Anyone got experience of working on these? I'm advising a relative who's
thinking of buying a 1988 Omar Ranch Style home for all year residence.
I've done all the Googling about the pros and cons of the basic idea,
but I don't know anything about the construction, and what the specs are
likely to have been at that time as regards insulation etc. Do they have
timber rafters and joists between which celotex could be fixed? I'm
thinking exterior insulation panels might be prohibitively expensive,
and probably not as effective.

Any advice welcome

stuart noble wrote:

Anyone got experience of working on these? I'm advising a relative who's
thinking of buying a 1988 Omar Ranch Style home for all year residence.
I've done all the Googling about the pros and cons of the basic idea,
but I don't know anything about the construction, and what the specs are
likely to have been at that time as regards insulation etc. Do they have
timber rafters and joists between which celotex could be fixed? I'm
thinking exterior insulation panels might be prohibitively expensive,
and probably not as effective.

Any advice welcome

I lived in one 15 years ago. Had it for 6 years, and generally liked it.
Cold in the winter, warm in the summer would accurately describe it. The
walls were 2" thick, so you'd get cold if the heating wasnt on.
Although, as the volume of the full building was small, it didnt cost a
great deal to heat, I think it was typically 2 bags of coal a week to
keep the Parkray going 24/7.
Mine had an ally skin,2x2 framework, stuffed with rockwool insulation,
with a hardboard inner. I upgraded over the years with insulation backed
plasterboard for both the walls and ceilings, and this did seem to make
a difference. Blocking off the underfloor is a big energy saver, as ours
only had an 18mm chipboard floor, laid on the steel chassis, so the only
insulation there was the wood and carpet. Bricking it up definitely made
a difference.

Alan.
--
To reply by e-mail, change the ' + ' to 'plus'.

On 17/09/2010 15:57, A.Lee wrote:
stuart wrote:

Anyone got experience of working on these? I'm advising a relative who's
thinking of buying a 1988 Omar Ranch Style home for all year residence.
I've done all the Googling about the pros and cons of the basic idea,
but I don't know anything about the construction, and what the specs are
likely to have been at that time as regards insulation etc. Do they have
timber rafters and joists between which celotex could be fixed? I'm
thinking exterior insulation panels might be prohibitively expensive,
and probably not as effective.

Any advice welcome

I lived in one 15 years ago. Had it for 6 years, and generally liked it.
Cold in the winter, warm in the summer would accurately describe it. The
walls were 2" thick, so you'd get cold if the heating wasnt on.
Although, as the volume of the full building was small, it didnt cost a
great deal to heat, I think it was typically 2 bags of coal a week to
keep the Parkray going 24/7.
Mine had an ally skin,2x2 framework, stuffed with rockwool insulation,
with a hardboard inner. I upgraded over the years with insulation backed
plasterboard for both the walls and ceilings, and this did seem to make
a difference. Blocking off the underfloor is a big energy saver, as ours
only had an 18mm chipboard floor, laid on the steel chassis, so the only
insulation there was the wood and carpet. Bricking it up definitely made
a difference.

Alan.

Thanks, that's interesting. I was afraid the walls on this one might
only be 2" thick, but it sounds as though there wouldn't be a problem
upgrading the insulation. I hope just replacing the Rockwool with 50mm
Celotex on the ceiling would make a big difference, as I don't think we
would want to lose height. I'll try and find the specs for this
particular model.

On 17/09/2010 23:45, John Rumm wrote:
On 17/09/2010 15:15, stuart noble wrote:

Anyone got experience of working on these? I'm advising a relative who's
thinking of buying a 1988 Omar Ranch Style home for all year residence.
I've done all the Googling about the pros and cons of the basic idea,
but I don't know anything about the construction, and what the specs are
likely to have been at that time as regards insulation etc. Do they have
timber rafters and joists between which celotex could be fixed? I'm
thinking exterior insulation panels might be prohibitively expensive,
and probably not as effective.

Oddly enough, I posted about this a few weeks back, since I know someone
who lives in a (probably older) but similar beast. External insulation
seems to be the way to go to avoid losing space. Even modern specs are
not as good as current building regs.

Figures quoted at the time suggested:

Elements BS 3632 vs Part L Building Regs.
Walls 0.6 0.35
Floor 0.35 0.25
Roof 0.35 0.16 / 0.2

Construction seems to vary. Some are ali skin on wood frame and steel
space frame chasis. More modern ones seem to be some sort of rendered
board on wood frame.



Cheers. I'll look into that.
All fairly tentative at the moment, but these older park homes seem like
a viable option if you can improve the insulation without spending a
fortune.

On 18/09/2010 17:43, John MacLeod wrote:
On Sep 18, 10:29 am, stuart wrote:
On 17/09/2010 23:45, John Rumm wrote:



On 17/09/2010 15:15, stuart noble wrote:

Anyone got experience of working on these? I'm advising a relative who's
thinking of buying a 1988 Omar Ranch Style home for all year residence.
I've done all the Googling about the pros and cons of the basic idea,
but I don't know anything about the construction, and what the specs are
likely to have been at that time as regards insulation etc. Do they have
timber rafters and joists between which celotex could be fixed? I'm
thinking exterior insulation panels might be prohibitively expensive,
and probably not as effective.

Oddly enough, I posted about this a few weeks back, since I know someone
who lives in a (probably older) but similar beast. External insulation
seems to be the way to go to avoid losing space. Even modern specs are
not as good as current building regs.

Figures quoted at the time suggested:

Elements BS 3632 vs Part L Building Regs.
Walls 0.6 0.35
Floor 0.35 0.25
Roof 0.35 0.16 / 0.2

Construction seems to vary. Some are ali skin on wood frame and steel
space frame chasis. More modern ones seem to be some sort of rendered
board on wood frame.

Cheers. I'll look into that.
All fairly tentative at the moment, but these older park homes seem like
a viable option if you can improve the insulation without spending a
fortune.

They have two tremendous disadvantages:
1. They're normally sited on sites where the site owners are taking
high annual fees for use of the site
and
2. The planning people don't like them, so it's almost impossible to
get permission to locate them elsewhere.

Provided you're satisfied with regard to both these points, then as a
short-term answer for a year or two they can be OK. But they're a
very fast-depreciating asset.

John

Yes, I've done the pros and cons bit to death thanks :-)

On 17/09/10 23:45, John Rumm wrote:
On 17/09/2010 15:15, stuart noble wrote:

Anyone got experience of working on these? I'm advising a relative who's
thinking of buying a 1988 Omar Ranch Style home for all year residence.
I've done all the Googling about the pros and cons of the basic idea,
but I don't know anything about the construction, and what the specs are
likely to have been at that time as regards insulation etc. Do they have
timber rafters and joists between which celotex could be fixed? I'm
thinking exterior insulation panels might be prohibitively expensive,
and probably not as effective.

Oddly enough, I posted about this a few weeks back, since I know someone
who lives in a (probably older) but similar beast. External insulation
seems to be the way to go to avoid losing space.xxxx

so you havent the hassle of dismantling it, wire and pipe routing and
lots of coldbridging,
you mean to glue kingspan to the outside
and then weatherseal that with another layer?

[g]

On 23/09/2010 22:28, John Rumm wrote:
On 23/09/2010 22:04, george [dicegeorge] wrote:
On 17/09/10 23:45, John Rumm wrote:
On 17/09/2010 15:15, stuart noble wrote:

Anyone got experience of working on these? I'm advising a relative
who's
thinking of buying a 1988 Omar Ranch Style home for all year residence.
I've done all the Googling about the pros and cons of the basic idea,
but I don't know anything about the construction, and what the specs
are
likely to have been at that time as regards insulation etc. Do they
have
timber rafters and joists between which celotex could be fixed? I'm
thinking exterior insulation panels might be prohibitively expensive,
and probably not as effective.

Oddly enough, I posted about this a few weeks back, since I know someone
who lives in a (probably older) but similar beast. External insulation
seems to be the way to go to avoid losing space.xxxx

so you havent the hassle of dismantling it, wire and pipe routing and
lots of coldbridging,
you mean to glue kingspan to the outside
and then weatherseal that with another layer?

Yup basically. Many of the modern homes have a textured render finish of
some sort, so one can slap foam boards all over, and render over for a
similar effect. From what I have read they have also made dispensations
in the legal maximum sizes of mobile homes to allow for the insulation
of existing maximum sized ones.

I wonder how this affects the roof overhang/guttering etc

We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the
drugs began to take hold. I remember "george [dicegeorge]"
saying something like:

so you havent the hassle of dismantling it, wire and pipe routing and
lots of coldbridging,
you mean to glue kingspan to the outside
and then weatherseal that with another layer?

That's my plan, fwiw.
I was buggering around thinking up ways of doing it, then realised, as
this is actually an old agriculturally-related building, some insulated
box sheeting would look right in place. 100mm of Kingspan bonded to PVC
coated steel and only needs to be through-bolted every couple of feet.
Sorted.
By using seconds I can slash the cost dramatically.