Sky Deck Renovation

BoonHauler wrote:

One of the things you need to keep in mind is that some of the interior assemblies (like that huge cabinet) provided structural integrity for the overall assembly. Take heed in removing these assemblies or make sure that the new construction picks up the intended structural function of the old assembly being removed.

Thanks. I am mindful of that, but it's a little hard to gauge, as both the construction and the stresses that will be on it are pretty foreign to me. Here's that big cabinet I removed again. It clearly supported the bathroom wall behind it, but not the ceiling:



Here's a view of that area now from outside the doorway:



I'm not entirely clear on the engineering here. Maybe some of you who've worked on similar 5th wheel bodies know better what you're looking at. I'll call it an interior drop soffit. Anyway, here's a view from front to back, taken from the bathroom. I wanted to show this soffit as you see it in the hallway (left) and in the bathroom (right, where I've opened it up). I was thinking of opening it up in the hallway area, to provide an extra place for storage. But by knocking on the vertical wall there, it was obvious it was not hollow, luan paneling:



So here's the view down the inside of the soffit, taken by sticking my camera into the opening in the bathroom and aiming it left, towards the front door (the area over the hallway):



Or...




By the way, here's that stack and electrical line, viewed from the roof. At the bottom of this photo is the stairway hatch. You can see the electrical line coming out of that "soffit":



If it's not clear where this is, it's in the upper right corner of this area:



But back to the downstairs... zooming in on the view down the soffit, you can see the wall over the hallway (the one I was standing in the hallway and knocking on to see if I could open it up for storage) is plywood, not the same luan as the rest of it, over the bathroom (I am not referring to that bright piece of plywood with the three screws. No idea what that is):



And here's a closer view:



Does anyone have any insight into why they built it this way, or what I should learn from this view? I think an important point is that the floor of this soffit, or chase, is the ceiling of the living room, and therefore probably heavier and stronger than some of this flimsy luan. It must be held up by the side walls.

Update: I now know what was going on here. The square piece of plywood screwed against the forward wall was to give the corner stud of the bathroom something to tie into, since it was not load-bearing and not tied into the main structure (the heavy SIP ceiling). Being screwed into that luan anchored it very securely.


Finally, when we bump out the bathroom wall to make room for the shower, we'll put a strong wall there, where the cabinet was.

One more: