RVing

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Strapping the Shed and a New Power Pole

I can’t believe how fast this summer is winding down! I am so behind on my Haven projects, which are primarily to get the shed weather tight and to put new roofing on both buildings. I ordered the metal roofing the week before last and it came in this past Thursday. It comes in 3′-wide sheets and you order however many of them you need in whatever length. Charles and Caroline helped me do the math on all of that. You also need ridge cap pieces, which comes in 10′ sections, and ‘closures’, which we forgot and I will run into town for first thing in the morning. They fill in the gaps between the ridge cap and the sheeting as well as between the sheeting and the sub-roof.

Charles and I went to town on Saturday with his truck and flatbed trailer to pick everything up, metal sheeting for the two buildings, enough chip board to clad the shed (the rougher of the two buildings), and ‘strapping’ for both buildings, which are 1x4s that are screwed to the roof and then the metal is screwed to them. I helped him unload rocks before we went to town and I treated him to lunch!

This morning, he showed up bright and early as promised so we could get started on removing the old roofing from the shed (chip board over cedar shingles). My new neighbour, K, also came to help. K bought C&C’s last vacant lot and she is using it as an RV pad! She lives here three days and is in the city for four days.

Many hands make light work, so even with two coffee breaks in the morning, we had one side of the shed roof cleared and strapped by lunch. Caroline always feeds her crews well, so I made sure to have coffee and granola bars for the morning, which we enjoyed on our first break, then Caroline came by with more coffee and homemade muffins for our second break!

For lunch, we had a bell pepper and black bean salad, tomatoes, cucumbers, ham, cheese, cream cheese tortilla pinwheels, and more tortillas in case anyone didn’t like bean salad (I knew Charles would, but I didn’t know who else might show up to help). There was lots left over for lunch tomorrow, but no one went hungry. I also made sure to have a cooler full of cold water, ginger ale, and non-alcoholic beer.

We got the other side cleared and strapped by about 3:30. Another neighbour, T, who is our hermit and rarely seen, actually came and lent a hand and promised to return tomorrow and help lift the heavy sheets of metal up onto the roof! Wow! We all had a beverage of choice after all that work. K wasn’t shy and handed out granola bars.

While all this was going on, SaskPower showed up to replace my charred power pole! Talk about bad timing! Thankfully, by the time they arrived, we knew most of the dimensions we needed for the strapping, so I cut all the lumber before the power went out (using Charles’ chop/miter saw).

Charles and K screwed in all the strapping today. I did a lot of running around fetching things, preparing food, cutting lumber, and removing the old roofing.

The shed roof will be done tomorrow. C&C are heading out of town, so Charles said we’ll do the other roof when he gets back. He’s going to try to find time to at least cut the siding for me this week and tack it into place so that I can finish screwing it in on my own and paint it while they are gone. I’m in a hurry to get that done since I had to take my clothesline apart to make room to work today and I want it back up asap!

I was hoping to spend no more than $1,500 on this first phase of the exterior work on the graineries. I still have the closures and paint to buy and am at about $1,250, so I should come in right on budget! For the curious, the roofing is $0.98/square foot for coloured, so about $630 (including tax) for both buildings, plus $110 (including tax) for the ridge caps. I didn’t factor food for the crew into that part of the budget, but I’m at about $150 for that; much cheaper than a roofing crew! 🙂

I can’t wait to get the first roof on tomorrow. It is going to be so beautiful!

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A Non-Intrusive Way of Bringing Cables Into an RV

All of last summer, winter, and spring, I brought my internet antenna cable in through the office window, sealing the gap as best as I could with tape and, in the coldest month, towels. Bugs and cold still managed to get in. This summer, I was determined to find a better, yet non-intrusive, way to bring cables into my RV.

My impetus was moving to a new type of cellular booster. I’m not ready to blog about that as my system is not working as well as expected and I’m still exploring other options. So while I wanted to bring the cable in in such a way that bugs and cold couldn’t get in, I didn’t want to make any holes since I’m not sure my booster system is what I’m going to end up using permanently here.

If I ever get this booster working as well as I believed it would, I will likely put a hole in the roof over a cabinet, install the booster in there, and run the cable to it. But for now, the cable is out of my way and this is working out well.

My coax cable is in two sections, with its connector being at ground level. So when I had to move Miranda in a hurry a few weeks ago, I was able to show Caroline where the junction was and leave her to disconnect the two bits and coiling the part attached to the RV around the ladder while I did other things instead of my having to disconnect the booster from inside and scramble onto the roof to yank the wire out of the way. Unintentional, but perfect, design!

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My Digital Honeywell Thermostat and the AC

Back in November, I upgraded from an analog Duoterm thermostat to a programmable digital Honeywell thermostat. This remains one of the best mods I’ve made to my RV.

This spring, I did my AC maintenance and testing before the weather got warm. The AC did not run correctly and made an awful sound. It took me a minute to think, “What changed between now and the last time I used the AC? Ah, the thermostat.”

It would have probably been faster to check my post from November, which I only just did, as it explains exactly what was going on with my AC!

But I figured it out on my own very quickly and before thinking I had any major AC issues.

The problem in November was that when I hooked up the wiring for the fan on the AC, it would run as soon as the furnace powered on. I disconnected this wiring and had no trouble with heating all winter.

So the possible solution to the AC not working was to open up the thermostat and reconnect the fan wiring. Sure enough, that did the trick!

My AC runs great and while I just about never use it, I’m grateful for it when it gets unbearably muggy in here, like tonight!

I don’t think that there’s a way around the fan issue other than  making a radical modification to the thermostat to add an off option in addition to on and auto. So I’ll just disconnect it when I need heat and reconnect it when I need cold, which should technically be once a year each…

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Creatively Replacing Atwood Range Knobs

I use my RV range daily and it has taken a beating over the last six years. The knobs in particular have given me a hard time. They are made of lightweight plastic. I lost one a few years ago and another one gave out a few months ago, leaving me with just one working knob for three burners.

I tried to find replacement knobs at Camping World and RV part stores, but the best anyone could do was order some in and I wasn’t in the location long enough for that to be a good option. Forget ordering them online; with shipping I was looking at something like $100 for three pieces of plastic!

My engineer friend L had a much better solution. He went to a city dump and pulled an assortment of knobs off of barbecues and stoves.

When he arrived here for his visit, he tried to fit each of the knobs to the stems on my stove until he found a close match. The holes in the knobs were a little too small, so he carefully drilled them out so that they would fit. That was imprecise and some were a little loose, so he added a little paper to the hole to provide a tighter fit on the stem.

This week, I picked up some Gorilla glue and put a tiny amount in each knob hole. Gorilla glue turns into a hard foam, so when the glue was almost dry, I put the knobs back on the stove to get the shape of the stem, pulled the knobs off, and let them dry. End result, knobs with holes that perfectly fit my stove!

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The new knobs look so much better than did the old ones and are at least as easy to manipulate. They only have one line on them, which means the stove is off when it’s at the 12 o’clock position, but I’m learning to gauge the height of the flame by the line’s other positions rather than attempting to put a medium and low marker on the knobs as well.

I love having three working knobs again and, really, these look so much better than did the old ones. Thanks again, L!

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This Is Not a Drill!

Tonight, it was confirmed to me that everything happens for a reason. Last weekend, my friend L tried to get Miranda leveled and on blocks to stabilize her, but the ground was too soft and we had to give up on that project. I wasn’t in the mood to pack up and move Miranda to get her level…

Fast forward to this evening. We had a flash storm, not as bad as the one with hail last year, but still very strong. A big branch fell right where I normally park my truck, but, thankfully, I had it parked a little further ahead and it was fine.

I went out after work to start chopping up the big limbs that fell on my property. I was hacking away when I heard Caroline call, “Rae, your power pole is on fire!”

I thought she was joking. And then I saw the smoke and realised that, indeed, the top of the pole was charred and the insulator was hanging freely!

I called SaskPower, but they were so overwhelmed with calls that they weren’t even putting people on hold.

So I dialed 911 and was quickly transferred to the Willow Bunch volunteer fire department. I was impressed by how efficient the system was and that they didn’t waste time asking me my name and birthday. I was promised fire service within a half hour.

I went out to assess the situation and Caroline and I both came to the same conclusion: there was a veritable risk of the transformer blowing. My home was right under the pole and has wheels. TIME TO GO!

Caroline helped me get Miranda disconnected from everything, then she went home to put her dog in the house. I came in the rig and decided to make sure the office equipment was secure and leave the rest where it was.

The fire department pulled in at this point and I flagged them down and showed them how to access the back alley. They said that they couldn’t do anything until SaskPower showed up, which would be in twenty minutes or so.

I returned to Miranda, got in the driver’s seat, and pulled all the way forward until the nose was flush with the street.

It was then time to wait. We started with a small crowd, but it dwindled down to just Caroline, Laura, and myself.

The SaskPower guy showed up quicker than I would have expected and I thought he looked like a baby. But he got to work promptly and was very professional. He had to climb up another pole to cut power so that the fire could be put out.

That done, he came back to my property and got his gear together, all hanging from a belt. It was quite a sight and I regret not pulling out the camera! He climbed all the way to the top of my pole and then pulled up a big container of water. He doused the flames, then installed a new insulator.

It was impressive to watch. He was dealing with a lot of lines and things that could get tangled, plus the pole was swinging madly, but he worked with quick, efficient movements. It was really amazing. He then shimmied down my pole and back up the other one to put the power back on.

We thanked the guys for coming out and then Caroline and Laura went home. I moved my truck to my backyard so that I could use the headlights to see what I was doing as I backed up and got on levelers. Yes, Caroline offered to help, but I knew I could do this on my own very quickly.

Indeed, I backed up almost smoothly. I hit the pallets on the first try, nudged Miranda over just a tad, and then got right on the levelers. I was rather impressed with myself! Then, it was just a matter of plugging into power, switching the breaker on, and hooking up propane and internet.

PHEW.

Everything happens for a reason. Imagine if I had been on blocks tonight! An amusing social event would have had me wondering if I was going to be homeless by nightfall. Needless to say, I would have grabbed what I could before the fire department told me to move away!

Another thing I realised today is that one day in the not so distant future I am once again going to have a home without wheels and what a loss that will be. What a luxury it is to be able to pull up the stakes in an emergency, even if those same wheels make the home rock unpleasantly in violent storms.

What a night!