How to make a change house with your own hands: step-by-step instructions

Any adult who is more or less familiar with the basics of frame construction and has at least a little experience working with tools can assemble or make a change house with their own hands. Arrangement of a compact, light and well-insulated residential building on 15-20 m2 of area will require at least a week for the box, and 3-4 days for finishing the trailer, connecting light, sewerage and water.

Does it make sense to build a change house with your own hands?

There are several ways to get a residential trailer for the temporary residence of a small team of construction workers. The situation is usually complicated by the fact that you will have to live in a change house in the winter in a suburban area, when the dacha or house itself, as such, does not yet exist, or is just being built.

The problem of changing houses for workers is solved in several ways:

Rent a residential trailer from friends, neighbors, a construction or specialized company. The worst option. They will give you a good cabin for a maximum of a week, but for an old and broken trailer, the owners usually require repairs;
Build a change house using hired workers. They will do it quickly and at the same time for little money. The quality of the constructed residential unit is low, and most often, after a month, another will need to be repaired or even re-equipped;
Buy a ready-made change house or order it from a construction company according to pre-agreed conditions and drawings. It turns out to be quite expensive and not always correct.

Most construction companies prefer to sell their standard trailers, heated trailers, and living boxes, which are produced on the market. Therefore, there is no hope at all that a company will agree to make or build a good quality change house according to an individual project and an acceptable price.

In terms of price, a typical 6x3 m residential trailer costs $1100-1200, plus delivery and installation will require another 10% of the cost. If you add the costs of making a foundation and sewerage, it turns out that it is easier and cheaper to build a change house with your own hands. High-quality, solid, according to your taste and layout.

What can you build a cabin from?

Before planning construction, it would be right to think and select a variant of the cabin design so that, after completing construction work on a suburban site, you can turn the trailer into a useful room for the household. For example, refurbish a bathhouse or build a summer kitchen, or even a small garage for a vehicle.

More often, country houses are built according to several standard schemes:

Frame building made of boards, wooden beams and lumber;
A change house with a metal frame and a subfloor base;
Construction from OSB boards and panel materials;
Panel board or temporary housing made of plywood;
A warm version of a cabin made from sandwich panels.

Any of the listed schemes is quite accessible to even a novice carpenter or carpenter to build a residential block with his own hands. If you have no construction experience at all, then you can find step-by-step instructions that will help you make a change house with your own hands without making gross mistakes, and the quality of workmanship depends entirely on your attitude to the work. It’s clear that for your needs, you don’t need to force anyone to make a residential trailer efficiently and efficiently.

Insulation of an iron trailer

Before insulating an iron trailer, you need to secure the wooden sheathing.

Before insulating an iron trailer, the issue of finishing should be resolved. The design of a metal cabin is quite simple - it is a frame made of profiled pipes, sheathed with corrugated sheets or other metal. The finishing needs to be attached to something; you can’t do without lathing. To do this, you need to securely fasten wooden blocks to a frame made of profiled pipes. Foam plastic is laid between the sheathing, since it is the cheapest. The foam is attached to the metal using foam adhesive, which has good adhesion to almost any surface.

Wooden cabin

Most often, prudent owners plan to build a trailer or temporary living block with further plans to use the room as a bathhouse or summer kitchen. In this case, it is best to build a shed from timber 70-90 mm thick.

The box is installed on a permanent foundation made of concrete or bored piles. The walls of the cabin are assembled using the traditional technology of laying wooden beams.

Customers prefer to build the roof, window and door openings, and the floor of the cabin according to a temporary plan, for shrinkage. A residential block without any insulation with mineral wool or penoplex provides comfortable living conditions from May to October, during the period of the most intensive work at the dacha. It is at this time that most construction has to be done on a suburban site.

For your information! It is more expensive to build a change house from timber than to buy a ready-made standard version of a residential block or trailer.

The benefits of such a solution are calculated for the future. In just a year or a year and a half, when the dacha box has been built, rough cladding has been completed and electricity has been connected, the log cabin, which has completely completed the shrinkage processes, can be converted into a bathhouse or summer kitchen with a clear conscience.

Panel change house

The vast majority of inexpensive standard trailers or residential blocks are manufactured using a panel design. Most of the wall, floor, roof and interior trim parts are cut on woodworking machines and sold as a kit. All that remains is to transport the purchased change house to the site and build it according to the attached assembly diagram.

Features of panel residential premises include:

Simplicity and high speed of assembly. In order to build a panel shed, you will need a screwdriver with a double set of batteries, a saw and several hundred wood screws;
Low price for the building. On average, a panel structure costs 20% less than classic frame and metal trailers - cabins;
A minimal amount, and sometimes a complete absence of insulation.

The walls of the residential block are made of sheet plywood, with virtually no frame; only the corners, ceiling and floor are sewn from timber. The rigidity and stability of the shed room is ensured only by the strength of the plywood sheets. Often, strong storm winds can easily deform and sometimes even break the structure.

For your information! Panel structures of cabins are often used by unscrupulous shabatniks in order to build living quarters and blocks for urgent orders in the shortest possible time.

The box assembled from plywood is insulated with mineral wool and lined with clapboard or sheet metal profiles. The result is a beautiful building, but absolutely weak and practically uninhabitable.

Change house made of OSB boards

Approximately 60% of all summer cottages are built in the form of frame structures covered with OSB boards. The material, similar in properties to plywood, but at the same time much cheaper, perfectly withstands atmospheric moisture, has better heat and sound insulation. The strength of OSB boards is lower, so it will not be possible to build a panel shed from them; the walls of the residential block will simply delaminate and fall apart under load.

You can make a wonderful frame shed from OSB boards. It is somewhat more expensive to build a room box from panels, since the wooden frame made of timber is insulated with polystyrene foam boards and sheathed with OSB on the outer and inner surfaces of the sides. Of course, using frame technology, it is possible to make a residential block based on plywood, sandwich panels or SIP materials.

If the cabin trailer is going to be made mobile, then it is best to use a metal frame made of a square pipe. But in this case, after the completion of the construction of the dacha or cottage, the change house will be suitable for a maximum of building a utility block or garage.

Change house made of metal profiles

As a rule, sheet metal and rolled metal are not used for temporary summer cottages. The change room turns out to be cold in winter and hot in the summer heat. Considerable expenses will be required to make effective thermal insulation of increased thickness.

In addition, the cost of purchasing metal will be approximately twice the cost of building a frame wooden structure. Metal profiles and profiled sheets are used for the construction of capital premises with a high level of comfort at the dacha.

In this case, it is easier to buy an old sea container; its price will not exceed $400-450. About the same amount will be required to finish the inside of the box, install windows, insulate the walls, build a sewer system, and install water and electricity.

With an estimate of $800, spending a week of vacation, you can build not just an excellent shed, but a full-fledged guest house in which you can live in the winter, store materials and tools, like in a safe, and not worry about your country property.

Change house made of sandwich panels

Of all the existing temporary housing schemes, trailers and residential blocks made of SIP panels are considered the warmest and most comfortable. It is unlikely that you will be able to make a change house with your own hands from industrial-type metal sandwich panels, since the dimensions of the slabs may exceed the required dimensions of 6x3 m. Full-fledged hangars and garages on a metal frame are built from sandwiches; such structures are not used as living quarters.

The process of building a cabin from SIP panels is in many ways similar to the technology of panel houses. Finished foam blocks cut to size, covered with OSB boards on both sides, are laid on a rough timber frame and secured with polyurethane foam.

If you first make a high-quality pile foundation and cut out the blocks, it will take a maximum of two to three days to build the trailer box with one assistant.

Features of gas connections

When connecting gas stoves, water heaters and other types of equipment, flexible hoses are also used. Unlike water models, they are yellow and are not tested for environmental safety. For fixation, end steel or aluminum reinforcement is used. There are the following types of devices for connecting gas appliances:

PVC hoses reinforced with polyester thread;
made of synthetic rubber with stainless steel braid;
bellows, made in the form of a corrugated stainless steel tube.

The Santekhkomplekt holding offers engineering equipment, fittings, plumbing fixtures and devices for connecting them to communications. The assortment is represented by products and materials from well-known foreign and domestic manufacturers. Discounts apply for bulk purchases, and product quality is confirmed by standard certificates. For information support and assistance, each client is assigned a personal manager. The ability to arrange delivery within Moscow and to other regions of the Russian Federation allows you to quickly receive the purchased goods without unnecessary hassle.

Upon completion of the technological and production tasks associated with the arrangement of a sewer system in an apartment building, industrial building, as well as in a private household, it is necessary to test the involved system using the forced flow method. This task is used to identify possible defects or improper installation of the entire involved sewerage part, and the test report for internal sewerage and drainage systems will be material evidence of the work on acceptance of the facility.

A visual inspection should be accompanied by inclusion in the test report of internal sewerage and drainage systems according to SNIP, which is currently represented by the current regulations of the “D” series appendix, which corresponds to SP 73.13330.2012 “Internal sanitary systems of a building”, recently a new one has been applied updated working edition according to SNiP 3.05.01-85.

The change house belongs to the category of temporary technical structures that are installed at the site of construction work and serve to store various equipment, construction materials, as well as to locate working personnel there. As a rule, construction is carried out during the warm season. Then it may not be insulated. But if construction is delayed and moves into the winter, then it’s worth thinking about insulating the cabin.

After the construction of any objects is completed, the change house is most often dismantled due to its uselessness. But enterprising land owners often adapt it for other purposes.

After a little improvement, it can turn into an excellent bathhouse or a good country house, barn or other utility room. This is where the need for insulation of such a structure arises. Metal and wooden cabins are usually insulated from the outside and from the inside. We will consider these questions in more detail.

Types of frame cabins

If we proceed from the criterion “price – quality – comfort”, then the best option is temporary housing built using a frame scheme. The popularity of cabins on a supporting frame is explained by two factors:

Flexibility of the construction scheme. You can choose materials for insulation, room decoration and exterior cladding to your taste, without being tied to a specific type of wall construction;
High comfort and relatively simple construction technology that forgives mistakes even for inexperienced workers.

If you make a defect or make a mistake in calculations during the work, you can always correct the defect, although this will require additional costs and resources.

Change house with wooden frame

A residential trailer with a frame made of timber and boards can be built on almost any soil. According to the technology for constructing a trailer cabin, it is usually necessary to make a small foundation of brick, concrete blocks or piles, on which, like on a pedestal, the following are successively built up and installed:

The base of the floor of the future living space;
Wall frame posts and horizontal ceiling beams;
Insulation is laid and wall cladding is made of wooden lining, siding or corrugated sheets.

Thanks to the separation of processes, a frame change house can be built simultaneously by a team of two or ten people, everyone will find a task to do. The shed can be done in one go or assembled gradually over several weeks or summer months.

The only problem with the frame structure is the protection of insulation and wood from rain and ground moisture. Therefore, they either try to build residential blocks with a wooden frame and put a roof on them in the shortest possible time, or use special expensive oil-varnish impregnations for protection.

Change houses with a metal frame

In addition to wood, you can use a metal corner or a square pipe of any profile to assemble the frame base. Most often, cabins on a steel frame are built for mobile trailers with a base on metal supports.

If a suburban area is located in swampy areas or on soils with a high groundwater level, the use of a metal frame avoids deformation of the building body due to frost heaving.

The most popular option is to use a frame from a steel railway container. In order to build a change house, sheets of walls and ceiling are cut out, leaving only the frame. The floor and ceiling are reinforced with a 60x60 mm square pipe, and boxes made of steel angle are welded in places where windows and doorways are installed.

After laying the insulation, the walls are sheathed with profiled sheeting.

Portable cabins

Construction on a suburban site does not always require the arrangement of a full-fledged, albeit temporary, living space; a team of workers can come to the site on a separate schedule. But even in such a situation, you will need to make a temporary trailer to organize the simplest living conditions, where you can shower, wash, and go to the toilet.

The version of the change house shown in the diagram can be made from wooden lining, or built from galvanized steel profile. Plastic panels are best suited for bathroom cladding; the material is not afraid of moisture and does not absorb odors.

Change house from a construction trailer

The scheme for making a temporary shed from a mobile construction box is no different from using a wheeled version of the shed. Most owners of suburban areas do not even try to remodel or refurbish the premises.

The box is simply delivered and installed on a prepared, planned site on concrete blocks. Construction sheds and wagons are usually used as temporary housing mainly in the autumn-winter season, since the cabin box lined with corrugated sheets or plastic does not get wet and does not lose its thermal insulation even in heavy rain and wind.

DIY cabin projects

The most popular are frame cabin cars made from the hulls of sea containers or assembled using timber technology.

The change room is divided into two sections - sleeping and living. The dimensions of the container allow you to make a small kitchen.

A container shed, in fact, remains the only option when you can build an entire house to accommodate 7-10 people without any problems.

If necessary, you can build a non-residential change house, make a shower stall and install wardrobes or hangers for clothes.

Wooden shift cabins are considered more comfortable when it comes to staying for several weeks or months. It is clear that the perception of a metal box and a wooden house is different; a room made of wood is still more convenient and pleasant.

In this case, you will need to make a comfortable bathroom inside the room, build a small steam room and a covered terrace at the entrance to the room. All these are little things, but it is thanks to them that you can maintain the proper level of comfort.

General rules for thermal insulation

To properly insulate a wooden outbuilding, certain rules are followed.

First, we prevent heat loss through the roof - we cover the structure with a special film. Only after this can the roof be laid in the form of corrugated sheets or ondulin.
To increase heat resistance, MDF panels are used, installed on special profiles. We fill the free space with a heat insulator of your choice.

Change houses made of metal are highly resistant to mechanical and other influences. The metal frame is completely protected from moisture by a special covering. But the roof of an outbuilding is often susceptible to corrosion processes. To prevent corrosion, it should be treated with a polymer-based coating or paint and varnish products.

Wall structures are sheathed with clapboard, block house or plastic panels. Thermal insulators are mineral wool or polyurethane foam. To prevent heat loss, cracks and joints are sealed with tongue and groove boards. Combined outbuildings are insulated in the same way.

Where to start insulating a cabin

If you are just planning to purchase a cabin for winter living, then first of all you need to pay attention to the material from which the structure is made. There are three main types of cabins: metal, wood and combined.

The metal structure is a frame covered with profiled galvanized iron. The design is resistant to moisture penetration and therefore exhibits better heat retention ability.
A wooden change house is very vulnerable to the penetration of cold and moisture into the room, and therefore requires more careful thermal insulation.
A combined cabin is a structure made from several materials. Insulation must be carried out taking into account the material of the cabin in its individual areas.

How to build a 6x3 shed with your own hands: step-by-step instructions

If you want to make a simple, inexpensive and at the same time convenient shed-trailer, then it is best to try to build with your own hands an ordinary frame room from timber and clapboard.

Premises made from timber, boards and OSB boards are inferior to those made from containers or car boxes, but this is an invaluable experience for novice builders and an opportunity to avoid mistakes when building a cottage or bathhouse.

Foundation installation

As a basis for a wooden cabin measuring 6x3 m, you can use supports made of concrete blocks or build brick supports to a height of at least 20 cm. First, the turf and fertile layer of soil are removed from the area of the base of the foundation, the soil is leveled in a horizontal plane, compacted, covered with geotextiles and dumped layer of sand with crushed stone screenings.

In total, for a change house measuring 6x3 m, you will need to make 12 pillars, three rows of four supports. The tops are carefully leveled and adjusted in the same plane along the horizon so that the trailer does not turn out crooked or sway. Roofing felt is glued onto the supports using mastic insulation.

Next, on top of the foundation you need to make a frame box from timber. If the change house is planned to be built in winter, then the base will additionally need to be insulated. For example, after filing the subfloor boards, lay film waterproofing and cover it with expanded clay.

Frame installation

The supporting structure of the cabin can be welded from a square pipe; on top of the wooden frame, you will need to make and secure a metal frame, to which the vertical frame posts will be welded.

The frame of the metal trailer is assembled by welding from a square profile pipe 20x40 mm.

For an ordinary wooden cabin, the frame system can be built from pine beams with a cross-section of 90 mm. Each rack must be aligned vertically and temporary side braces must be made. The racks are attached to the frame with steel angles, which you can make yourself from the remnants of rolled stock.

The heads of the wooden racks must be trimmed to the level, making sure that the ends of the vertical beams of each row are located in the same horizontal plane. To strengthen the frame, two struts need to be made under each rack.

Layout inside

A change house measuring 3 by 6 may not contain any partitions in its layout or be two or three rooms. There are also projects in which a toilet, shower or bathhouse is additionally attached to the cabin. Internal partitions inside the room also help to separate the living room from the kitchen.

Among the many projects for the construction of 3 by 6 cabins, those that provide for the presence of 3 rooms are extremely popular. The main room is allocated an area of 3x4.5 m, it is equipped with all amenities, a heating system and decorated. The second room will be a corridor, its size will be 1.5x1.5 m. The corridor will protect the living space from the cold. The third room will be a toilet or storage room measuring 1.5x1.5 m.

Installation of windows and doors

Installing door and window units is not particularly difficult. First you will need to make markings on the racks where exactly you plan to build the windows. Based on the marks, you will need to build supporting horizontal jumpers on which the boxes will directly rest.

The final installation of windows and doors in the cabin can be done after laying insulation and installing film insulation, the edges of which will need to be tucked under the edges of the window frames. After finishing the walls with OSB boards, you need to make and install platbands on the windows and doors, otherwise the wall insulation will quickly become damp.

Traditionally, plank and slab floors are used in cabins. After laying the mineral fiber layer, the surface is covered with a vapor barrier film and hammered with a tongue and groove board.

The second option for arranging the floor instead of boards involves laying sheets of bakelite waterproof plywood. If you have to enter the change house in very dirty shoes, then it is better to supplement the plywood with linoleum.

Advice! Before building a plywood floor, markings of the location of the joist beams are transferred to the sheets. In this case, the risk of the self-tapping screw missing the support beam is practically zero.

Roof installation

For wooden trailers, pitched roofs are used. The row of vertical posts on the front side of the building needs to be made longer, about 40 cm higher than the supports on the back side of the frame.

The rafter system rests on two parallel beams. A sheathing is sewn onto the rafters, followed by a film vapor barrier, a layer of mineral wool, waterproofing and plywood padding for laying the roofing.

Wall cladding and insulation

The easiest way is to make a warm layer of the walls of the cabin based on polystyrene foam or mineral slabs. It is best to use PPS insulation in a metal trailer; basalt fiber mats are laid in the walls and secured with sheathing slats.

The next step is to lay a vapor barrier on the floor of the cabin to make the canvas durable and airtight; the joints between the individual tapes are taped. Windproofing needs to be done on the outer surface of the walls; it is also fixed with slats and tape.

We carry out external cladding

We cover the frame with film. Attaching the outer skin.
The trailer cabin can be left without cladding, but a structure made of wood or metal will require mandatory external finishing. We won’t just leave the “bare” frame, will we? We cover the frame with waterproofing film. Carefully seal the joints of the waterproofing strips with tape. Many different materials are suitable for external wall cladding:

wooden boards;
composite panels;
siding, etc.

Choose at your own discretion. The cabins covered with a block house also look very nice.

External cladding of a change house with siding External finishing of a metal change house Insulation of a metal change house Sheathing of a metal change house with corrugated sheets

Arrangement of a change house

The outer walls of the cabin trailer are sheathed with clapboard or OSB boards if finishing is planned for painting. In this case, the overhangs along the perimeter of the roof are not large enough, or the building itself is located in an open area, it is best to cover the outer walls with profiled roofing sheets. Ventilation windows are cut out along the upper and lower edges of the sheet, or it is better to build independent vents for water vapor.

Interior decoration of the cabin

If the building is planned to be built with subsequent repurposing as a bathhouse or guest house, then the best finishing option is considered to be cladding the walls and ceiling with ordinary clapboard.

After two or three years of operation of the cabin, the material darkens, a dark coating of dampness and even mold may appear along the lower edge, so anything else is rarely used for the walls.

The exception is the bathroom and shower block of the change house. In this case, it is best to make the walls and ceiling based on plastic panels.

Lighting in the cabin

According to fire safety rules, the exit from the room and the installation location of the heating device, stove, air heater must be illuminated. The rest of the room is equipped with lighting at your own discretion. Typically, a change house is divided into two parts in which ceiling lamps need to be made - a bathroom and a recreation area.

All electrical wiring of the cabin is mounted in metal corrugations. All lines must be located on top of the wall cladding. The place for the box with the circuit breaker and the bags is chosen so that the working panel is illuminated by a ceiling lamp.

Water supply and sewerage in the cabin

The supply of water and drainage communications into the premises is carried out through the subfloor of the trailer. To prevent the pipes from freezing in the winter, a caisson or collector is built in the ground under the sewer and water supply system, insulated with polystyrene foam and covered with a plastic box.

For mobile and summer versions of the trailer, you can build a connection to water and drainage using flexible and corrugated pipes.

Insulation materials

A change house without insulation will not perform all the functions and tasks for which it is intended. Therefore, you should carefully consider and select the insulation technology, as well as select a suitable insulator.

The modern market provides a variety of thermal insulation materials. Let's look at the most common ones in detail.

Styrofoam

This type of heat insulator is mainly used to insulate the walls of outbuildings. Foam insulation is beneficial when finishing wooden cabins. The material is resistant to moisture, simple and easy to install. Foam insulation has disadvantages: short service life and large volume for good insulation, and with low-quality products - significant heat loss. Several layers of polystyrene foam will reduce the area of the room, and improper use of the structure will lead to a fire.

Mineral wool and fiberglass

The advantages of the materials are fire safety and excellent thermal insulation characteristics, subject to all the requirements of the technological process. If you install several layers of heat insulation, the acoustic properties of the rooms will increase. Disadvantages - the components are harmful to health.

Basalt slabs

Such fibers are produced through careful processing of basalt rocks. On the construction market, a common form of material is slabs, which can be easily cut to size and laid. The heat insulator is completely resistant to fire and does not undergo deformation processes for a long time. The easy-to-use material will not take up much free space, so the area of the shed will remain almost the same. The disadvantage is the many seams that remain after installing thermal insulation.

Cotton thermal insulator

This substance is the safest for today. It is high quality and environmentally friendly. Can be used to insulate walls inside a trailer and does not require special installation skills. It is often used for thermal insulation of cabins in which it is planned to live. The downside is that the product is difficult to cut.

Polyurethane foam

This thermal insulation material is the most common and effective for insulating commercial buildings. There are 2 types: liquid and hard. Experts recommend using the second option to increase the heat capacity of the building’s exterior. It is excellent for strengthening roofing systems and exterior walls. Using the unique structure of polyurethane foam, it is possible to mask possible defects in the roofing system and increase the temperature in the structure.

Heating in a change house

To heat the room, you can use two options:

Make heating with a wood stove with a cast iron body;
Build a heating system for a cabin using several electric convectors.

The electrical option is simpler; you only need to lay power copper wiring from the entry point of the switchboard and circuit breaker. In this case, for each heater you will need to make your own wiring and grounding branch, and build a suspension. To heat a room with an area of 15-20 m2, you will need to make two points of 1 kW each.

For a wood-burning stove, you will need to build a niche or set aside a corner of the room for it. The walls and floor are lined with thick metal with vermiculite thermal insulation. It is clear that if they plan to build a bathhouse on the basis of a change house, then it is better to choose a place for the stove in the warmest corner of the room without windows.