Insulating and Stuccoing Our Mobile Home at Solar Haven

Insulating and Stuccoing
Our Mobile Home

The final touch for our mobile home was to make it look like an attractive Southwestern style, adobe home in addition to insulating it. Here are the steps which were used in the insulating and stuccoing process:

Wrap the entire mobile home in plastic. This serves as a moisture barrier as well as to cover the windows and provide an alternative to masking when the stucco is applied.

All wall surfaces were covered with two inch EPS sheets for insulation. The sheets were secured with 3" sheet rock screws with washers driven into the studs.

The EPS sheets were run continuous all the way to the ground for skirting. A framework of 2" x 2" (25 gauge) steel studs were used to support the sheets. This framing and the EPS sheets were sunk in concrete in the ground.

Standard stucco netting was applied to all EPS surfaces at the same time the sheets were afixed to the walls of the mobile home.

"One Coat" stucco mix was applied over all wall, skirting, and parapet surfaces. Approximately 9000 pounds of stucco was used in this process. This has been calculated on the basis of 33 bags of stucco mix (at 85 pounds per bag), each bag mixed with 200 pounds of sand.

The stucco was allowed to dry for ten days and then painted a neutral earth tone.

Insulating/Stuccoing Budget

4' x 8' EPS Foam Sheets (2 inch thick), 48 @ $10.24 each - $492
Stucco Netting, 4 rolls @ $30.95 each - $124
Plastic film, 1 mil. (9' x 400') - $16
Expanded Metal Corners (2" x 2" x 8'), 30 @ $.78 each - $23
Expanded Metal Corners (3" x 3" x 8'), 20 @ $.95 each - $20
25 gauge Metal Studs (2" x 2" x 10'), 85 @ $1.76 each - $150
"One-Coat" Fiber Reinforced Stucco Mix, 33 bags @ $9 each - $315
Portland Cement, 4 bags @ $6.35 each - $25
Lime, 4 bags @ $5.50 each - $22
Latex Caulking, 2 tubes @ $1.15 each - $2
Green Float Sponge - $3
Blue Mesh Fiber Tape, 2 @ $5.25 each - $10
Sealing Tape, 2 @ $2.95 each - $6
Shipping Charges for above - $35
Concrete Blocks, 30 @ $.69 each - $21
Rebar (20' sticks), 2 @ $3.25 each - $6
3" dry wall screws (5# boxes), 8 @ $16.49 each - $122
Washers (#10, flat), eight boxes - $22
Metal Skuppers (16"), 4 @ $10.25 each - $41
Rent cement mixer - $150
Haul water to mix the stucco - $100
Labor (framing, insulating, building parapets, and stucco work) - $2400
Painting - $200
Total Cost: $5,290

Note: The figures below do not include the costs of building the front deck, storage shed, and carport as shown in the photograph above. These in fact have had to be relocated as well as the mobile home itself. Our zoning regulations allow mobile homes only as a temporary residence while building a regular home and then only for 18 months.
We did not correctly understand this... see Problems - Problems.