| Survey of Structural Integrity and Acoustics in a Mobile Home |
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| To our right is the interior of one of the kitchen cabinets. The point where the 3 wood cleats nearly intersect would normally be called a butt joint. Some how, all three of them missed the mark. This is what would generally give a cabinet its strength and provide a robust skelleton on which to attach the other structural elements. In a trailer-home the other elements would be 1/8-3/16" thick paneling. Click photos for greater detail. |
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| Here is an exterior view of our kitchen cabinets. Overly convoluted garish pulls maintain the Greek theme here. Extra shiny finish is of a pale whitish with brown grain trying to masquerade as "wood". Colors are more reminicent of a long dead transient washing up in the surf. Trim pieces and moldings nearly match and are thoughtfully held in with brads every 2" or so. Apparently the filling of brad and nail holes was not the style of time. |
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| Right: Here is a typical trailer-home interior lockset mounted in a typical hollow-core interior door. Exterior doors are identical but with the addition of an equally flimsy-looking dead bolt. Hollow core doors here are a thin pine frame sandwiched between two sheets of, what else but 1/8-3/16" paneling. These doors would easily cave under a panty-waisted little-sister karate kick. |
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| Motel Vibrating beds are made by attaching a 1/4 Hp electric motor to the bed frame. The shaft is fitted with a 8-12oz. eccentric cam. When power is applied, a subtle rolling motion ensues. Trailer-homes economicly duplicate this action with an out of balance load of towels on the spin cycle of this vintage avocado Maytag. The oscillating motion is translated to all rooms of the house. It's continual usage since the Johnson administration is a testimonial to its durability. |
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| Although it's not unique to Trailer-homes, I thought this lint screen pelt was pretty impressive. Having a lot of denim shorts, these babies can build up fast! |
-A word about Trailer-home acoustics- Walls must maintain a certain level of elasticity to survive the rigors of travel and placement. To accomodate this they are generally made of 2x3's and covered with: what else, 1/8-3/16" composit wood paneling. This creates a wall that some might call thin and what musicians would call acousticly transparent. An apparent lack of insulation in said walls and certain sonic properties of wood paneling combine to create the cello effect. A dog wagging it's tail against such a wall is REALLY, REALLY loud. |
| Top: Multiple intake registers in all rooms evenly distribute any smell coming from any room as opposed to a traditional centrally located intake. |