Beginning to frame the water tower.
After temporarily securing the cooler in place and making sure that portion of the cart was functional, it was now time to build the water tower. In Alabama, state law requires that you have hot and cold running water, a hand washing sink and a two compartment sink for dishes. To supply water to all of those sinks, you have to have a place to store the water until you turn on the tap, and that’s where the water tower comes in. The water tower is built on the front of the cart and will eventually house the freshwater tank.
Water tower framing is coming along nicely.
Clearance was a major concern in every aspect of this portion of the build. Because the fresh water tank is made of a heavy duty plastic, it was imperative that there were no protruding screws or anything that could possibly puncture the tank.So after each step, I “test fitted” the tank in its place to make sure all was good, checking every single angle to make sure there was nothing that could possibly put a hole in the tank. Making the tank work properly was a trick, because I had to drill a hole in the bottom and fit a water outlet to the bottom of the tank. The trick was to make the hole the perfect size, just a tiny shade larger than the fitting (which, by the way had to be “offset” so as not to have the seam of the tank get in the way) and the washer on the fitting had to seal the hole.
The fresh water tank in its proper place.
Now that the water tank was in its place I installed a couple of eye hooks at the bottom of the base so I could attach a bungee cord to one side, run it through the handle and hook it on the other side to secure it down, just like I did with the cooler.
At this point, I had to put the front wall of the cart on because I had to mount the hot water heater and the hand washing sink before I could continue with the plumbing.
Front wall in place & ready to be cut to size.
To make sure the front wall was lined up properly, I took the whole body of the cart off of the trailer (as it hadn’t been mounted to the trailer just yet), and sat it directly on the floor. I used the floor to make sure that the wall was actually square on the bottom, I then lined it up horizontally and traced a line around the frame. Then I took the front wall off, cut it out the best I could (about ¼” to big, so I could sand it down to size) and screwed it to the frame. Building the sinks and a continuation of the plumbing portion of the build will be continued on : “The Actual Cart Build (Part12)”.🌭
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