A ""THERMAL ENVELOPE"" TRAILER

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AMENITIES

At that point, we'd finished the outside work . . . "elevating" our abode's external appearance from that of a trailer to what looked like a tar-paper shack! The inside of our addition was still bare, though, so we set out to give it the final touches that would make it part of a home.

For starters, we installed rough-cut 1 X 10 flooring in the sunspace, attaching the planks to 2 X 4 joists and leaving an open space in the center of the floor for our Franklin woodstove. We lined that area with pea gravel, placed the heater on top of the rock, and ran an insulated metal chimney from the fixture through the roof (care fully following the flue manufacturer's instructions for safe installation).

Then we built a bed platform—just a bit wider than the double mattress we put on it—against the west wall, and tacked some paneling over the studs at the head of the bed to give us enough "real" wall for hanging pictures and the like (eventually, we may panel all the partitions). Finally, we added a chair and workbench, some throw rugs, a hanging planter, and a few other items . . . and stood back to admire our cozy new living room.

HEAT, HOT WATER, AND ELECTRICITY, TOO!

Our envelope trailer home is exceptionally easy to keep warm. The living space and the camper soak up Btu from the sun, and additional thermal mass (a water-filled metal stock tank set beneath the trailer plus concrete adobe blocks stacked between the woodstove and the camper) stores the heat gained. Consequently, we stay comfortable throughout the cold winter nights with only an occasional boost from our heater . . . while our neighbors burn cord after cord of firewood.

Ventilation is excellent: Warm air from the south wall and the woodstove rises over the trailer, and the cooled air flows back underneath to be heated again. In the summer, we open two vents cut into the top of the north wall to keep the sunspace from becoming overly hot, and the windows on the east and west provide cross breezes.

We pump water into our trailer's 20-gallon tank from a nearby spring, and also store an emergency supply of it in containers under the vehicle. We have plenty of hot water, too, since the trailer's equipped with a propane heater. In fact, once the liquid inside the tank is up to temperature, it stays warm (thanks mostly to the envelope) for several days, with just the pilot burning.

Moreover, since we're two miles from the nearest power line—and getting hooked up to it would cost us a staggering $6,000!—we've installed four photovoltaic panels on the roof. The units provide approximately 800 watt-hours of 12-volt DC electricity each day the sun shines, and we store the energy in two 6-volt golf-cart batteries. The system gives us enough juice for lights in the trailer and sunspace when they're needed . . . and provides current to run our water pump at night, as well as in the day.

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