30 Years in a Housetruck

Page Five: Beginning Construction

Not all of the materials for the Housetruck came from the swap meet or Rogers Supply. Some were recycled out of existing buildings. The fiberglass insulation was a find from an office next door to "The Shop" that was being remodeled, foil-faced R-11 that was offered by the builders before it went into the dumpster. Somewhere I also managed to acquire several bales of brand new rock-wool insulation, kraft-faced, R-7.

The door and some of the windows in the truck were recycled from the Flamingo Trailer factory before it was torn down. The site was abandoned for years, and was in the last stages of deconstruction when the Huxwood Demolition crew donned their blue work shirts and added hard hats and tool belts. We pulled two doors off of the former guard shack, and salvaged six or so HEHR brand three-tier awning windows. Many of the electrical outlet boxes and some of the wiring came from this factory as well. So complete was our disguise, that a California Highway Patrol officer made a routine traffic stop directly across the street from where we were working an never even glanced at us or what looked to be a tradesman's work truck parked in the lot.

Two days after our visit the remains of the Flamingo Trailer factory was bulldozed into splinters and hauled off to the landfill.

After that, Woodley and I talked a lot about urban camouflage and how to blend into the background while still dwelling in our trucks. We often kidded one another about painting "Goodmill" on the side of his step van, installing a "donations" chute and parking it in supermarket parking lots to see if we could collect any valuables.

The fiberglass insulation was quickly installed in the truck, along with some one-inch styrene (Styrofoam) insulation that we picked up behind some industrial buildings. There was quite a pile of it most of the time, sheets with damaged corners or small stains/cracks. There were also some sheets of ¼" flexible foam that made good under floor insulation and added some extra insulation to the walls against the steel siding.

The floors were built up with ¾" lath, insulated between, and then decked over with ½" plywood, screwed down.

My friend T-Max was around a lot and at one point, he asked me how long I expected that the materials I was using would last. The question kind of took me by surprise, as I hadn't considered that they would need to last much longer than the trip to Oregon. Ten years seemed an eternity then, and I allowed as though they should be good for that long at least.

With the help of George, one of the more responsible members of The Shop crew who had a welder, I modified the framing in the curb side of the truck, and installed one of the Flamingo doors. The rest of the windows and the other door would be packed up to Oregon to be installed as the truck was completed.

When it came time to build my sleeping loft, Woodley's expertise and confidence in woodworking helped a lot. I had taken some wood shop classes in jr. high and high school, but hadn't done all that much construction aside from some rough framing and a nicely finished cabinet for an old tube-type Harmon Kardon stereo preamplifier (lots of 12AX7A vacuum tubes!). I was concerned that my housetruck would end up looking a lot like my first club house, boards all sawn crooked and bent-over nails.

In fact, my first attempt at a loft collapsed when I tested it by placing body weight on its frame. The new frame was made of 2x4's and was much sturdier, built across the front of the van body, about five feet from the floor, with a deck made from my family's former ping-pong table, which was a 5x10' sheet of ¾" plywood.

That was as far as the house construction went before I left for the Beaver State. No appliances, no wiring or plumbing, no cabinets. It was mostly insulated, with an entry door that had a double hung aluminum window, and a platform to hold a foam mattress. All the rest would have to wait until I was away from Los Angeles.