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Building an RV in an apartment

holtzy822

I'm New Here
Hello all, first post here.

I’m unfortunately required to move to Las Vegas in the coming month for a new position and will most likely end up in a large 1 bed apartment (800+ sq ft with a large open living/dining area measuring 27’x15’. I don’t have any real furniture to put there anyways. And no significant other to tell me not to)

I say unfortunately because I had planned on starting a -7 or 8 build once I got back to work in Arizona where I have plenty of hangar space and workshop space to build.

Because of this new housing situation I was wondering if anyone had built an RV in an apartment. I’m not so much worried about the space as I am noise issues with neighbors. Riveting isn’t particularly quiet. Obviously final assembly will be completed at HND or VGT once it gets to that point but that’s a long way down the road.

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
I'm sure you could build the tail kit pretty easily. Past that it would start getting difficult.

Maybe see if you can find one of those hangers that you can live in, that would be the ultimate bachelor build experiance.
 
Hello all, first post here.

I’m unfortunately required to move to Las Vegas in the coming month for a new position and will most likely end up in a large 1 bed apartment (800+ sq ft with a large open living/dining area measuring 27’x15’. I don’t have any real furniture to put there anyways. And no significant other to tell me not to)

I say unfortunately because I had planned on starting a -7 or 8 build once I got back to work in Arizona where I have plenty of hangar space and workshop space to build.

Because of this new housing situation I was wondering if anyone had built an RV in an apartment. I’m not so much worried about the space as I am noise issues with neighbors. Riveting isn’t particularly quiet. Obviously final assembly will be completed at HND or VGT once it gets to that point but that’s a long way down the road.

Any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated.


Sounds like a good way to trash some-one else's rental apartment and p*ss off all your neighbours at the same time.
 
Message me when you get to Vegas! A friend of mine is almost done with a -14 he built in his dining room! I would imagine you could build the tail kit, and perhaps before you move onto the wings, perhaps circumstances may change, and you'll find space to continue the build. I've heard of RVs being built in a Manhattan apartment. .
 
Welcome Sean! I built an RV9 empennage in a NYC studio. It’s definitely possible to build in an apartment but not without challenges. Make friends with neighbors tell them about decibels. Refill your compressor when everyone is at work. Use a higher speed electric drill instead of pneumatic. Befriend the superintendent. You might spray some “toxic substance” on aluminum in his shop :)
 
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Sounds like an interesting challenge but I know others have made it work....it just might take a bit of figuring out.

There is a lot of work that can be done in the apartment space itself. I think a big problem would be air compressor noise in addition to any riveting or grinding & sanding (dust and noise). Sound blocking blankets might mitigate some of this....but I am not sure it is really viable to have an air compressor in the apartment due to noise. I am guessing that a battery drill and a non-pneumatic hand squeezer may offset some of the pneumatic riveting noise and could be done in the apartment in addition to using patio space if available.

Rather than build solely in the apartment itself, is it possible to rent an apartment with a garage space? The apartment complexes that I have lived in have had that option - it's more expensive but at least it's another work area in addition to the apartment and it's more suited to building or having an air compressor along with maybe some sound blocking blankets or panels.

Another possible thought: when I was looking into building my -7 with limited space (our home is about 900 square feet), I checked into industrial and business rental options near our home. Maybe sounds crazy, but my Plan B was to rent a space in a strip mall near me for building. Is there someplace close by that you can rent to do the most noisy and messy work and then use the apartment space for other less noisy work?

If you are able to get a quiet compressor and mitigate the noise, building in a living room is a convenient place to do work. We built our empennage, both of our wings and each -7 fuselage section in our 14x14 living room.

- Alex -
 
Drilling and deburring produce a lot of small aluminum chips. If you have carpet, you'll never get it out. If you walk from tile (better) to carpet, the carpet will still get filled with aluminum chips.

Compressors are loud! Riveting is louder! Space really isn't too much of an issue if you have places to store the kit pieces before and during and after.
 
Check out the California Air Tools CAT-1P1060S compressor---I have one at the hangar and I think it's quiet enough you could get away with it in an apartment. You can easily have a conversation with someone while standing next to it.

The electric drill advice is good. Even though I have a pneumatic drill, I used a compact Bosch 12V cordless drill most of the time and it worked well. I think smaller is better here.

Shooting rivets is where you're going to get into trouble. You'll definitely want to squeeze everything possible, but that still leaves a lot left that you just have to shoot. Maybe you can do the squeezing at night and save the shooting for special agreed upon hours with the neighbors?
 
Do you really have no choice about the apartment? I only ask because I live in Las Vegas too, and suspect you might be able to find a small house, perhaps in a little more rural area, that would work a lot better. I have an RV-8 at VGT, and am building an RV-10 now. I don’t think they’ll let you do your phase I flight test out of VGT. I’m still a couple of years away from that with my 10, so I haven’t sorted that out yet. When I built my 8, I lived in Colorado and did the flight test out of KFNL. Good luck with the build!
 
It depends on the apartment construction, mostly. I built the tail and wings of my RV-6A in the living room of a 2-bedroom apartment in Ann Arbor. The main structure of the building was concrete (some government-built housing, as I understood it). The compressor was the loudest bit and standing in the hallway outside it was just a low hum. I checked with my neighbors and they had not noticed anything. "Really, an airplane? Can I see?". I was careful not to rivet at night.

As for cleanup, how long will you be there? Many apartments are repainted and carpeted as a matter of course for a long-term rental. But I had no problem cleaning up; I put plastic sheeting down and donned scrubs which stayed in the work area. A few aluminum chips escaped to the kitchenette area, which was easy to clean, but nothing made it to the bedrooms.

Sorry, the pictures I have from back then are pre-digital scans sized for the network speeds of the day. That's my SO riveting the vertical stab while I buck. When doing the wings, the jig was moved to the side of the living room so it didn't block the outside view. Oddly, the IR TV remote worked better bouncing off the skinned wings than when pointed directly at the TV. :p
 

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Maybe consider a RV-12? Put it together with a (silent) manual hand riveter. You will end up with the strongest hand shake in the state!
 
I built my empennage and wings in the living room of a one bedroom apartment. It was a one floor concrete block building and I was on the end unit so only had neighbors on one side. Did limit riviting to during the day.

With the wing kit came the fuselage longerons, and the length of those told me I wasn't going to be able to build the fuse in that apartment. Had to hang them diagonally from the ceiling extending into the kitchen. Ended up buying a house with a garage.
 
I built most of my -3b in the living room of my apartment. I put the compressor in a closest and lined it with thick padding. You’ll want to concentrate your riveting for when your neighbors aren’t home. The aluminum dust made a mess of the walls and looking back I sort of feel bad for the owners. I own rentals now so I’m sure Karma will find me. :rolleyes:
 
Can you? Sure! Should you...Maybe?

For what it's worth I build part of my empennage kit in my college dorm room. And Well There is dust and aluminum chips everywhere. I really wanted to do it so I did. I had the compressor boxed in and did all of my drilling with a cordless drill. So it was really just the riveting that was noisy and that really is not that high of a percentage of the build time. Most of it is de burring and drilling things together

I now moved to a barn and have a bit more space. But there is no such thing as too much space.
 
In my hangar I don't have neighbors who would be bothered but I still want to build a sound-proofing box for my "quiet" Husky compressor, as it is just annoyingly loud. Seems like a must-have if you do it in an apartment. This looks like a good step-by-step for that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EikCNY4uac4&feature=emb_logo

Also in case you haven't already searched for and found the voluminous information and opinions on compressors in this forum :) bear in mind there are two types, two-stage oiled compressors, and oilless. The oilless type are invariably louder but also require a less maintenance and won't introduce oil into the air supply (not good for painting). For that reason most of us use the oilless type.
 
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Compressor

+1 for the California Air Tools compressor. Extremely quiet, low current draw, reasonable cost and available with an aluminum air tank for a modest upcharge.
 
I tried apartment building, but to be honest it was a pain having to always be thinking about neighbours and noise..
I converted a 40’ shipping container into a workshop, and it’s great. Could you find somewhere to put a container, a storage yard maybe?
Not having to think about noise all the time is worth the small amount of rent I pay at the yard I have my container at, and I plan to sell the container when I’m done.
 
I heard of a guy that built an RV8 in his apartment in Hong Kong on the 20th floor. Lowered it all out over the balcony. He now lives in Australia. Now that took some planning. So if there is a will there is a way!
 
I live in an apartment in NYC and would never think about it (ok maybe id think about it). Building is a loud and dirty job.

I was lucky and found a hangar but its over an hour away. Commercial space near me is VERY expensive.

I would find a commercial real estate agent and tell him what you are looking for. Consider sharing warehouse space with a bigger client that would sublease you a corner. Maybe you can find 1000 sq ft which would be ideal. I bet Vegas is a lot cheaper than NYC.
 
As a 20 year old with no concern for anyone other then himself I had a drum kit in my apartment. As a 60 year old with some life experience I’d never consider trying to pound rivets in an apartment.

Consider everyone you could possibly impact.
 
Why not rent a hangar, or share a hangar? You don’t really need that much space to build. Rent the corner of someone’s hangar for $100/month.
 
I have no doubt you can build a RV in a apartment. I also have no doubt that it would not be the right thing to do if you have the slightest consideration for others.
 
CVN

I have a buddy who years ago (1990's) built most of the empenage kit for his -6 in his stateroom aboard a deployed US Navy aircraft carrier!

He was in a serious crunch for space, his work table was built on top of the sink, but he didn't have the issue with noise (our staterooms were right under the forward catapults!) He had to hoof his compressed air in a portable bottle from somewhere down in the bowels of the ship on a regular basis.

At the end of the cruise he had his parts done and continued the build in his garage at home ... flew a few years later.

Guess it comes down to how bad you want to get this project done! :cool:
 
I remember that build being mentioned in the RVator at the time. Where there's a will, there's a way!
 
Wow! That's impressive. "I believe success is achieved by ordinary people with extraordinary determination."-Zig Ziglar. I would love to see a video. Best of Luck!
 
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