Engineering a sliding wall / room

Started by cbc58, April 30, 2013, 12:17:24 PM

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cbc58

Wondering if folks here could critique an idea I have for a sliding wall / room that would go into a portable cabin I am thinking about building.   Just want to make sure I'm not missing anything that would render the idea impossible due to code or structural reasons.

In a nutshell, the idea is to build a 8x16 cabin that would be put on a trailer or dropped off at a location, and a portion of one of the walls would slide out (like a bump-out on a travel trailer) creating another room with it's own floor (for sleeping).  This would be a 11' wide x 7' deep room that would slide in and out once you reached a location for setup.  The bump-out floor would be about 3/4 inch above the main floor and would roll on tracks built into the floor.  It would slide out and there would be adjustable supports on wheels (like on boat trailers near the tounge) to move it, level it.  When closed the wall would hide and appear to be the outer wall.  The track gaps would have pre-cut boards to cover them and a heavy duty rubber gasket would seal the border from the elements.

I am not sure what to use for tracks or rollers but know that as the room gets pushed out there will be some serious weight considerations and it would likely be slow going unless there were multiple people there to help.  This might also work in a stationary cabin/shed situation in an attempt to get more room in an area that only allows less than 200sf. without a building permit (hence how I came up with the idea).

Our main cabin project is a ways off and thought this would be an interesting and useful project to try.   Hope that makes sense and wonder if anyone has seen such a thing done in the past or what considerations need to be made.  Ideas on what to use for tracks/rollers wanted.  Tks