Month: May 2014

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A Not So Difficult Winter Finally Winds Down

Sunday will mark a year since I rolled into Haven. It is also very likely the day that I will be moving out of my friend Laura’s yard and back to Haven!

This winter truly wasn’t that bad and was much more comfortable than the winters I spent in British Columbia, the dry sunny cold being much more tolerable than the humid overcast warmth. I will miss my view out the office, but look forward to being able to fully open my house door!

Except for the exceptionally frigid nights that propane wouldn’t liquefy and I had to keep getting up to switch tanks, this winter was effortless in terms of RV maintenance and keeping my rig comfortable. I do not in the least feel that I ‘survived’ this winter.

SaskPower came by earlier this week to examine the work done by the electrician and deemed it satisfactory enough to schedule the installation of my meter. I was told it could take up to 10 business days. I called this morning to ask if they had a date for me and explained my situation in the hope that they would take pity on me. They did and promised that I will have power tomorrow or Monday at the latest if something comes up tomorrow! Once the meter is in, I will have power immediately, no waiting for them to flip a switch.

I’m still swamped with work, but hope to start prepping Miranda tomorrow afternoon. I don’t have that much exterior work to do beyond putting away the skirting and charging the house battery, but I will admit that the interior is a bit of a disaster. Getting out of here will mean a lot of jockeying back and forth and tight turns, so I am doing a full pack even though I’ll just be going around the block.

I eventually need to empty out Laura’s garage as well and I can’t believe how much stuff is in there! Where the heck did I used to put it?!

I asked the RM the turn on the water at the hydrant I used last summer, but have not received a reply from them. I will call tomorrow to ask if they have an idea of when that will happen. More than anything, even power, I want running water! I have spent so many winters since 2003 without running water and I am beyond done with that!

Warm weather appears to be holding tenuously and we have several beautiful days ahead, so I look forward to continuing work on cleaning up my property. I have received compliments for my efforts from total strangers, which makes me feel quite proud!

Folks who have met me in the last few years would probably not recognize me this spring, so bright eyed, slim, and energetic. I think my physical state speaks volumes to my mental state and that I am not lying when I say that while I might not have had the winter I wanted, I had the winter I needed.

My year in Saskatchewan has done me a world of good and allowed me to decide on what I want to do next. It’s almost sacrilegious to talk about next winter, but the wheels have already been set in motion for the next great big adventure of my life. It’ll come into focus in late July or August, but I’m already talking about it with some folks like it’s a done deal. Last time I did that, I wound up on a beach in Texas, so the chances are good this is going to happen. 🙂

Well, I’d better get back to work as I have a late deadline tonight and an early Skype meeting with a client in the morning. Hopefully, my next post will be of pictures showing Miranda parked at Haven!

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Smoothing Out the ‘Gravel’ Pile

This evening, a tractor-owning neighbour smoothed out my ‘gravel’ pile. He is as frustrated as I am that I got a mix of dirt and stone rather than proper gravel. It’ll be a better surface for the RV than the sod, but just barely. At any rate, I can at least park Miranda on the property once again! Yay for helpful neighbours! I’ll probably get pavers or something along those lines to put under Miranda’s tires.

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Haven Even Closer to Power

The electrician came back this morning to finish up the job, adding a couple of 20A outlets. I had requested three, but only two were installed, leaving me with a 30A space on the panel in case I want to put in a 220 outlet for a dryer or stove in the cabin.

I will very rarely, especially in summer, use the full 30A in the rig, so if the two 20A outlets aren’t enough, I can always tap into the RV amperage via the exterior outlet. Why waste money and resources on an outlet I probably don’t need? I was actually thinking about how I could modify the panel down the line for a dryer and the electrician was obviously thinking along the same lines. If he had put in the other 20A, I would have essentially wasted the last 10A.

So here are my 20A outlets:

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Now, notice something different in the breaker box?

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Last night, there were what felt like 50 billion (I know, I exaggerate) comments and horror stories about electricians wiring a 30A RV outlet with 220V, like a dryer or stove outlet, and there was at least one mention of my 30A outlet being on a double breaker, which would indicate that my outlet was wired incorrectly. I wasn’t too concerned because I never plug in anywhere without checking the wiring. I was going to wait for the outlets to go live and then check voltage, polarity, and connections, confident that the electrician would be out promptly to correct any problems.

But when I came by to check out today’s work, I had a single 30A and two 20A breakers. So I’m thinking the electrician might have initially wired the 30A outlet incorrectly, realised his mistake, and fixed it. Anyway, it looks correct now and we’ll know soon enough if it is!

The electrician emailed this afternoon to say that he had requested service from SaskPower, but there was a problem with my land description and he couldn’t get them to come out. The issue is that my neighbour gave them the wrong land description (mine), so SaskPower thinks there’s already service on my lot. Because I was able to correctly cross-reference my land description with title information, SaskPower says that this is an easily fixable clerical error. They are sending my request for service over to the technical department, who will call me to give me an idea of what day they can come by to install my meter!

Now, if the rain can hold out another few hours, my gravel pad should be done tonight. All appendages crossed for that!

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Haven Nearly With Power

My electrician asked me to be on site at 8:30 this morning, so I moseyed over around 8:10 thinking that I’d have at least an hour to clean up the yard. Ha. He rolled in at about 8:15! He discussed what he was going to do and where he was going to set up everything and I left him to it. I checked in on him at 10:30 and 1:00 and he was making good progress. When I went back around 3:15, he was gone and the work not quite where I expected it to be, but the important part was done. I imagine I’ll get an email from him tonight.

Here’s the first thing he did, installing posts and plywood to create a structure on which to screw the breaker box and outlets. This was the cheapest way to do it for now and I can later move the breaker box into a building if I so choose. The panel looks very neat and he used pressure-treated posts for the legs. I’ll be using posts like these for my clothesline.

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Here’s a closeup of the trench. The metal thing sticking out is the ground. It has to be about 2′ down.

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Because of the gravel pile, he was unable to get onto my property from Main Street and was very glad when I told him that there is a rear access through an easement. His trailer is unhooked because he had to go back to town for some conduit that his supplier forgot to ship him last week. I’m glad said conduit did arrive!

BTW, I plan to bring Miranda back to Haven through this rear access because the driveway entrance is so narrow and it takes a lot of work to get Miranda aligned just so to back her into it. Plus, why back in 100′ when I can drive in? 🙂

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Here is the ‘household’ socket into which SaskPower will plug their meter. It put it on a board that is attached directly to my power pole. You can see a conduit cover running down and into the ground.

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Here’s the board with the electrical panel. See that thing down to the right of it?

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A 30 amp outlet. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY.

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Close up of my pretty exterior-grade electrical box in oh-so-sexy contractor grey.

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I wanted a box I could lock. It is very difficult to open! You have to push the tab to the left and get it to fit through the door slot.

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I only have the main 100 amp breaker and the 30 amp breaker. We had discussed three 20 amp outlets as well, so that’s why I’m a little confused tonight. Not a big deal for now as I can always plug things into the RV exterior socket for now, but I really want a 20 amp outlet for my friend L to plug into when he gets here. I’ll see what the electrician says.

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Close up of the breakers. Top say 100, bottom says 30.

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Next step is that he will call SaskPower and tell them that I am ‘site ready’ and they will come and run cables down the pole to my household socket and plug in a meter. SaskPower says it will take at least 10 business days, but my electrician says it shouldn’t be more than two or three. We shall see…

I can’t believe that this is finally happening! Boondocking for most of 2013 was empowering, pun intended, but I’ll be glad this summer to not have to worry about powering the new internet booster, charging the laptops, using my external monitor, etc.