorry, I didn't take more pictures of the walls coming down and the entrails being removed. Once Chris and I got on a roll tearing it down, we just kept going.
Doesn't resemble much now.
This I really wanted to use for documenting how the floor was originally. Note - the torsion springs are both completely intact - happy dance. On these old trailers, these are many times broken.
Another ray of sunshine - the street side wall came off essentially intact, it should make for a good pattern. Cool.