A Better Way to Cut Battens

One way to make battens is to rip them with a skill saw. This works quickly and will produce a nice set of battens out of a 2x4, but a lot of wood will be lost due to the blades kerf. 

A better way to rip battens is to use a blade with a a narrower kerf, as this will reduce the amount of wood that is turned into saw dust which translates into more wood that gets turned into battens.

To do this, I used a bandsaw setup with a very thin blade with a rip fence. My bandsaw doesn't have a built in rip fence, but this is easily managed by clamping a block of wood to the table at a measured distance from the blade. I chose to rip these battens to 4mm in thickness, yielding many more battens than I could have gotten with a skillsaw.

The distance to the blade is the most important point to measure, as it will determine the width of the batten. The second block was just to help me keep oriented as I was pulling the board after it had been cut on the other side of the bandsaw.

In the end, I was able to get a lot more battens out of an already used 2x4 with the bandsaw. The thicknesses were much more consistent and the waste was minimal. This resulted in more battens and less saw dust!

Wrapping the Tiny

The front and back of the tiny house were wrapped before the wedding, now that we are back from the honeymoon, it is time to wrap the sides to move along with construction.

The sides are wrapped from bottom to top, with the top layers overlapping the lower layers. This causes a shingle effect which will help shed water and avoid water from getting under the tar paper and wetting the plywood.

If you store your tools and building supplies in the tiny house like I do, be sure you get them all out before you seal up the door with tar paper!

Now that the house is fully wrapped, battens will be placed on the walls to hold the tar paper in place while the windows are installed.

Making Battens

Battens are simply long strips of wood. They are easy to make and handy to use during construction. Battens used in construction are similar to the battens used in sails, but the ones in sails are made out of much higher quality wood!

The battens used to hold the tar paper in place on the tiny house are made out of cheap pine 2x4s from Home Depot. A 2x4 is placed on a raised platform (scrap pieces of wood) and then ripped with a skillsaw.

A rip fence is installed in the front of the skillsaw, allowing you to control how wide you wish to make your cut (how thick the batten will be). I cut mine to 1/4" thickness. To cut the batten, the rip fence is placed on the side of the 2x4 and held firmly onto the wood as the cut progresses. The rip fence lets you take your focus away from how thick you are cutting and instead focus on holding the saw onto the wood. Cutting the battens is as simple as holding the saw and pushing it along the plank! Instead of buying pricey battens, buy a 2x4 for less than $2 and rip several battens out of it; because of losses by the kerf of the saw, I was only able to get 6 battens out of the 2x4. This would equate to $0.33 per batten, much cheaper than buying battens from the store.

Wrapping the Tiny House

Plywood will not last long exposed to the elements. While the plywood sheathing will be protected by the siding, leaks will still occur unannounced to us which will rot out the plywood sheathing. To protect the plywood, tar paper is placed around the tiny house!

Since I'm working alone, tar paper was installed in smaller (more manageable) pieces. I started at the bottom and worked my way up to the roof. The bottom of the next row overlaps the top of the lower row to provide a shingle effect, effectively keeping the water from entering the tiny house sheathing plywood. 

I wrapped the tar paper around the corner. When I wrap the sides of the house, those sheets will overlay these sheets. It is important to work on one wall at a time, covering it from bottom to roof with overlapping layers. 

Battens were cut and screwed to the the outside, tacking down and supporting the tar paper. If battens were not used, the tar paper would probably rip off the nails that hold it and blow away in the wind. Battens help hold everything in place and keep the tar paper installed on the tiny house until the siding is ready to go on.

The windows are left covered at this time as the tar paper will keep out any water that might come in. After everything is wrapped, the windows will be cut out in the tar paper and the glass windows installed. Until then, the holes will be protected from rain as construction progresses.

Cutting Out the Windows

The tiny house has been sheathed and screwed completely! The windows are now covered by plywood and only visible from the inside by the outlining frames. In order to cut them out without missing the mark (and cutting random holes in the side of the house) I will need some guidance.

From the inside, I drilled a series of holes outlining the window. From the outside I connected the dots with the help of a straight edge. This gave me a scribe line indicating where to cut with the skillsaw. 

The depth of cut was set to 1/2" which is slightly deeper than the sheathing we used (15/32"). This will let me cut out the window hole without damaging the framework of the walls.

Once the line is cut, sheathing screws are set around the frame of the window. I waited to put these screws in because the saw would be damaged if it hit a metal screw along the cut! Now that the sheathing is scribed, cut, and screwed; it is time to remove the window panel and open up the window opening.

A three pound sledge hammer works wonders! I simply bash the cut wood from the inside and from the outside along the edge next to the cut. After a few hits, the panel will fly out of the hole and come crashing into the ground (make sure no one is standing around when you do this!)

The rough edges can be smoothed off by hitting it with the hammer again!

This works well on windows with no obstructions, but what about the windows near the rafters?

The skillsaw didn't fit under the rafter. This section of the cut was skipped while all the other areas were cut free.

A series of holes was drilled to weaken the wood in this area, then the panel was bashed out of the hole with the sledge hammer!

Using these techniques, all the windows were opened up. All this natural light transformed the tiny house from a wooden box to a home!