vintage park model remodel

Hi all,
I'm an inexperienced person in the area of trailers.  I've always wanted to remodel a vintage trailer and live in it, but I'm wondering if it is even in the realm of realistic in Wisconsin.  I have found a 1957 park model. I estimate it is about 9 x  35 feet.  It was used as an office trailer and is now being used as a home again.  It really needs to be gutted and to start over with flooring and walls and insulation.  The built in's are still in good condition and the range is a great gas range.  However the kitchen and bathroom will need to be redone.  The roof is rubber and in good condition and the exterior and siding looks good.  The windows have been replaced with wood double-pain windows and there is a regular house door on one of the doors.  It looks like at least part of the trailer has been drywalled and further insulated and rewired with a 2010 furnace.  The workmanship is not good though (on the walls and floors) and the fluorescent lights need to come down and be replace with different lighting.

Does anyone have experience in a cold climate with a vintage trailer as such?  Am I dreaming that I can get this trailer up reasonable standards and not pay high energy costs?  Does anyone have any estimates of what it costs to completely remodel a trailer such as this?  I will need to contract some of the work out, but could do some of it myself under the guidance of an experienced contractor.

I would like to put cork floors down it is now partially tiled with patches of broken and untiled areas.  I would also like to put beadboard walls and maybe ceiling and fix the place up into a cottage style tiny efficiency home.  It is on a great lot adjacent to a park.  I'm okay with doing some things across time, but would love to get the insulation, floors, walls, ceiling, and bathroom completed quickly before moving in.  I'm also curious about how to deal with insulating behind the built-ins, or do I really need to just pull everything out?

Thank you for any honest guidance you can provide.   

I suspect it would be best to pull out the appliances and really insulate good everywhere.

What is the exterior material - is it a metal sided trailer or has siding been put on?? Ideally you would start just like a home from the outside with a good Tyvek vapor barrier, then from the inside between the studs a good hi R insulation then your wallboard of course working around your wiring and plumbing. The spray in foam insulation is very good, but I would speak to someone from the area on what is best for the environment you are in.

I would also remove the floor and insulate well under there with a vapor barrier outside the floor framing then good insulation prior to putting the new rough floor down.

It will be a big job, but if done properly be as good as a stick built home, if you treat it the same way!!

Have fun...

Jim

It's a metal sided trailer.  Is it possible to take the metal siding off and put it back on easily in order to get the insulation and wrap established.  I'm just trying to think of ways to get the main insulation, walls, floors, and bathroom in first and then save up to make improvements later.  I'm wondering if I can accomplish the main tasks within about $6000 dollars or not.  I guess I'll need to talk to an experienced mobile home contractor to see what their estimates are.

The big problem in living in an RV in cold weather is the walls, ceiling and floor are too thin to allow you to adequately insulate the interior - at least by stick house standards.  Most stick houses have exterior walls that are 4" or 6" or more in width to allow room for adequate cold weather insulation.  6" to 10" is the norm for floors and ceilings - again, an RV has only a couple of inches there.  Without adequate insulation you'll spend a fortune every winter keeping it heated.

RVs are usually less than full legal road height, so you could add insulation thickness to the floor and ceiling.  But older trailers are 96" wide, and if you frame the outer walls thick enough to get acceptable insulation values you'll only have about 6 ft. of useable interior width.

If your real goal is to have a vintage park model good luck.


Restoring something that old will probably never be economically viable. The price of material will far exceed the purchase price and final value of the park model.

Yes, I'm thinking the cost is just so prohibitive.  I'm not aiming to have the remodel 50's specific, just a nice cottage decor.  The trailer is actually a vintage mobile home that is 9 feet wide and it actually has a fairly high ceiling. I've been in newer mobile homes with lower ceilings.  I can touch it when I'm on my tip-toes and I'm about 5'6" tall.  I would keep this trailer parked in a park and would not be traveling in it.  I imagine I would only move it if I bought land at some point to put it on.

But, it seems that to get the trailer energy efficient and make it look aesthetically nice would be pretty expensive.  I wasn't sure if some of the reflexit or other insulation would do the trick or not.  So I might as well keep renting tiny apartments.  It would just be nice to have a little green space to garden, my own 4 walls to call my own, and not have to pay pet rent for my very well-mannered pets. 

Thank you for the feedback. 

"Energy efficient" and "old trailer" do not belong in the same sentence. 

I lived in a 1958 New Moon for about 5 years, did a lot of fixing up on it during that time.  The walls were only 2" thick.  Filling them with foam was more than I could afford, so I froze in the winter and baked in the summer.  Fixed broken pipes at least once a season (Too young and dumb to know bout PEX at the time).  I don't live in Wisconsin though...  I can only imagine what the winters would be like in that old trailer there....  Brrr.

Yes, you can remove the metal siding to access the wall interior.  In fact I had places that were rusted through and I found that there's nothing under that siding EXCEPT wall interior.  One of the toughest parts of that job was finding a "Clutch Head" screwdriver bit locally.  the whole trailer was assembled with those and it's real tough to get them in or out with the wrong bit.  I ended up just covering over the metal siding with exterior OSB siding from the lumberyard.  I swear it stiffened up the whole structure quite a bit.  But it also lost a good bit of the cool 'old trailer' flavor.

Insulation on my old New Moon was an odd, cottony, maybe some kind of fiberglass mat, it looked a little like excelsior.  I would have liked to pull it all out and put foam in instead, but that foam sheet is NOT cheap.

Windows are the other thing...  Old windows look awesome.  I LOVED the awning and louver windows in the spring and fall.  Never seemed to be able to get enough cooling breeze through in the summer.  In the winter they were the draftiest things...  I remember putting plastic insulation film over them and watching the plastic bulge with the breeze.  But again, if you replace them with energy efficient windows, you lose all the 'old trailer' charm, and you'd have to figure out how you're going to frame them in.  Remember the walls were only 2" thick...  We won't even discuss their price.

I completely agree with Jeff.  This would have to be a labor of love, because you're never going to get out of it the money you put into it.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, there's other goals in life worth shooting for besides not losing money.  But you really do need to be somewhat mechanically inclined, and willing to get filthy dirty, and able to learn if you want to rebuild a trailer.  If you need a contractor to do the work, I'm telling you right now, you can't afford it.  Contractors and other service people (Plumbers, etc) often automatically add a fee or percentage for working on a mobile home, because much of the code is different.  Add in the consideration that there pretty much were no codes at all when the trailer was built, and you can run into a lot of headaches quickly dealing with contractors.  A homeowner can get away with a good bit more than a contractor can, but again, you must be fairly mechanically inclined to make sure your repairs work and are safe.

One other thing regarding selling it when the time comes...  You might check into your state laws on moving permits...  Around here, once a mobile home is past a certain age, it cannot be legally moved.  Your state may have similar restrictions.  You significantly reduce the number of potential purchasers if it has to stay in the park.  When I sold mine I pretty much gave it away to a rancher who wanted it for a bunkhouse and didn't mind breaking the law to remove it from the park.  But I needed the lot rent money for my new mortgage payments...  What else could I do?  So it does make more sense to own the land an old trailer is on, if you want to fix that trailer up.

If you do tackle the project, I wish you all the luck.  Some of my best memories took place in that old trailer of mine.

Ian,

Thank you so much for sharing your experience.  I think it helped dissolve my dream of fixing up an older trailer until I have a little more money and time and maybe my own land!  Maybe it really does make more sense for me to buy a small mobile home trailer from and start from scratch.  So, I'm back to looking at apartments for my move and will appreciate the roof over my head until I can own my own place.  It's just really difficult to find a decent, quiet place to rent with a pet.  Pet owners get thrown in with the smokers and party crowd because mostly the more lenient landlords that are not interested in putting money into their property will accept the pets.    Argh!  Forgive my frustration with finding a place to live.

Thank you for sharing all your experience.  I'm sure it has helped me see the truth in the situation.

Kim

Kim


Have you checked out mobile home parks? Many have units to rent and allow pets.

Yes, I have looked into mobile home parks.  That is where I found this vintage trailer.  There is not much available for rent in the mobile home parks where I am looking.  There are some lots without homes available and some huge homes for sale.  I may have a chance to buy at some point, but most mobile homes are pretty large these days.  I really only want/need a park model size that is energy efficient and not made of tons of materials that off-gas or are plastic. I hear myself becoming pretty picky about my desires, especially if I am going to buy any sort of a mobile home that I'm going to make my home for a while.  I know they are not an investment, but perhaps I could save up and get a custom park model built that has sufficient insulation, etc.

Cheers,
Kim

Kim,

Where in Wisconsin do you want to live? 

Madison

Kim,  Please correct me if I'm wrong.  What I think you are saying is that you want affordable housing that you own and not necessarily an RV which is a recreational vehicle.  Is that correct? 

Correct.  I just posted on this forum because I thought the RV community might have good insight about what it takes to remodel an older trailer and I did find that. 

Yes, I want affordable housing on a small scale and a safe, quiet living community with a little green space to garden, and an place that accepts my pets and is acceptable for pets, etc. So, more than just "affordable housing."  I want a decent quality of life housing.  It's harder to find than one might think.  Yes, I am grateful for the relatively good living standards in this country and yet I have my ideal as well, which I would like to think should be achievable even on a low income. 

I have looked into what are called tiny houses or park models that can be used in a mobile home park.  I need to be within biking/busing distance from the city center because parking is too expensive.  I do not really need a larger mobile home and the costs start to become prohibitive when you add in the energy costs.  The mobile home lots in the city are almost as much as rent, so I would prefer to stay small in a very energy efficient home to keep utility costs down to make living there reasonable. 

So, it's no hurry, I can continue renting, but I always wanted my own little space and with student loans and a lower salary, I may never be able to qualify for a mortgage even though I can afford rent.  But, I may be able to save a bit here and there and find a way to get closer towards my goal.

Thank you for your interest.