The bath-trailer is considered a completely rational option for the development of a summer cottage. In addition to enjoying the healing procedures, you can just live here while the capital house is being built. How to install a trailer and equip a bathhouse in it - this is our article. Content:
- Seat selection
- Selection of the trailer
- Bath layout
-
Bath installation
- Preparatory work
- Installation
- Communications
- Bake
- Thermal insulation
- Finishing
Let's start with the fact that such a bath has a good quality-price ratio. Like a solid structure, it gives an awareness of freshness and cleanliness, promotes recovery and improves mood after a hard day. A modern bath-trailer is equipped with any equipment of your choice for a good rest. The lucky ones, whose arms come from their shoulders, are able to realize their most daring decisions in a decommissioned shed. But let's leave them a flight of imagination and dwell on our mundane principles of building a bath from a trailer. So, to the point!
Choosing a place for a bath from a trailer
First you need to find out if it is possible to install a trailer at all on the site. This can be hindered by the terrain or inconvenient access roads. After all, the delivery and unloading of such a bulky product from the platform is carried out using a truck crane with a certain boom reach. And it just might not be enough. Ordering such equipment is not a cheap pleasure. Therefore, evaluate this opportunity in advance. If the unloading of the trailer does not constitute much of a hassle, you can select a suitable place for it on the site.
The rules here are simple:
- If you have a natural reservoir in your possession, install a bath no closer than 15 m from the water. This will protect the trailer from flooding during a flood.
- The maximum removal of the bath from the nearby road will keep you calm and provide complete relaxation during your wellness activities.
- The entrance to the bathhouse is planned from the south side - there are fewer snow drifts in winter.
- The windows are located on the southwest side if you plan to visit the bathhouse in the evening.
- Vegetation and trees near the trailer will add an ozonizing effect to the air and create a feeling of coziness.
Selection of a trailer for a bath
The dimensions of the trailers are relatively small. This makes it easier to transport them from one place to another and to adapt them for different purposes. Structural elements of trailers and country wooden baths are practically the same. Therefore, to get a real bathhouse out of the cabins, you just need to re-plan its premises.
Change houses have two versions - metal and wooden. For a bath, it is better to choose a cabins made of wood. The main advantage that distinguishes it favorably from a metal trailer is its low price, since a wooden bar is much cheaper than metal. When choosing a trailer, you need to pay attention to the integrity of its frame and the absence of serious damage to the outer skin.
A company that specializes in the execution of prefabricated buildings can make a custom-made summer caravan for you. Such firms always have ready-made projects for cabins for various purposes. You can select any of them and make the changes you need to the document. The company's specialists will take into account your requirements in the process of making an order.
Bath trailer layout
To convert the trailer into a bath, it is necessary to divide its internal space into several walk-through rooms. But that is not all. The steam room with a stove requires special attention, since it is this that distinguishes the bath-trailer from an ordinary garden house. But more about him later.
The width of a standard shed is 2.3 m. Therefore, all its rooms will be walk-through. The trailer can be divided by door partitions into a vestibule, a changing room, a rest room and a steam room. Instead of a washing compartment, a shower stall is installed in the recreation room to save space.
The tambour will serve as a safety valve against frosty air entering the rooms through open doors. It is possible to store a "duty" stock of firewood in it. The dimensions of doorways are taken in 1, 9 x 0, 7 m with the obligatory opening of all doors towards the main exit.
The dimensions of the steam room in such a bath are 2, 2 x 2, 5 m with a ceiling height of no more than 2, 3 m. Such a volume of the room will make it easy to regulate the temperature and humidity in it, and also does not require the installation of a powerful and expensive stove. The firebox of the stove can be taken out to the rest room. Thanks to this, there will be no debris in the steam room, and the adjacent room will receive heating.
The power supply, heating, water supply, sewerage and ventilation systems are equipped in a bathhouse converted from a trailer, applicable to the conditions of an ordinary country house.
Installation of a bath from a trailer with your own hands
If you decide not to resort to the services of a construction organization, but to install the bath from the trailer with your own hands, please be patient - and you will succeed.
Preparatory work before the installation of the trailer
Preparing the site for the installation of a bath includes cleaning the area from debris, removing the vegetative layer of the soil and uprooting bushes. Then the perimeter of the foundation is marked on the ground, corresponding to the size of the trailer. This is done with a cord, tape measure and small pegs. The center lines of the reference part are marked in the same way.
Installation of a trailer for a bath
For a light trailer, it is not at all necessary to build a strong foundation. In this case, its main goal is to ensure the stability of the bath on the support and to create an air gap between the bottom of the trailer and the top layer of soil. Such a gap is necessary for ventilation of the base of the bath and for the convenient laying of its utilities.
For a trailer bath, a columnar foundation will be quite enough. It is performed with a slight deepening and a height of up to half a meter. Pieces of piles, rubble stone, bricks and reinforced concrete can serve as material for it. The posts are located along the marked perimeter with a step of 2-3 m. Their top is covered with waterproofing, and a wooden frame made of a bar with a section of 150x150 mm is installed on it.
Before installation, its wood is treated with an antiseptic, and the parts are connected using metal corners. The horizontalness of the frame laid on the foundation is checked by the building level. The construction of the supporting part is completed.
At the next stage, the trailer is installed on a support consisting of foundation posts and a wooden frame. This operation is performed using a truck crane. During installation, you need to create a small slope for the bath - about 1% - towards the steam room and fix it with gaskets on the frame. This will allow you to organize the drainage of water from the bath into the floor drain. With plumbing PVC pipes, the drain is connected to a drain pit or a central sewerage system.
Communications to the bath from the trailer
The wiring in the vestibule, changing room and rest room is carried out in the usual way. An exception is the steam room. It uses a heat-resistant cable in a metal sleeve, which is laid under the insulation. There should not be sockets and switches in the steam room; the lamp is used here, waterproof, explosion-proof.
The ventilation system of the bath must cover all of its premises. At the same time, a forced mechanical exhaust works and a natural flow of air through ventilation openings equipped with dampers.
The pipes of the water supply and heating systems, when supplied to the bath-trailer, are covered with heat-insulating material to prevent them from freezing in the winter.
Stove for a bath from a trailer
The stove-heater can be made by yourself or you can buy a ready-made one. A lot of drawings and photos of the baths of trailers, equipped with stoves of various modifications, are posted on the Internet and in printed publications - use it to your health. It is better to buy a finished oven from well-known manufacturers of such products, for example, HARVIA or ERMAK.
The wall of the trailer closest to the stove must be faced with a galvanized steel sheet with a heat-insulating gasket. A metal heat-reflecting screen is installed above the stove at a slight angle, thanks to which the wooden ceiling sheathing will not suffer from the high radiation temperature of the heating device. The lower edge of the screen is fixed to the wall, and its upper part to the ceiling, with screws 80 mm long through thin insulating bars 30x30 mm.
For additional heating of the room adjacent to the steam room, a hole D = 100 mm is made in their partition for a corrugated metal pipe, equipped with a ventilation grill. It is located near the stove closer to the floor.
The water in the bath is heated from the stove in a special tank. An alternative option is to install a boiler in the washroom.
Our bathhouse will be heated "on white", so the stove chimney must go out into the street. Its passage through the wall or ceiling of the trailer is decorated with a protective box or sleeve with basalt wool as a heat insulator. Outside, the joint is covered with a metal apron and sealed with an asbestos cord.
Thermal insulation of a bath from a trailer
The bath-trailer is insulated along its contour - floor, walls, ceiling. For external and internal insulation of cabins, basalt wool, polyurethane sheets, ISOVER and ROCKWOOL are used. These are non-combustible materials of the G-4 group.
For floor insulation, in particular, polyurethane sheets are suitable, which are then covered with boards. Such protection does not allow cold air from the street to pass through, retains the warmth of the premises and reduces the cost of heating them.
After laying the insulation, it must be covered with a waterproofing film. For this, it is recommended to use the UTAVEK three-layer windproof membrane or its analogue. It is quite reliable for protecting the enclosing structures from water and wind. You can buy such a film in rolls of 1, 5x50 m.
In the steam room, the insulation is covered with foil heat-reflecting paper on the walls and ceiling. It is attached to the bars with a construction stapler, and its seams are sealed with metal tape.
Interior decoration of the bath from the trailer
The inner lining of the walls, ceilings and partitions of the bath is made with clapboard, which is made of various materials - plastic, wood, etc. The steam room uses a lining made of pine, spruce, linden or aspen wood. For external wall cladding, it is convenient to use ventilated curtain panels. They resist the penetration of moisture and thereby exclude the appearance of fungus and mold on the walls.
The finishing works in the trailer bath include the manufacture of shelves in the steam room. If they are made in two levels, this will be quite enough, taking into account the height of the bath room. The length of the shelf is taken as 2, 2-2, 3 m for comfortable reclining on it. The shelf width - 0, 6-0, 7 m - will allow you to sit comfortably on it. For their manufacture, a board made of linden or aspen is often used, which has a low thermal conductivity. Therefore, getting burned on it is quite problematic.
Installation of a bath from the trailer, see the video:
That's all! We hope that you have learned the general concepts of how to make a bath from a trailer. Otherwise, it all depends on your desire and financial capabilities. Good luck!
