After the Christmas break, we finally received our insulation! We used a company called Expol for this, who were able to give us seconds polystyrene cut to our specifications. The “seconds” aspect was barely noticeable – there were a few black dots in the pieces of polystyrene which I wouldn’t even have noticed had Tom not pointed them out. It took us three trips into town with the trailer to pick up the insulation – a job that took us a couple of Fridays when the company was open. We probably over-ordered and will end up with a ton left over – to be used for a future project or passed on to someone else building a tiny house, perhaps!
We had a pretty efficient team of helpers when we started insulating! Dad came up to help again, and we had our friends Blair and Michelle who came out to see the house and give us a hand. We measured out the polystyrene to fit in between the studs, cut it to size with a hand saw, and fitted it into the gap, using a file to rasp bits off if it didn’t quite fit due to imperfections in the wood (which happened a lot). It turned out that punching the bits of polystyrene into the walls was quite therapeutic too! We managed to get the majority of the walls insulated in the first weekend with all of our helpers.
The second weekend, we were doing some of the more fiddly bits in the sleeping loft and kitchen. My Mum and Dad came up for the day to help us, which was great! My Mum and Tom carried on with the insulation, while Dad started the lining, and I finally got around to spray painting the remaining window in the sleeping loft. After doing this, I joined in with the insulation crew. Dad did an amazing job of lining the bathroom with plywood, including putting in a cut out cupboard around the shelves I built a few weeks ago (and have still yet to complete fully). He cut and fitted the wood so precisely that I think it will be hard to tell there is a cupboard there at all when it’s done! Having this section of the house lined means that now Tom will be able to start the plumbing for the bathroom, and, eventually, the kitchen. Having hot running water in the house is the next big priority for us, so the work that we do over the next few weeks will probably be centered around this.
The Tiny People 