Tag Archives: desk installation (H3-40)

2015/10/16 (F) Desk Installation

We were up at 8 AM, fed the cats, made coffee, and had breakfast. Phil showed up around 8:30 AM, unloaded his front loader, dropped his flatbed trailer, and left in his dump truck. I turned on the fireplace and we enjoyed our coffee while iPading until 10:15 AM.

Our first task today was to cut up several large limbs that I pulled out of the woods last evening to get them out of Phil’s way. I cut them up with the chain saw and then we stacked them on the disposal pile for Phil to haul away.

Phil returned at 10:30 and moved his Caterpillar 305C excavator into the woods across the street by the culvert. I went down to chat with him briefly to make sure I understood what he was going to work on. There were a lot of small trees (3″ diameter), saplings, and bushes scattered around the site. Some of them had been dead for years and some had just been knocked over by Phil. I decided to work in that area with my chain saw cutting everything up into five foot lengths so Phil could use his front loader to get them into his dump truck. I worked at this until 11:30 AM and then turned my attention to the bus. Linda worked on her needlepoint while I cut wood.

Before getting started on construction tasks I took two pieces of filter material and set them on the wire shelf in the freezer compartment of the new refrigerator, one on top of the other. I then set the two remote thermometer sensors on the filter material. Butch had suggested the other night that I set the sensor on a sponge to get it off of the floor of the freezer compartment as it was likely responding to the automatic defroster heat strips when they come on. I figured the filter material would work just as well and that placing the sensors on the shelf would definitely get them away from the floor.

Linda brought out a bag of ice from the house fridge and put it in the bus freezer. She also filled several 1/2 gallon juice and milk cartons with water, put the caps on, and put them in the fresh food compartment. The purpose of all of this was to add thermal mass to the compartments to cause the refrigerator to run less often and reduce large swings in temperature.

Inside the bus our first sub-project was installing the desk, which included putting the front passenger side HVAC duct cover in place even though it is not finished. It took us quite a while to get everything positioned just right. With Linda holding things in position I screwed the right pedestal to the wall, adjusted the position of the base and screwed the pedestal to the base. We then repeated that process for the left pedestal and base.

Linda removes the backing from the double-sided tape on the back side of the air grate in the center connector/cover for the desk.

At this point we had several things to do with, and under, the center connector/cover so I removed it and took it into the garage/shop. We cut a piece of the decorative brass colored metal grate and secured it to the back of the air opening with small screws every few inches. Next we cut a piece of black plastic mesh to fit over the grate. We then cut pieces of 3M Extreme Mounting Tape (double-sided) and attached them to the back side of the grate in between the screws. Linda peeled off the protective layer and we carefully placed the plastic mesh. Using one of the scrap pieces of the protective layer I rolled the plastic into the take with our wallpaper seam roller. Finally, we had a piece of filter material already cut to cover this air intake opening so we set that on top of the mesh, pressed it down to take advantage of the tape, and then secured it with Gorilla Tape on all four edges, rolling it with the seam roller to get good bonding.

A detailed view of one of the homebrewed tongue and groove alignment assemblies made from flat mending plates.

Back in the coach I had to tie in the outlet strip to the 120VAC power feed. I shut off the breaker for this circuit and checked with my tester to make sure it was not live. The hot and neutral wires were accessible but the ground wires were back under the left pedestal where they were not easy to reach and manipulate. It took a while, certainly longer than it should have, but I got the three ground wires tied together with a grounding clamp. I connected the hot and neutral wires (three each) relatively easily using wire nuts. I turned the circuit breaker back on and checked that the outlet strip had power between the correct terminals and did have power between any other terminal pairs.

I went to the garage to get a four foot long piece of 1″X1″ aluminum angle that I bought weeks ago to use as a support bracket for the upper rear edge of the center connector/cover. I was going to cut off a 26″ long piece and then drill countersunk holes but I noticed a piece of 1/2″X1/2″ light gage angle that was about 26″ long and already had holes in it. It was long enough to span the space between the pedestals and go under each one about an inch. That was sufficient to position it correctly so Linda held it there while I secured it to the wall with four round (pan) head screws. I then put the center connector/cover back in place.

Phil has cleared all of the organic debris from the area where the driveway extension and RV pad will be located.

Phil starts trenching and placing the plastic drain tile tubing for the French drain.

Phil had long since left in his truck to dump all of the wood debris. We had a light lunch of Amy’s Lentil Vegetable soup and fresh organic grapes. While we were eating a group of three deer came to our back yard and eventually ended up eating apples that had fallen from our tree onto the ground. These same deer, along with two others, were here yesterday at twilight and were very frisky. We saw them later in our neighbor’s yard across the street.

Another view of Phil’s smaller excavator with the 12” bucket being used to trench the French drain in the southwest portion of our property.

Phil returned around 3 PM and started working on the French drain. He replaced the 30″ wide toothed bucket with the 12″ one and started at the high end if the culvert on this side of the road.

The grand finale was the installation of the Corian desktop, which has been sitting on a blanket in the middle of the living area floor since Tuesday. I drilled countersunk holes through the four corner plates in each desk pedestal from underneath. I then inserted 1-1/4″ #8 self-drilling outdoor wood screws into each hole, again from underneath, until they just protruded above the corner blocks and then backed them off until the tips were just below the surface. We set the desktop across the pedestals and pushed it as tight to the back and right end wall as we could. Linda put her weight on it and I ran the screws home, pulling the top tight to the pedestals. We reinstalled the four drawers in the right pedestal, finally getting them off the floor in the hallway where they have been since Tuesday. We stepped back to admire the desk and agreed it was a thing of beauty and a joy to behold. Linda also marveled, once again, at how much space she now has to work in the kitchen.

A wider shot showing the excavator and drain tile. The laser level is at the left edge of the frame. The main arm of the excavator (with the bucket attached) has a laser sensor on it that tells Phil exactly where the lower edge of the bucket is relative to the laser level.

The “denouement” was mounting the outlet strip and adding felt pads to the two fake drawer fronts on the left pedestal and then adjusting the magnetic catches. I originally had the outlet strip (temporarily) mounted to the wall between the two pedestals with two screws a few inches below the cord notch in the center of the back edge of the desktop. Rather than put it back there I decided to mount it on the underside of the desktop just in front of the cord notch.

The underside location will work just as well as the wall mount location for regular 2- and 3-prong plugs but probably not as well for small AC adapters. The added pluses of this location, however, are: 1) it will not interfere with cords coming through the notch, 2) it will be up out of the way of the UPS (uninterruptible power supply) that will sit on the shelf at the top of the center connector/cover, and 3) if liquids are accidentally spilled and run over through the notch they will not run into the outlet strip. Besides, devices with an AC adapter will probably be plugged into the UPS so this was a better overall approach.

Our next task was to adjust the sofa seat until it was deep enough to be comfortable. We slide the plywood seat out a couple of inches and then got the seat and back cushions (three each) from the house where they have been stored since September 21st. We put the cushions in place and sat down. We pulled the cushions out and pulled the seat board out until it was five inches farther out than originally designed and put the cushions back in.

The front edge of the seat cushions were out farther than I liked but we both agreed the sofa was now comfortable to sit on. The distance from the bottom front edge of the back cushions to the front edge of the seat cushions was originally only 16 inches and that turned out to just be too short. With the seat board moved out it will now be 21 inches.

In order for the sofa to work correctly, both as a sofa and as a bed, we will need a cushion that is 5″ wide by 6″ high, by ~76″ long to fill in the space behind the seat cushions and below the back cushions. The height and foam makeup will be such that it is level with the tops of the seat cushions and have the same firmness and feel. Would that I had designed the sofa for this depth to begin with and had the seat cushions made accordingly, but we were trying to open up the living room by not having the sofa protrude into the aisle any more than absolutely necessary.

Next up was reinstalling the wood trim in hallway. We have an interesting plan for the lower half of the hallway but in case we do not get it finished before we leave for the winter we wanted the trim off the bed and back on the wall.

The lower outside hallway wall. There were originally three framed panels of vertical strip mirrors here. We will replace them with wood panels, probably in a lighter color to contrast with the walnut trim.

This trim originally framed three panels of vertical strip mirrors. We were able to remove the mirrors as they were glued to wallpaper. In the process we discovered that the left and right panels were the same width but the center panel was wider. The trim consisted of six pieces of wood; a long upper and lower horizontal piece and four vertical pieces. The six pieces were screwed to the lower half of the outer wall but not attached to each other. The left and right vertical pieces were tight to adjacent woodwork, but the two intermediate pieces were free to be repositioned.

We reattached the upper horizontal piece first making sure the mounting screws went back in the same holes. Next we pushed the lower horizontal piece into place but did not screw it to the wall. We then attached the left and right verticals. The horizontal distance between the inside edges of the left and right verticals was 75 inches. The two intermediate verticals were each 4-1/2″ wide so the distance between verticals needed to be 22″ (75 minus 9 = 66 divided by 3 = 22). We carefully positioned and secured the two intermediate verticals to achieve this spacing.

The trim boards all have rabbited edges on the back side. I need to measure them carefully, but they are ~3/16″ deep by 3/8″ wide. Our current plan is to use 3/16″ underlayment or other 3/16″ high quality plywood to make three panels that will fit within these rabbits with a little room to spare. The panels will either have a hardwood face or we will cover them with a hardwood veneer of a wood that contrasts with the walnut trim. We can get the veneer from Rockler once we decide what we want.

Linda spread out several towels on the new desktop and we moved tools and supplies from the A-V cabinet, behind the driver’s seat, to the new desk. I then removed the Corian top of the A-V cabinet and put in on the bed. We still have a small amount of wallpaper to install in the front of the living room and into the cockpit on the driver side, but it will not be easy to do.

These areas, such as the one behind the A-V cabinet, are small with limited access so most of my sanders cannot be used. The only one that might work is the Porter-Cable oscillating tool but I did not get it out today. I got some sanding sponges instead and tried those on the wall under the passenger side window trim next to the co-pilot seat. When I sanded a dark area about 6″ long by 3″ wide the wood in the center crumbled and I ended up with a hole 3″ long by an inch and a half wide. I could see one of the stainless steel structural members through the hole. Given what was obviously water damage I was glad we bought a bus with welded stainless steel as the main structural material.

Based on what I could see, the walls in the bus appear to be 1/2″ plywood although I did not measure the thickness. This area had obviously gotten very wet over a long period of time and some of the wood has rotted. It is the only spot we have discovered that is this damaged and we immediately realized that we will not be able to wallpaper this area. We will probably panel over it, similar to what we plan to do with the veneered panels in the hallway, but today was not the day to figure that out.

It was going on 5 PM and we decided we were done for the day. I turned off all of the electric heaters, turned on the Aqua-Hot, turned on all three thermostats, and set the temperature to 20 degrees C. The refrigerator was also indicating much colder freezer temperatures than it had been before I moved/isolated the remote sensors so I reset the freezer and fresh food controls to their “normal” center positions. Tomorrow we will replace the alkaline batteries with the Lithium batteries we bought specifically for the TempMinder thermometer system, reset the min/max data, and monitor it for a few days.

I walked down to see what Phil was doing. He was making good progress with the French drain but did not have enough of the plastic drain tile to finish it today. He plans to work tomorrow and will have the additional tile he needs to finish the drain. I left him to his work and took photos of the fall colors in our yard as I worked my way back to the house.

I spent an hour at my computer dealing with e-mail and transferring photos from the Sony a100 to my laptop. Linda called me to dinner at 7 PM. It was a simple meal of vegan Coney dogs with mustard, onion, and beans served open-faced on a whole wheat hotdog bun. As a side dish Linda steamed Opo squash. It was the first time either of us had this particular squash. It was very mild with a hint of cucumber. It is available all over the world and widely consumed as it is relatively inexpensive. It was OK, but I thought it might work better as an ingredient rather than a stand-alone side dish.

I exchanged a couple of text messages with Chuck and confirmed that we would be at his shop tomorrow after breakfast to retrieve our two bus windshields. The rest of the evening was spent in the living room by the fireplace reading and writing on our iPads before turning in and watching episodes of Rick Steeves’ Europe and Joseph Rezendo’s Travelscope on Detroit PBS (WTVS).

2015/10/13 (T) Desk Alignment

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I got up at 8 AM, put on my robe, made coffee, fed the cats, and refreshed their water fountain while Linda got dressed and washed blueberries to put in our granola. We took our coffee to the living room where I turned on the fireplace and we were joined by our feline friends. I put the finishing touches on yesterday’s post and e-mailed it to myself while Linda pulled up the latest video post from Dr. Michael Greger at NutritionFacts.org.

Linda left at 9:30 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark for their weekly walk. As this will probably be their last walk together until spring they planned to go to lunch afterwards. While there was some work I could do by myself on the (permanent) installation of the desk there were other aspects of the job that would definitely require two people. I needed to finish updating the roster for the FMCA Freethinkers chapter so I spent about 30 minutes reading the manual for the new Sony SLT-a99v camera and then got dressed and worked in my office for the rest of morning.

After a short lunch break I resumed working on the roster until Linda got home. She and Diane had lunch at Baker’s in Milford as it is close to the Metropark parking lot where they meet. We removed most of the things from the bus we were not currently using, many of which were stored in the sofa storage box. We got the sofa seat off of the desk pedestals and set it back in place on the sofa base.

I wanted to use pieces of a 24″ X 30″ furnace filter to cover the various air inlets in the desk bases and the air outlets in the OTR HVAC duct. The best way to hold the filter material in place appeared to be with some very strong tape. We did not have any such tape on hand so Linda went to Lowe’s and bought a roll of Gorilla Tape while I cut pieces of filter material to fit the various openings.

The left desk base and passenger side OTR HVAC duct showing the pieces of furnace filter material used to seal these openings while permitting filtered airflow.

We got all of the openings taped up but I still needed to fabricate two tongue and groove alignment devices between the pedestals and the center connector/cover. I make these out of flat mending plates, one on the pedestal (tongue), and two on the connector/cover (groove). The tongue is flat against the back side of the pedestal vertical board and protrudes about 1/2″ beyond the edge. The groove is made from two plates, one stacked on top of the other, attached to the back side of the vertical connector/cover board. The upper plate is just back from the edge of the board and the lower one (next to the wood) is offset from the edge a little more than 1/2”, just enough to create a space for the tongue. The tongue and groove devices match two others lower down on the connector/cover. All four of them are oriented vertically allowing the connector/cover to drop into place and force it to align with the matching pieces of the pedestals. A pair of horizontal plates, one on each pedestal, provide a resting surface for the connector/cover that aligns it horizontally.

With the devices fabricated we were finally able to set the pedestals on the bases, drop the connector/cover in place, and align everything as if the entire desk was a single unit. We then got the Corian desktop out of my car, brought it into the coach, and set it in place. It will require some careful adjustments before we screw everything down but it basically fit properly and looked good. Final positioning of the left pedestal and base, however, would require us to put the front HVAC duct cover in position.

We got the cover out of the library and into the bus for the first time since we brought it home from Jarel Beatty Cabinetry in Logansport, Indiana. The length was perfect but the bump out where the heater hoses were originally going to loop through was too deep. I suspect the mistake was in my design/drawings. Jarel knew this piece was supposed to line up with the left pedestal and base but I no longer recall if he even had the desk pieces in his possession when he was building the cover. At this point it didn’t matter anyway. The misalignment is with the base and is not very visible. Also, the bump out is screwed on to the main cover so it can eventually be removed and trimmed or replaced with one that has the correct dimensions.

Once we had the cover in place I realized that I also needed to fabricate and install alignment plates between the cover and the left pedestal. I had not planned on this and did not have enough mending plates so we went to Lowe’s to buy more. While we were there I bought another can of 40:1 premixed fuel and a bottle of bar and chain oil for the new Poulan Pro 18” chainsaw. We stopped at Walmart to see if they stocked a particular folding chair made by Stakmore that we have seen online, but they did not. We think it would work nicely as a desk chair, and go well with the interior materials and colors in our bus, but we would like to see one in the round before buying it.

Back home I worked on the alignment plates while Linda prepared dinner. We had leftover lentil loaf, microwaved sweet potatoes, and a mix of steamed broccoli and Brussels sprouts. She added a little water to the lentil loaf before reheating it to moisten it a bit. We both like ketchup on our lentil loaf and I added some Pick-a-Poo sauce to mine. All three dishes were served hot, which was comforting on a cool evening, and everything was very tasty including the cup of hot tea.

I returned to the bus after dinner and finished installing the mending plates on the HVAC duct cover. I was not able to put it in place by myself, and there was no reason to have Linda come out and help at this hour, so I set the thermostats back and locked up the bus.

I called Butch and this time the call went through. I updated him on the installation and testing of the fan-coil heat exchangers and asked him about the operation of our new refrigerator. He suggested that I isolate the remote temperature sensors by using pieces of the furnace filter material to keep them from touching an objects or surfaces directly. He and Fonda are wrapping up at the RV Park in Bouse and moving to Quartzsite on Thursday. After we were done talking I worked on this post while we watched a few TV programs and then went to bed.

2015/09/28 (M) Connected

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I was up at 8 AM, got dressed to work, gathered up the laundry, and started a load in the washer. I was getting ready to grind the beans for our morning coffee when Linda got up. She did not look at all well, having come down with what appeared to be a bad cold late last night. But she’s a trooper and washed our breakfast berries, as she does most mornings, and got our granola ready.

Bus work notwithstanding my first task this morning was to figure out what had gone wrong with the thermostat in the main floor hallway of the house. This is our “main” thermostat; it controls the heat to the living room, entry foyer, hallway, and kitchen/dining room. It also controls the air-conditioning for the entire main floor of the house. There is no air supply or return from the basement and the library has its own HVAC system.

I used my VOM to check the voltage at the secondary of the transformer on the furnace, at the input to each of the five motorized valves, and the voltage coming out and going to the five thermostats (four for space heating zones and one for domestic hot water). Everything looked OK. I pulled the main thermostat off of the base to check the wiring there. I also got out the installation manual to make sure I knew what I was checking.

The wiring of the base plate matched the diagram for a 1H/1C-2T system, i.e., one heating system, one cooling system, and TWO transformers. The manual was also very clear that the common wire had to come from the cooling system transformer. The voltage from Rc to C was just under 15 volts when I expected it to be ~26V. All of this pointed towards the air-handler. I shut off the circuit breaker for the air-handler and reset it but that did not fix anything. The evidence was confirming my suspicion that something happened while Rebecca was in the attic on Friday. That meant I was going to have to go in the attic to figure out what it was.

Getting into the attic meant I had to empty the hall coat closet of all of its hanging contents and most of the stuff sitting on the floor and remove the wooden hanging rod, which fortunately lifts up and out easily. I then had to lean a 6-foot step ladder against the back wall, climb up, and unscrew the 1/2″ piece of foam insulation that we use as a temporary cover until I can fabricate something more permanent (hopefully something that involves a self-storing ladder and hinged, spring-loaded door).

With the cover removed I was able to get my waist to about ceiling height, set my flashlight where I could reach it, and hoist myself up into the attic. I do not have any permanent/switched lighting in the attic, but I plan to install some at some point. What I should do is install a hatch in the hallway so I do not have to empty the closet to get into the attic, but that probably won’t happen. I did this in our previous house and it made working in the attic much more convenient. Flashlight in hand I crawled the 15+ feet over to the air-handler on plywood set across the roof trusses on a slope. I was reminded than another attic project will be to rig up a walkway (crawlway) that is level and does not compress the insulation. The insulation in this attic is a mess and needs to be straightened out, so that is another project for our “to do” list. But I digress.

When I got to the air-handler I saw a surface mounted switch box on top of the unit partially obscured by one of the flexible ducts. The switch was in the “Off” position so I flipped it to the “On” position. I did not see a transformer so I presumed it was inside the enclosure. I also presumed that Rebecca had either accidental moved the switch while checking/measuring the unit or had turned it off as a safety precaution and forgot to turn it back on. It did not really matter as the result was the same either way.

I worked my way back to the hatch in the closet ceiling, lowered myself down onto the top of the step ladder, and climbed down. The thermostat, which is on the wall across from the closet, now had information showing on the display. The upside to all if this was that I now knew something about our HVAC system and Wi-Fi thermostat that I did not previously know, so at least I learned something in the process.

This thermostat is 7-day programmable model so I set the day and time and then went through the programmed values but could only access the settings for the cooling mode. I activated the setup menu and walked through all of the settings, changing only one that had nothing to do with the programming. I finally got out the user manual and saw that I had to select a mode in order to program its schedule. I manually set temperatures for heating and cooling that would not cause those systems to come on and then programmed the times and temperature set points, four per day for each mode, for all seven days.

Keith showed up late morning while I was working. We agreed to let the grass go for another week. It has been dry and a little warm during the day for the last week and the grass has not grown much. There is, however, a real possibility of rain latter today and into tomorrow. Also, Phil is supposed to start tomorrow on the French drain and driveway work and with a little luck in the weather department may be done by next Monday.

With the thermostat issue resolved I turned my attention to the bus. I thought about priming the walls but decided against it. I would need to move the desk pedestals and bases, unscrew the sofa seat platform and move it on top of the pedestals, and then mask everything with painter’s plastic. All of that was work that was much more easily and quickly accomplished with two people and Linda was sound asleep taking a nap that she obviously needed.

The other reason for not getting into the priming was that I have to take the bus to Chuck’s shop in Novi tomorrow morning to have the two lower windshields replaced. That meant the bus had to be ready to move before the end of today and there were two things I had to do in that regard. One was to reattach the desk pedestals to their bases and to the wall. The other was to connect the loose ends of the two Aqua-Hot heater hoses together. It had only just occurred to me that once I start the main engine the Aqua-Hot will heat up and the coolant will expand. If these hoses are not connected the supply line will have coolant coming out of it and the return line will suck air into the system, neither of which would be good things.

I took care of the desk first. I reattached each pedestal to its corresponding base using the existing screw holes. I set the two assemblies in place with the connecting cover and then reattached each pedestal to the wall using the existing screw hole. I thought about trimming down the temporary plywood top and reinstalling it but decided there was no point in doing that. I cleaned up the rest of the interior making sure there were no loose items on counters or elsewhere that could fly around while the coach was moving.

The two bleeder valves were still clamped inside an old piece of heater hose that originally connected the two front heat-exchangers together with short stubs of hose on the other ends. Working in the garage on our temporary workbench I unclamped and removed the hoses. One of the valves was very badly corroded on one end and was not reusable. The other one needed to be cleaned up but appeared to otherwise be serviceable. Some of the inside of the hose was stuck to the metal of one of the pipe ends and was surprisingly difficult to remove.

I washed my hands, which were filthy, checked my e-mail, sent a message to Bill Gerrie, replied to an e-mail from Butch, took the dried laundry upstairs, folded it, and put it away. Linda woke up while I was finishing the laundry and heated up some Amy’s mock chicken noodle soup for our lunch, which we had with sourdough pretzel nibblers and roasted red pepper hummus. It was 2:30 PM by the time we finished lunch. I called Josh Leach at Coach Supply Direct to see if he had followed up with Ferman Miller at Countertops Plus regarding our Corian tabletop. I got his voice mail and left a message. It felt like the day was slipping away and I had not done much but I had, in fact, accomplished quite a bit and all of it was stuff that needed doing.

I worked on this post for an hour and then completed the task of connecting the two heater hoses together. I cut the ends of the old hoses off so I had clean material and square ends. I slipped two band clamps over each hose and pushed them over the pipe ends of the bleeder valve. They were very difficult to get on but I got them on far enough to put two clamps on each connection. I did not turn the Aqua-Hot on as I would rather not refill these hoses with antifreeze at this time but I did start the main engine to air up the chassis and then let it run for 30 minutes to get it up to temperature. It did not have any noticeable effect on the coolant in the Aqua-Hot in that short amount of time.

While the engine was running I closed the roof vents and made one last check that the interior was secure. Once I shut the engine off I closed the various air valves, disconnected the batteries, locked up the coach, and was done working on/with the bus for the day. I changed out of my work clothes and went to my office to edit blog posts from early August and get them ready to upload.

Linda called me up to dinner at 7 PM. We had vegan cheeseburgers with leftover vegan potato salad and collard greens Cole slaw (inherently vegan). It was yummy. I went back to my office to edit more posts but got involved in e-mails from/to Bill Gerrie and Gary Hatt. Gary sent me the BCM logo he is using for business cards and I spent over an hour trying to use Microsoft Publisher, and then Word, to layout a BCM business card that says “Freelance Author/Photographer.” I did not care for the result and really want a card with the cover of the February 2013 issue as a full card photo. The cover of that issue is our bus.

I came upstairs a little after 10 PM and watched the end of NCIS Los Angeles with Linda. She did some online research and concluded that she did not have a cold but is suffering from an allergic reaction to something. She went straight to sleep while I played a few games on my iPad before turning out the lights.

2015/09/22 (T) Bench Work

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Linda scraps the old wallpaper off below the passenger side living room window.

We were up at 7:30 AM and had fresh grapefruit and cinnamon raisin toast for breakfast. We turned the fireplace on and drank our coffee in the living room. After taking care of a few chores we got to work on the bus. Linda started stripping the old wallpaper while I finished soldering two 45 degree copper street elbows. I then got my tools out and gathered up supplies I needed to disconnect the fan-coil heat exchangers and heater hoses.

I started by trying to connect a 1/2″ i.d. clear vinyl tube to the drain stub on the Aqua-Hot. The stub points straight down, is approximately 3/4″ long, and the open end is about 3/4″ above the base. There is a hole in the base of the unit at that point, provided by Aqua-Hot for a drain line, but Royale Coach installed one of the CruiseAir condenser units directly beneath the Aqua-Hot and did bother to provide a hole in the shelf or make alternate arrangements for draining the unit. I could not get the vinyl tube over the stub and with a limited amount of time to spend on this minor annoyance moved to Plan B.

We have had a large stainless steel photo processing tray, approximately 2′ X 3′, for years. Today we used it to catch antifreeze and protect the new floor. Linda got some scrap towels and we put them under all of the edges of the tray. I then set the heat exchangers on pieces of 2×4 in the tray to keep them up out of the antifreeze. Linda held the heater hoses as I undid each of the band clamps in turn and worked them loose from the exchangers. We emptied the coolant from the exchangers and hoses into the tray, wiped off the heat exchangers, took them outside, and set them in the driveway.

The two fan-coil heat exchangers in the photo tray ready to have the coolant hoses disconnected.

We made sure the hose that connected the two units was drained, wiped it off, and took it outside. This hose has bleeder valves at each end that I will have to remove as I need to reuse one of them. We drained the two remaining hoses as best we could and put the open ends in the metal photo tray. I bought a bucket yesterday with a gasketed lid that has a built in spout. I picked the band clamps and pieces of 2x4out of the antifreeze and put them in the bucket. We then carefully poured the antifreeze from the tray into the bucket and put the lid on. We carried the tray outside and set it in the driveway and then took the bucket outside.

Linda took a break from stripping wallpaper and went to the bank to deposit proceeds from the recent rally. There wasn’t anything else I could do in the coach and I turned my attention to cleaning up the work surface in the garage. I took the two desk bases to the garage and started working on the installation of the grates and heat exchangers. I had not worked through the details of this in advance so I had to figure them out now. I started with the left base, which has an angled front.

The coolant hoses with the heat exchangers removed. We were able to contain the coolant in the tray and not get any on the new floor tiles.

The heat exchangers needed to be spaced up 1/2″ off the floor to better align with the openings in the sides so I cut pieces of 1/2″ plywood to put under them. The exchangers have two holes on the bottom front edge that were probably created by Royale to mount them. Actually, it appears that Royale mounted them upside down, presumably to position the coolant connections where they needed them. I say they were upside down because I discovered labels on the “bottom” indicating they were made by “Vantage Products, Exclusive U. S. Distributor of Primus Hydronic Heating Products.” I designed the desk bases so that the exchangers would mount the same way Royale had them. As such they will remain “upside down” but it will not affect their operation.

My plan was to put 3/8″ wide by 1/4″ thick dense foam self-stick weather stripping around the edge of the discharge side of the exchangers to seal them to the base and reduce vibration noise due to the fans. I cut the 1/2″ plywood large enough to provide room for mounting brackets to attach the plywood inserts to the base in locations that I could reach with the heat exchangers in place. The exchangers had to be screwed to the plywood before it was set in place inside the base since the grates blocked access to the two mounting holes.

The two fan-coil heat exchangers that will go in the bases under the two desk pedestals.

By now it was mid-afternoon Keith showed up and mowed the grass so I took a little time out from my work to chat with him. When I returned to the makeshift workshop in our garage I cut the brass-colored decorative aluminum grates to size and secured them on the inside of the base using small screws. I also wanted to add a layer of the plastic gutter mesh I bought yesterday. After cutting the first piece to size I decided to use double stick tape. The only tape I had was 3M Extreme Duty Mounting Tape so I drove to Lowe’s to get something more appropriate. I found a 1″ wide clear tape and decided to try it.

Half inch wide tape would have been better so I tried cutting the 1″ tape in half lengthwise. I removed the discharge grate, applied the tape to the edges on the back side, and pressed the plastic mesh into it being careful to keep it as straight as possible. I then screwed the whole assembly on the inside of the base. The screws did not like going through the tape or the mesh so I was quickly disabused of this assembly process and decided to use the tape as it came off the roll.

For the air intake grate I first screwed the metal sheet to the inside of the base. I then applied shorter pieces of tape around the edges in-between the screw heads. I carefully positioned the pre-cut plastic mesh, peeled the protective layer off of the tape, and stretched/pressed the mesh in place.

I needed to clean the 3/4″ copper inlet and outlet pipes on the heat exchanger so I got Linda to help me at this point. She held the heat exchanger as I used a strip of plumber’s sandpaper to remove heater hose rubber that had stuck to the pipe.

Because of the grates on the air openings in the base I positioned the plywood spacer and then marked/drilled the holes for the mounting brackets. I set the exchanger in place, made several alignment marks, removed the exchanger, and took out the plywood. I attached the brackets to the inside of the base and then attached the weather stripping to the front of the exchanger case. I positioned the case and Linda held it while I secured it with two screws. I slipped the plywood/exchanger assembly back into the bottom of the base and Linda pulled it tight to the front while I secured the brackets to it. One base done, one base to go.

Keith was done mowing about this time and stopped to see what we were up to and pick up his check. He normally mows our property on Monday morning but had some service issues with his truck that put him back a day. He had some string trimming to finish and our dinner was ready so he went back to work and we went inside to eat. Dinner was salad and Whole Wheat ABC Pasta Veggie Soup. The soup was a North Bay Trading Company mix that Linda got at Whole Foods. She added kale and tomatoes to make a very tasty and nutritious dish.

After dinner I was closing up the bus for the evening and noticed that the two large MCD shades in the living room had come loose from their front mounting brackets. This undoubtedly happened Sunday on Hacker Road as we returned from the rally in Elkhart, Indiana. Linda helped me move one of the desk pedestals on the sofa so I could get to the shade on the driver’s side of the coach. Once I could get to it the mounting rail snapped into the clip fairly easily but I will have to figure out why it popped out in the first place and make adjustments if needed/possible.

I checked e-mail and replied at length to one from Gary at BCM. We then settled in to watch the season opener of NCIS and NCIS New Orleans (NCISNOLA) followed by several shows on CreateTV (PBS). I multi-tasked, working on blog posts at the same time.

My work yesterday and today was not as physical as what we have been doing for most of the summer so it did not feel like I had done much but the evidence suggested otherwise. These seemingly small tasks often have a lot of steps that have to be done carefully in the right order and take time to do. There was also a certain amount real-time problem-solving and a trip to the store in the middle of the work. I hope to finish the other base tomorrow, get both of them back in the coach, and get them plumbed with the new heater hose. That may have to wait a day or so, however, as Linda needs to finish stripping the wallpaper in the area behind the desk and we need to hang the new paper before re-installing the desk. There is a definite order to this work that cannot be circumvented.

2015/09/14 (M) Final Prep (for now)

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We were up at 8 AM and had breakfast but I did not take the time to make coffee. I gathered up the laundry and started a load. I then headed to Lowe’s to buy an outlet strip that I could easily hardwire. I looked at angle iron to support the upper back edge of the interpedestal desk cover at the wall but did not buy any. The iron has holes and slots manufactured into it that I thought might allow me to adjust its location vertically without having to move the location of the screws. Alas, the slotted openings were horizontal rather than vertical.

Linda was cooking a batch of granola when I got home and made a pot of coffee. I decided to tend to some travel preparation items before getting back to work on the remodeling project. I wanted to check/adjust the tire pressures while it was still cool. The tires were all down about 1.5 PSI, which was very good given how long it has been sitting. I used the new 6-gallon air-compressor to bring them up to the pressures I like to run and it worked OK. I will have to pause a little more often while it re-pressurizes but it is less than half the size of the 15-gallon DeWalt and will travel with much more easily.

My next task was to unload the front bay which I did while Linda continued to work on our food for the week. We find it much easier to deal with food at rallies if she “cooks ahead” and “reheats to serve.” I set everything in the driveway in front of the bus and tried to sort it into two groups; things were staying home for this trip and things that were going with us.

I then opened the drain valve on the fresh water tank, which goes through the floor of the water bay, and let the water run onto a container lid so it wouldn’t dig a hole in the gravel driveway. I was getting ready to deploy the fresh water hose(s) when I noticed that they were in need of some serious cleaning. Linda agreed to take care of that and cleaned their storage tub too. Ditto for the waste water (sewage) hoses and their storage tub. Her taking on this task allowed me to return to working on the installation of the desk.

I had a 12″ long piece of 1/8″ aluminum angle and decided to use it to support the upper back edge of the interpedestal shelf/cover. I drilled and countersunk five holes in one of the flanges. Linda finished cleaning the hoses and then got our wireless thermometer from the house. It has a base thermometer and two wireless remotes so she put one remote in the freezer and the other one in the fresh food compartment. We wanted to monitor the temperature and dial it in to where we needed it before loading the refrigerator with food.

The stacked mending plates used to create a tongue-&-groove alignment system between the center cover and both the left and right desk pedestals/bases.

I removed the interpedestal cover and set the left pedestal aside so I could complete the AC wiring connections. I mounted the outlet strip to the wall centered between the two pedestals and about two inches below the level of the underside of the plywood that will support the Corian top. The outlet strip had a 15 foot cord. I determined how much of that length I needed to get through the right pedestal and forward along the wiring chase to where the other wires were located. I cut off the extra length, routed the power cord into the right pedestal at the left upper rear corner, down the inside left rear corner, and out the left end of the upper base. From there it ran forward to the other wires where I connected them. I turned on the circuit breaker and then turned on the outlet strip. The switch lit up, indicating the presence of 120V AC. I used my Etcon tester to check the duplex outlet by the passenger seat. It also had power so the wiring was good.

I set the interpedestal shelf/cover back in place, aligned with the right base, and then aligned the left base to it. I checked the distance from each end of the base to the HVAC duct and adjusted it to be the same. We then adjusted the position of the left pedestal until we were satisfied with the alignment with the interpedestal cover. We checked the alignment of the front top edges of the pedestals with a 6′ metal ruler. Everything looked OK so I secured the pedestal to the base using two screws that will be hidden by the laser printer in normal use.

I needed to screw the pedestal to the wall in the two upper corners to minimize the visibility of those screws. It was not flush to the wall at those points so I used a shim in the upper right. We will have to cover the vertical gap at the left rear with molding.

Bruce finds the center of a drawer front by finding the point where the diagonals of the face intersect. The handle mounting holes were located horizontally 1-1/2” to either side of this center point.

We put the removable plates back in the bottom of each pedestal. I drilled the holes for the pulls in the four desk drawers, installed the pulls, and put the drawers back in the desk. To find the correct location for the holes Linda suggested that we put a piece of painter’s tape in the center of the face and then draw a small segment of the two diagonals to find their intersection. For the two small drawers that was all we needed as they got single knob style pulls. For the two larger drawers we needed to locate the holes 1-1/2″ to either side of the center on a line through the center parallel to the top and bottom edges. I measured carefully and I think we did a pretty good job.

Sometime during the morning I texted Jarel the dimensions for a 3/4″ thick piece of walnut 1-7/8″ high by 34″ long to use as a face for the edges of the three layers of plywood under the refrigerator. He texted back and said “no problem” which lead to an exchange of a dozen e-mails clarifying just exactly what I wanted. I did not mind, better that than assumptions that result in wasted time making parts that don’t fit. Jarel is an experienced cabinet maker and is meticulous in his work. He knows all the questions to ask about things I did not specify and does so before cutting any wood.

Our last construction task before departure tomorrow was rehanging the bathroom door. I measured the distance from the bottom hinge to the bottom edge of the door and compared it to the distance from the hinge in the door frame to the floor. It looked like it should fit without rubbing so we hung the door. (The old ceramic tile rubbed as the door was swung to its fully open position, but the thickness of the underlayment and vinyl tile is less than the ceramic and thinset, at least in that area.)

Linda was still trying to prepare our food for the rally as there will be very little of the included food that we can eat. She made a grocery run while I returned to emptying out the front bay of the bus. I plan to leave most of the stuff that was stored in that bay at home so Josh has access to the ceiling to see if we can through-bolt mount the two captain’s chairs in the living room. I might also store all of the GLCC stuff down there as Linda will be coming down on Wednesday in the car with the cats and we want to minimize the amount of other stuff in the car.

I thought about sanitizing the fresh water system by using the 12V DC water pump and the winterizing valves/tubes to draw a dilute chlorine solution from a bucket and pump it through the fresh water pipes. I decided against it based on available time and higher priority items that needed to be done. I connected the clean fresh water hoses to the coach and started filling the tank. I checked that the fuel polishing pump was off and checked the air springs and latch on the generator. I made a mental note that the aft air springs (front of the Yanmar diesel engine) needed air and made sure the slide tray was latched in place. I was going to start the generator and let it power the air conditioners but decided to forego for now that as well.

We had unlatched and removed the towbar from the bus receiver earlier in the summer. I used one of our hand trucks to move it over by the car. I put the passenger side rear seat down and loaded the towbar in behind it along with the bag that holds all of the other pieces. That left plenty of room for the two cat carriers, litter tray, and any miscellaneous things she may bring along on Wednesday.

We put the mattress back onboard and Linda made the bed, but forgot the electric heating pad. Linda did some cleaning and then we loaded clothing and food. Computers, cameras, and other technology will go on first thing tomorrow morning. We then got the various GLCC items out of the garage and staged them by the passenger side of the bus. I loaded our personal items onto the driver’s side half of the slide tray and loaded the GLCC stuff onto passenger side half.

Our goal was to be done by 5 PM but it was 6 PM when I finally had the pressure washer ready to use. It took me a little over an hour to spray the car and the coach and I wrapped up for the day at 7:30 PM. We had seitan stroganoff for dinner with the 2013 Egri Merlot and had watermelon for dessert. It was another long day but we got a lot accomplished and most it did not require me to work on my hands and knees, for which I was grateful.

2015/09/13 (N) Club Business

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Linda is still fighting her cold and I was up way too late last night so we slept until 9 AM this morning. Because we were getting a late start, and neither of us was hungry, I made coffee but we skipped breakfast.

It was 51 degrees F in the bus so I turned on all three electric toe kick heaters and put on my zip front sweatshirt that I use to work in cool situations. We took all of the freezer packs out of the house refrigerator freezer compartment and moved them to the freezer compartment in the bus fridge. Linda also filled four large containers with water and snapped the lids on. We put those in the refrigerator compartment on the bus, turned on the power, and put the wireless remote thermometer in the freezer compartment.

I was going to raise the front of the refrigerator until the top hinge for the freezer door just touched the ceiling of the alcove but our relatively inexpensive model apparently lacks that adjustment. Linda was also concerned about how we will latch the doors for travel. She remembered seeing a very clever latch for a fridge with doors like ours at the GLAMARAMA rally in early June and found a picture of it on her phone. It is actually fairly simple and if custom made could be installed using the holes for the center hinge (between the doors) on the handle side (right side) of the fridge.

(I still like Scott Bruner’s solution best. He devised an electromagnet system that is activated by turning the ignition on but has an override switch. He and Tami have a cafe door, bottom freezer drawer unit. One electromagnet holds plates on top of the cafe doors where they meet at the center of the fridge. A second electromagnet is mounted on the right side of the lower case and holds a plate on the side edge of the freezer drawer front. Very clever, and very fail safe.)

Bruce installs the fixed side of the piano hinge to the top of the wiring chase above the OTR HVAC duct.

Our first construction task for today was to finish installing the built-in sofa. This was a semi-permanent installation with everything in its final place and screwed in. We will have to disassemble it once to finish cutting it and screening off the openings in the OTR HVAC duct and to drill the 4″ diameter holes in the vertical front panel for the circular registers. We also need to find a pair of suitable length lifts to support the seat in the open position. Finally, we need to find and mount some 12V DC LED lights and replace the momentary contact switches in the aft end cabinet with on-off versions.

It took us until 12:25 PM to finish the sofa (for now). We took a brief break and had an apple for a snack. Our next task was to put the plywood bed platform back in the coach. That sounds simple enough but we knew from taking it out that it would be difficult to put back in. The platform is the size of a queen size mattress, in two sections joined by a piano hinge. It’s big, bulky, and very heavy, with no good handholds but we managed to get it into the bedroom and setting flat on the storage box base.

The physically hard part was behind us but now we had to get the fixed part of the platform screwed back down to the base, requiring us to put 18 screws back in the holes they came out of. I rewired the aisle lights before we did that as I was easier to get to the wires. We used two screws to index the location, checked the reveal along the length of each side, and screwed it down. I then reconnected the two gas springs while Linda held the platform up. I also connected the wiring for the two cargo lights but they did not come on. I will have to change the bulbs and see if that’s the problem but for now we had more pressing tasks.

A view from near the co-pilot/navigator seat of the built-in sofa with the hinged seat base lifted up to reveal internal pieces and storage space.

We went inside, each had an apple, and then returned to the bus. I had planned to temporarily mount two 12V DC switches but did not have time to fabricate a temporary mounting plate. We needed the switches hooked up so I just reconnected the female spade connectors on the cable to the spade lugs on the switches and draped the wires over the arm of the passenger chair.

Our next task was to temporarily install the desk. The installation was only temporary in the sense that we would need to disassemble it to get the Aqua-Hot fan-coil heat exchangers installed in the bases. My preference was to get the heating system configured as part of the desk installation but we ran out of time before our appointment at Coach Supply Direct.

Our first sub-task was to cut the 1/4″ Baltic birch plywood spacer to fit on the right side of the right pedestal/base. I cut it to be shorter than the desk and not as deep as the base, which is recessed at the front to create a toe kick space. I cut the lower back corner out so the space would fit around the HVAC duct / wiring chase. We peeled off some clear tape from the mirrors in the right rear corner down below the level of the top of the desk and set the spacer in place.

Our next task was to redo some AC wiring to get power to the space between the pedestals and reconnect the passenger side front duplex outlet. To get power to the interpedestal space I decided to run 2C+G (Romex) cable from the wiring chase through a hole in the bottom of the pedestal, up the inside rear left, and out through a hole in the upper rear left side. This hole and cable will not be visible unless someone crawls under the center of the desk.

In order to get the cover/shelf in the foot well aligned with the left and right pedestal/base components I decided to use mending plates attached to the back side of the bases and pedestals. We started with the right hand components. I attached a plate to the back side of the left rear base projection and one to the underside of the left end of the upper bottom section of the pedestal. We set the base in place, put the pedestal on top of it, and set the cover/shelf in place.

We carefully shifted the components until we had them aligned the way we wanted. I then secured the pedestal to the wall (which is 5/8” or 3/4″ plywood not sure which) with a single screw through the back panel centered from side-to-side and a couple of inches down from the top edge. We double-checked the alignment of the pieces and then secured the pedestal to the base with three screws. The base is not screwed to the floor or anything else except the pedestal.

We set the left base and pedestal in place and fussed with the alignment for but it was already 4:15 PM. We had planned to quit working at 4 PM to get cleaned up for our SLAARC meeting and have dinner. We still have a lot to do tomorrow for me to be ready to leave on Tuesday morning, but it should be manageable.

We went to Panera in Brighton for dinner and both had the Edamame Soba Noodle Bowl. It was a generous serving that was tasty and filling even though it was only 390 calories. It was very high in sodium, a common but unfortunate problem with most of Panera’s food, so not something we would eat often.

We arrived at the South Lyon Witches Hat Depot Freight House at 6:30 PM for the monthly meeting of the South Lyon Area Amateur Radio Club (SLAARC). We had a larger group than usual, at least 30 people. The business meeting was brief and followed by a program by Steve (N8AR) on the Yaesu Fusion technology. Steve and several other club members brought different radios to demonstrate and let the attendees try.

We left in time to get home by 9 PM and watch an episode of Sherlock on Detroit PBS, followed by Rick Steve’s Europe and then Music Voyager. We’ve been working long, hard hours and it was nice to take an evening to relax and do something other than work on the bus.

2015/09/10 (R) Illuminating

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Linda had to go to the bakery today so she was up at 5:45 AM and out the door by 6:15. I was vaguely aware of the activity but fell back asleep and finally woke up a little before 8 AM. I skipped breakfast save for a glass of juice to wash down my vitamin and allergy pill. I spent time finishing yesterday’s blog post and thinking about what I absolutely had to get done in next four days.

I was working at the dining room table instead of in the living room so I got to watch a Red squirrel dart back and forth across the deck all morning. It was gathering walnuts from the tree northeast of our house and taking them somewhere west of our upper deck. It would run (hop) across the deck with a giant walnut in its mouth and then return by way of the deck railing. While it was gathering another walnut I moved to our library where I had a good view of our lower deck. It came down the stairs from the upper deck and disappeared behind the grill. It may be storing them under the deck or under the cover on the grill, in which case we will have to move them.

The main pieces of the desk set in place but not yet assembled or secured, and without the temporary plywood top or permanent Corian countertop.

Once I was in the bus I continued pondering how to get the desk installed so that everything would line up. Built-in furniture is just that, and I had not spent a lot of time in advance figuring out how I was going to fasten pieces together and secure them to the coach. I retrieved the piece of 1/4″ Baltic birch plywood from the garage to use as a spacer at the right end and just slid it in place temporarily. I decided I would use mending plates attached to the back and underside of the left and right bases and pedestals to align the center cover. I also decided to use a length of angle against the wall to support and align the pedestals and cover. Along the same lines I decided to use smaller angle brackets to attach the vertical front panel of the built-in sofa to the two plenum/support boxes and the air return shelf, and to attach the plenum boxes and shelf to the HVAC/wiring chase.

One of the original living room AC light fixtures. These were no doubt high-end fixtures but no longer worked in our remodeled interior.

Feeling like I should get something tangible accomplished I decided to re-install the AC light fixture and the three DC reading lights under the overhead cabinets above the desk. Linda and I agreed last night that we needed to replace the three 120V AC light fixtures in the front of the coach so I turned my attention to that issue. I removed the fixture on the driver’s side by the kitchen end of the sofa alcove and removed the mounting ring. I also measured the size of the base and the overall size of the fixture and wrote them down. Ideally I will find a fixture that has a similar size base but with most of the light fixture above the center point. One of the problems with the current fixtures is that they hang down far enough that a person sitting on the sofa would bump them with their head and probably break them as they are made of glass rods.

I headed towards The Home Depot in Howell and stopped at McDonald’s first for French fries and a soda beverage. I looked at all of their wall sconce light fixtures. They had two different ones that I thought might work but deferred a purchase until I had checked at Lowe’s. THD had 72″ piano (continuous) hinges, however, so I bought one. I also looked at PEX plumbing parts as Butch mentioned last night that I could use them to plumb the fan-coil heat exchangers.

Lowe’s had a wall sconce that was a little more to my liking. I needed three but they only had one in stock, which I bought. The Associate checked inventory at other stores and indicated that there were two more in stock in New Hudson. He wrote down the Model number and the phone number for the store and said I could call and they would hold the items for me. I picked up a couple of 75W GE Reveal light bulbs, the mending plates, angle brackets, and two different pieces of aluminum angle while I was there. I looked for pieces of felt but all they had were very thick furniture pads which was not what I needed.

The new living room light fixture. The color, style, and fit are a better match to the remodeled interior.

I was going to stop at O’Reilly’s Auto Parts to check on heater hose, fittings, and band clamps but decided to skip that stop in favor of getting home and installing the new wall sconce light fixture. It installed without too much difficulty and I liked the look. The fixture, however, was rated for a maximum 60W bulb.

I closed up the house and bus and drove to the Lowe’s in New Hudson. They did indeed have two more of the wall sconce light fixtures that I needed so I bought them. I also picked up three 60W (equivalent, 8.5W actual) 800 lumens dimmable LED warm white light bulbs. Linda texted me while I was at the store to let me know she was leaving the bakery and heading home.

I stopped at Michael’s Arts and Crafts in Brighton and bought a 36″ x 36″ piece of walnut brown felt. I plan to use the felt underneath all of the pieces of the desk and sofa that contact the floor, and possibly in some other areas as well, to keep the wood from marring the tile.

When I got home I called Elkhart Campground to make a reservation for the GLCC rally next week. I also called A-1 Upholstery in Elkhart, Indiana to check on our sofa cushions. Terry said they were almost done and we could pick them up on Monday. I then sent several text messages to Jarel with photos attached of the desk and sofa in place on the bus and indicated I had some questions and would call him later.

I was getting ready to install the other two light fixtures when Linda got home. The timing was good as she got to see the first one and approve it before I installed the other two. We discussed the covering up of the mirror strips in the corner and decided we would leave them for now. We can cover them up later if desired. Linda went in the house to fix dinner. I got the second sconce installed and went inside.

I had a few minutes until dinner was ready and used it to send an e-mail to Jarel. Dinner was couscous on power greens and small slices of bread from a baguette Linda bought the other day. I also had the leftover corn on the cob.

After dinner I called Jarel. We had a long chat and it was 8 PM by the time we finished. Linda headed to bed and I went back to the bus to install the third/final light fixture. I also installed four small frosted bulbs in the light fixture under the overhead cabinets above the desk, replacing the clear bulbs that were there. This light fixture is part of the same collection as the ones I removed from the living room walls but its design and location do interfere with anything. We might replace it someday, if we find something we like better for use over the desk that is the right size and shape, but for now it will remain in place. I locked up the bus, closed up the garage, and headed to my office.

I dealt with some BCM-related e-mail and then off-loaded today’s photos from the Sony a-100 DSLR. I went through all of the photos from September, selected about a dozen, and processed them into 300×200 pixel size images so I could share them with friends and family via e-mail. I have written extensive blog posts everyday but last posted to the website in mid-July. I don’t like being that far behind but getting the posts uploaded is just not as important as other things I have to do at this time.

I was heading to bed when I decided to replace the two light bulbs in our home kitchen that were burned out. I had the two 75W GE Reveal bulbs that I could not use in the bus, so I installed them in the kitchen downlights, and that really brightened things up.

I got to bed just before midnight. It had been a beautiful day, weather wise, and a cool night was in store portending good sleep. But first I had to capture the details of today’s work for this post.

2015/09/09 (W) Move In Day

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We had a slow start to our morning. I was up at 7:30 AM, finished loading the dishwasher, and made a cup of organic English Breakfast tea. I fed the cats and then settled in to continue reading Oystein Ore’s Number Theory and Its History. Jasper wanted attention and sat on my lap until Linda got up at 8:30 AM. I made a cup of tea for her and brewed a second cup for me.

Linda developed a sore throat yesterday and did not feel like working last night so we deferred final cleanup of the grout on the new floor tiles in the bus until this morning. She was obviously still not feeling well and was tired from not having slept well last night but she was willing to help with cleaning the grout reside off of the new tiles. Before jumping into that task, however, we stripped the bed so I could launder the sheets and pillow cases. We needed a mop for the floor cleaning so Linda went to Meijer’s and got one and picked up some blue Scotch Brite sponge pads. While she was gone I went to the garage, smoothed the top surface of the return air shelf for the built-in sofa with 4/0 steel wool, and applied a second coat of polyurethane. I had just enough to finish it. I then started preparing for the tile cleaning.

I filled two 5-gallon pails half full of warm water and added 1-1/2 capfuls of Armstrong Once & Done concentrate. The other pail was clean water for rinsing. Cleaning the grout residue off of the tiles in the bus involved lightly scrubbing along and across the grout lines as well as the center of each tile. I then went over the area with the square edged sponge side of the pad. I went on to the next set of tiles while Linda trailed along behind mopping the area. It took us a couple of hours to do the entire floor.

Part of the kitchen and living room floor after being cleaned as viewed from the hallway looking towards the built-in sofa.

We moved all eight pieces of the built-in sofa into the bus and set them in place. They all fit nicely and I was especially pleased that the vertical front panel, which is walnut veneered plywood, would not have to be trimmed.

We needed to strip the wallpaper behind the sofa but could do that later. We also needed to strip the wallpaper behind the desk and really needed to do that before installing the desk. Ideally we would have the new wallpaper installed too but we do not have it in our possession yet. Linda also wants/needs to get back to work on cleaning/waxing the woodwork as we wanted that done before we put the drawers back in the cabinets. She was very tired by this point, however, and took a much needed nap.

The built-in sofa with the plywood seat raised to reveal the plenum/support boxes on both ends and the center shelf that forms the air return duct for the OTR HVAC. The empty space will be used for storage.

I had some electrical things to take care of before we could assembly and secure the desk so I worked on those. There was a 120V AC duplex outlet in a metal box on the wall where the left desk pedestal will go. There was also a flexible plastic split loom conduit with 11 wires in it that ran from the panel next to the passenger seat to the four switches in the triangular panel and to the first of two door chimes. This conduit was originally on the floor behind the furniture where it could not be seen but was now very visible and something needed to be done with it. I started with the AC outlet.

I shut off the power to the AC outlet, tested it to make sure it was off, unwired the receptacle, unscrewed the box from the wall, and got the wires out of it. I reenergized the circuit and verified which wire pair was the line (source, supply) and which was the load (power was fed from this box to another outlet by the passenger seat). I was thinking about where to relocate the box so I would have power available under the center of the desk when I realized I had not made any provision in the design of the desk for getting power to that location. I sat and thought about that for a while but an obvious solution did not present itself so I worked on the other wiring.

I made a diagram of the connections to the four switches so I could remove the wires and be able to put them back in the right place if needed. All of the connections were spade lugs, male on the switch and female on the wire ends, so they were easy to remove. The two switches with the most wiring originally controlled a motorized drawer and a motorized table. The two DC power supply wires also had spade lugs as did the cabling from the switches to the motor connectors so I was able to remove all of that wiring and set it aside after labeling it to match my diagram.

The two wires from the doorbell switch also ran through the flexible plastic conduit to the first door chime. Another pair of wires was spliced into the first pair and ran back to the bedroom where a second door chime was installed at the junction of the HVAC duct and dresser cabinet. I cut all the wires at the splice, labeled the pair from the switch, and wrapped the end of each wire. I wrapped the wires for the front chime around the box. I then determined that I could pull the wires for the bedroom chime from the bedroom end, after disconnecting them from the chime, and remove them along with the chime box. I coiled and taped the wires and set them aside with the box.

I now had all of the extra wires out of the way but still did not have a good solution to my electrical issues. Two of the four switches were still functional, so the switches needed to be installed somewhere, but it was not obvious to me where they could/should go or how to mount them. I also had two AC cables to relocate. I decided to go inside and work at my desk.

When Linda got up she wasn’t feeling any better but she was at least somewhat rested. We had simple, easy, but tasty meal of vegan riblets and corn-on-the-cob for dinner. I was anxious to see how the desk was going to fit so we moved the nine pieces from the library into the bus. It was getting near sunset by this time and we had a few moments of spectacular color before the world turned to gray and faded into night.

I folded the two AC cables down so they would be out of the way temporarily (they were still de-energized). We set the two bases in approximately the right locations and put the two pedestal boxes on top of them. I need to install a panel to cover the vertical mirror tiles before permanently installing the desk so I left an appropriate space for now. I need to make a decision about the panel, however, so I can give Jarel the final dimensions for the HVAC duct / wiring chase cover. With everything snugged up we put the drawers back in the right pedestal and sat on the sofa contemplating the new look and functionality of our bus.

I was also contemplating how I might “force” the pieces into alignment. My first thought is to use metal or wood plates attached to the back/underside of the two pedestals to position the knee space connector piece. I will probably also put a piece of 1×1 or a metal angle bracket on the wall to hold the back edge of the connector shelf as it will have a heavy UPS on it along with a NAS.

The installation of the new custom walnut desk may be temporary in that I may not be able to get the fan-coil heat exchangers for the Aqua-Hot hydronic heating system installed until after the upcoming GLCC rally. I need to attach some sort of screen material to the back of the air inlet and outlet openings. I also need to install new pieces of heater hose of the correct length and rig up some things to help get the hoses around tight corners. This, however, will require draining and then opening some of the coolant lines.

Linda was surprised both by how big the desk is but also by how much extra room she will have in the kitchen. I think that speaks to the inefficiency/inappropriateness of what was there before. We were discussing the problem of getting AC electrical power to the wall area between the pedestals when the solution presented itself. There is space at the inside rear of the right pedestal box so I can bring AC wiring from the chase through the bottom of the box, up the inside the left rear corner, and out through a hole just below the counter top and wire it to an outlet strip. It will be completely invisible unless you get down on the floor and look up in the knee space of the desk. It will also be conveniently located just below the notch in the center back of the countertop where power and data cables will drop through.

Linda went off to bed a little earlier than normal as she has to go to the bakery tomorrow. I went back to my office to deal with computer updates, e-mails, and off-loading photos from my camera to my computer and the NAS units.

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Tag Archives: desk installation (H3-40)

2015/10/16 (F) Desk Installation

2015/10/13 (T) Desk Alignment

2015/09/28 (M) Connected

2015/09/22 (T) Bench Work

2015/09/14 (M) Final Prep (for now)

2015/09/13 (N) Club Business

2015/09/10 (R) Illuminating

2015/09/09 (W) Move In Day