The plywood sheathing that wraps the house serves many purposes. It helps keep water out of the structure as construction progresses but it also provides stability to the tiny house. Plywood is composed of three sheets of wood oriented with different grain directions.
Some plies have vertical grain, others horizontal grain, and the rest have diagonal grain. This gives the plywood strength in all these different directions. A square of 2x4s can easily collapse, but when it is sheathed, it will hold its shape under incredible loads!
Sheathing the tiny house in plywood enables us to remove the wooden stays as stability is introduced tot he structure.
My dad and I would position a sheet of plywood and tack in a few screws to hold it in place, then we would add a few more to keep it well attached to the house. Later, we would run around the house placing a screw every foot in each stud of the frame. This ties the house together with such great strength that we felt confident enough to stand on the tops of the walls while working on the roof.
The problem is, there are lots of studs and tons of screws to drive in! I highly recommend using a drill with a driver on it, as it makes the process proceed incredibly quickly. Light weight is another wonderful feature, as the drill will begin to feel heavy and make stabilizing the unit hard as the work progresses.
Even with the ease of power tools, driving in each screw is very time consuming. Maddie spent an entire afternoon sheathing the "no door" side and front of the tiny house!
Lastly, cordless battery powered drivers are amazing! You never have to worry about the plug separating or the cord not reaching. Lastly, have fun while you do it because you are building your tiny house!
