Hi everyone! Minor update here but thought it would be fun for a lot of you. Since we have all of the interior skins stripped, we’ve elected to go with spray foam insulation between the exterior and interior skins. This offers a lot of advantages. Spray foam is lightweight, it has a high insulation value with appropriately sprayed, and also acts as a sealant and vapor barrier. The lightweight and sealant portion of that is music to our ears!

Turns out, one of our friends, Eric Bongard, has been building fish houses for the last 15 years. Now, for those of you that don’t know what a fish house is there are some pictures below. Essentially, a fish house is a small mobile camper that lowers to the ground so that when the lakes of the north freeze over, you can ice fish in all of the comforts of home through a hole in the floor. I know that sounds really dumb, but people in the far northern states and Canada LOVE IT. Now, you have to realize that these things aren’t just the primitive fish shanties that you saw in Grumpy Old Men. They’re fishing palaces! You can check out his fish house business here: Custom Cottages, Inc.

As the business of building high-end fish houses got a little more competitive, Eric pivoted and started building mobile saunas. The concept is essentially the same as a fish house, only you hyper insulate, use wooden interior, and add a sauna stove. His mobile saunas are great and super clever. Saunas are usually only used in the winter time and many of the lakes require set-backs from the shore prohibiting construction close to the lake where the views are the best. Eric’s team builds the saunas so that you can place them prior to winter up close to the lake as they aren’t a permanent structure and don’t violate building codes. They lower to the ground as well for added stability! If you’re interested in talking to him about a mobile sauna for your house reach out to him at Custom Mobile Saunas. Tell him that we sent you over and you’ll get a discount on your sauna!

Now, you’re probably wondering why I’m talking about fish houses and saunas. Well it turns out that from all of his experience building them, Eric is great at spraying foam on aluminum surfaces! Hey! Our Airstream is all aluminum! Sounds like we’ve found the right guy for the job. As he does it, I’ll be sure to film the progress. I hope to get Wally the Airstream to his shop sometime in very early December for spraying. Just gotta get the electrical and plumbing cut in prior to getting there!