Tag Archives: wallpaper removal (H3-40)

2015/10/12 (M) Countertops Plus

I was up later than usual last night so I did not get up this morning until 8 AM. I fed the cats but did not have breakfast or make coffee. I put the ham radio antenna back on my car and reinstalled the control head and microphone. I then reinstalled the GPS and the cellular booster. I moved the front passenger seat forward, set the back all the way down, and the moved it back until it touched the passenger side rear seat, which I put down last night. I got two 2x4s from the garage that were about seven feet long and set them on the reclined seats to serve as full length supports for the desk/counter top I was picking up today from Countertops Plus in Shipshewana, Indiana.

Linda got up at 8:30 AM and got a couple of blankets for me to use to protect the desktop and the tabletop once there were loaded in the car. I made sure I had my checkbook, sunglasses, wallet, phone as well as the address and phone number for Countertops Plus. It was a beautiful, clear, cool morning as I backed out of the driveway at 8:45 AM.

The GPS predicted I would arrive at 11:30 AM but tried to take me on a different route than the one I actually followed. I followed my usual route, heading west on I-96 to Lansing and then south on I-69. I stopped at the Shell station half way between Lansing and Charlotte but their pumps were all out of order. (We encountered this same situation at our local Shell station on the way home from our ham radio club meeting last night. We presumed they were out of fuel.) I went to the BP station across the street and fueled my car.

I got off I-69 again at the Charlotte exit about 15 miles later and stopped at the Biggby’s coffee shop where I got a toasted bagel and a large coffee to go. My coffee was 40% Biggby’s best (regular), 40% French roast (decaf), and 20% Michigan cherry (regular). I was glad I did not use any more Michigan cherry than I did as the flavor is very strong and somewhat unpleasantly artificial. Biggby’s is definitely not my favorite coffee but the location in Charlotte is about an hour into the trip to Indiana and conveniently located relative to the highway.

I stayed on I-69 as far as Coldwater and then headed west on US-12. At Sturgis the GPS had me turn south on Centreville Road (M-66). A few minutes later I crossed into Indiana and passed the Howe Military Academy in Howe. I went west on IN-120 and then took several county roads before arriving at Countertops Plus at noon.

On the drive down I got a call from our mobile mechanic, Joe Cannarozzi. He is tentatively coming to our house on Monday, November 1, to service the chassis and engine.

The office at Countertops Plus was unattended so I walked around the side and found owner Ferman Miller working in his shop. He had me back up to one of the loading doors and helped me get the desk/counter top into the car and onto the pair of 2x4s. He set the tabletop, which was much smaller, on one of the blankets on the floor in the rear. I wrote a check for the balance (cash or check only, no credit cards) and got a receipt. I set the GPS for home and headed back the way I came.

When I got back to Howe I got on the Indiana Toll Road going east and took it toI-69 where I exited and headed north. I stopped at M-60 to have lunch and then drove across the street to the Shell station. All of their pumps were also out of service so I drove back towards the highway entrance ramp and stopped at the BP station. It appeared that whatever was affecting the Shell stations was widespread. I got back on I-69 north at 1:30 PM and the GPS said I would be home in approximately 90 minutes.

The beautiful blue skies of the morning were becoming more and more obscured by clouds the farther north I traveled. It had been breezy all day and that continued but with reduced intensity. It was almost completely overcast by the time I got home. I did not stop again and pulled in the driveway around 3 PM. I backed the car in front of the bus and unloaded my personal affects. We inspected and measured the desktop and table and were satisfied that they were the correct size and shape. The plywood base was not exactly as I had specified it but the deviations will not prevent the desk from being assembled correctly or be visible.

While I was away Linda had removed the remaining wallpaper in the cockpit of the bus and made a trip to J. C. Penney’s at Twelve Oaks Mall in Novi to look for new privacy curtains for the front of the bus. I was not in the mood to change into work clothes and needed to work on FMCA Freethinkers chapter roster and financial statements so I went to my office. After cleaning up my desk and checking e-mail I got down to business.

Linda called me up to dinner at 6 PM. We had a nice salad, Amy’s Spanish Rice and Bean soup, crackers with peanut butter and strawberry preserves, and watermelon. We got a few raindrops on the rear deck while we were eating even though the probability of rain was near zero. The weather is changing this week from mild and dry to cooler and a little wetter, with our first sub-freezing overnight low temperature forecasted for this coming weekend. Cooler weather means more soup, which is fine by me. It also means more mornings with the fireplace on while we enjoy our coffee; also fine by me.

I made progress on the Freethinkers chapter records but did not get done. We watched a few TV shows on the big TV set in the basement; Big Bang Theory, Scorpion, and NCIS Los Angeles. I did finalize plans for our visit with Bill, Karen, Mike, and Catherine at the Jellystone RV Park in Frankenmuth on Wednesday. I also managed to get an e-mail off to Lou letting him know that the new camera had arrived. We went to bed at 11 PM, put on the Create channel from the Detroit PBS affiliate (WTVS), and watched travel and cooking shows while I worked on this post. Around midnight I thought I heard it raining but did not get up to check.

2015/10/07 (W) The Root Cause

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We had Linda’s homemade granola for breakfast with fresh blueberries. Berry season is just about over for the year and they will become more expensive as they have to be transported from farther away. I made a pot of Sweet Seattle Dreams, the half-caff blend that Jeff makes just for us, and we drank it in the living room. Linda checked in on the world and pulled up the latest video from NutritionFacts.org while I researched hardwood veneers on Rockler.com.

After breakfast and coffee I called Metro Environmental Services to arrange to have the culvert under the road cleaned out. They were able to schedule us for this afternoon so I accepted that appointment. I then called Brighton Honda to check on my car and left a message for Rob, the service advisor who wrote up the repair for the driver side door lock. I had no sooner left that message than I got a call from Karen at Bratcher Electric.

Mike had worked up the quote to install the 100 Amp disconnect, tie it into the output of the transfer switch, and run a 100 Amp 4-wire service entrance cable to the current sub-panel, making it into a main panel. They would also disconnect and cap the current sub-panel feed from the basement as part of the work. At just north of $1,300 it was a good $300 higher than I expected. My expectation, however, was not based on anything specific other than my own sense of the cost of materials and the amount of labor that might be involved, plus a desire for it to not cost more than $1,000. 🙁

With the phone calls taken care of we worked in the bus for the rest of the morning. Linda worked on stripping the remnants of wallpaper that remained after we removed the mirrors from the lower outside hallway wall yesterday. I worked on re-routing the heater hoses for the fan-coil heat exchangers. She got her job done before I got mine done. That’s usually the way it is.

To start, I removed one of the old 4″ round plastic grates and used my inspection mirror and a flashlight to examine the inside of the HVAC duct. What I discovered was that the two heater hoses were secured periodically with plastic cable clamps to the outer wall of the HVAC duct. I also discovered that the metal part of the duct is just the inner wall and top. The bottom is the plywood subfloor of the bus and the outer wall is the plywood wall. As originally built the metal portion of the duct could be removed but when Royale Coach did the conversion they built cabinets around the ducts and put wood wiring chases on top of them in such a way that they can no longer be removed without partially disassembling the coach.

The location of the hoses and wires in the duct was such that I could safely use my 4″ bi-metal hole saw to cut access holes for the hoses. I determined where the cable clamps were located by measuring inside the duct. I then marked where the access slots in the bottom back of the bases would be located and determined where I needed the two hoses to emerge from the duct.

The manual sheet metal nibbler used to cut a line between the bottoms of the two holes in the HVAC duct.

There was already a 4″ hole at one of my needed locations so I drilled a second one next to it with an inch in-between. I used Chuck’s hand powered sheet metal nibbler to connect the holes together to make an opening that looked like the track around a football field. We vacuumed up the metal chips and I then installed door edge molding all the way around the edge of the opening. I was able to reach the screws holding the first pair of cable clamps with a #2SR screwdriver and remove them. This large slot will be behind the left end of the center connecting cover of the desk and the hose for the heat exchanger that goes in the left base will come out of it.

Plastic U-channel door edge molding installed around the new heater hose opening.

The location of the next pair of cable clamps corresponded, roughly, to where I needed the hose for the right heat exchanger to emerge. I drilled two 4″ holes, side-by-side, at that location and nibbled out the little bit of metal in-between them to make a second slot. Again, I installed the door edge molding around the entire edge. The molding was a tight fit, and I had to use a screwdriver to get it to go on the inner curves, but I got it on. The U-channel is locked in mechanically and has adhesive in it so it should stay put once it has had a few days in place. Once the hoses are re-routed I will put screen material, and perhaps some solid plates, over the openings to prevent critters from gaining access to the living area by way of the HVAC PCTS (Prevost Critter Tunnel System).

The access holes in the OTR HVAC duct in the area behind where the desk will be installed.

Linda had two medical appointments this afternoon, both routine diagnostic procedures, so she got cleaned up, changed her clothes, and left around 12:30 PM as I was finishing up the second slot. I went inside and was thinking about making something for lunch when the doorbell rang. It was our mail carrier, Michelle, with a package that was too big for the mailbox. A few minutes later the doorbell rang again. I figured it was Michelle again, but it was one of the guys from Metro Environmental Services. They were supposed to call first but just showed up.

I put my shoes on and walked them down to the clogged culvert that goes under the road. I was really hoping they could clean it out from the south side but when we went into the woods we could not see the end of the culvert. They got a metal detector and located the end of the pipe. It was almost completely buried and had a massive root running right in front of it from a very large nearby tree. They got a shovel and dug out around the root, exposing much of it and the end of the pipe.

The tree was probably 30″ in diameter at the base and the root was at least 10″ in diameter. I got my (new) 18″ chain saw but had trouble getting it started. It turned out it was out of gasoline. Once I got it started I tried to cut through the root on either side of the culvert. I thought I was all the way through on one end (closest to the tree) and most of the way through on the other end, but the root would not budge. I dulled the teeth on the chain to the point where the saw would no longer cut and did not want to take the time to put a new chain on just to ruin it quickly. The guys finally agreed to hydrojet the culvert from the north side of the road.

The actual cleaning out of the culvert did not take that long. The pump produces 2,000 PSI and they used about 300 gallons of water from the onboard tank on their truck. The head on the end of the hose has one forward facing nozzle and many rear/side facing nozzles. The forward facing nozzle loosens and cleans out the area directly in front of the head while the other nozzles force the head forward and blast whatever is in the pipe back out towards the entrance.

They started with a small head and ran it in until there was water coming out the other end of the culvert. They then pulled the hose back and switched to a much larger head and ran that all the way through and back. When they were done muddy water filled the culvert and the depressions on either end. On the inlet end the water was only about 3″ deep in the bottom of the culvert but on the outlet end it was near the top. They billed me for the minimum first hour amount even though I think they were here longer than that.

I called Phil to let him know what we had run into. He was surprised, to say the least, as he thought he had checked the other end of the culvert. Obviously not, but that’s water under the road, so to speak. Besides the problems with the root and the discharge end of the culvert being below the surface, it looked to me like the discharge area was something of a low spot and it was not obvious to me where water would flow from there. I have learned, however, that I am not very good at judging such things visually.

Cory, our neighbor across the street, had come over to see what was going on. He offered that the discharge area does, in fact, drain to the south through his property and eventually to Golf Club Road. Cory has been here for 30 years so I have no reason to doubt the truth of that. The elevation where Golf Club ends at Hacker and where our street ends at Hacker appears to be about the same. Our street is fairly level while Golf Club has a little bit of up and down, but it is subtle. I suggested to Phil that we might have to clear a path into the woods for his small digger and do some trenching to give the water a way out.

While Cory and I were chatting I noticed that the trees along this part of the road were hanging out over the road on both sides and were rather lower than they should be. This is the very thing I complain about with regards to the way most of our neighbor’s fail to maintain their properties along the road. I decided I should do something about it so I got our pole saw and spent a couple of hours trimming the low overhanging branches.

Linda went to the Whole Foods Market in West Bloomfield following her medical appointments and got home just as I was finishing up the pruning. She went for a walk while I called John Palmer of Palmer Energy Systems in Florida. I bought our Magnum inverter/charger for the bus from John along with various accessories and batteries. I needed a 4-wire terminal block for our Magnum Battery Monitor Kit (BMK) because I had messed up the one that came with it when I originally installed it. John confirmed that Magnum Energy had recently been acquired by Sensata, and was in the process of relocating the plant to Minnesota, but that several of the old-timers were still on board. John needed to talk to Tom anyway and asked me to call him back in a week to see if he was able to get the connector.

I checked with the service department at Brighton Honda again and Rob said he expected to get the new door lock mechanism back from the locksmith tomorrow morning and to have the car ready for me to pick up by the end of the day. It will be nice to finally have it back.

The cloudy weather finally broke today and we saw some blue sky with brighter light levels than we have had recently. The day was lovely but a little on the cool side by late afternoon so we both had a cup of hot tea. Linda took advantage of the light to work on her counted cross-stitch project, a holiday stocking for grand-daughter Madeline, and I went back to the bus to sand off the last traces of the old wallpaper from the outside wall in the hallway.

I used our Porter-Cable 1/4 sheet palm sander with 80, 120, and finally 220 grit sandpaper. The sander has an integral dust collection bag but it does not capture all of the dust. I used the vacuum cleaner to pick up as much of the residual dust as I could and then used a tack cloth to wipe down the wall.

For dinner Linda made pan-grilled tofu with caramelized onions in sweet barbecue sauce. She served it open-faced on rye bread, because that is what we had, and steamed some fresh green beans as a side dish. Yum.

After dinner I drove to Lowe’s. I needed something I could use to plug the two heater hoses to keep them from leaking as I pull them back through the HVAC duct and out through the new slots I made for them today. I ended up buying two 3/4″ barbed plastic plugs. While I was there I looked to see if they had any bleeder valves but they did not. They do not sell parts designed specifically for hydronic heating systems and I will have to go to Northwest Plumbing and Supply for such items.

While I was in the plumbing isle I looked to see if I could figure out some combination of parts to make a fill valve for the system but did not see anything that inspired me. I would love to have one or more high point expansion tanks on this system but I do not have any easily accessible places for them from which I could also run overflow drain lines. There is a good sized volume of unused space behind the drawers on the passenger side of the bedroom but it would be a very difficult place to install anything. Perhaps Northwest Plumbing and Supply will have something.

On the way home I stopped at the BP station and topped up the fuel tank in Linda’s car. I drove home with greater consideration for fuel economy than usual and managed to get the average MPG up to 56.7 before it dropped back to 55.4 as I pulled in the driveway. It will drop into the upper 40s as soon as Linda starts the engine tomorrow morning but it was fun to get it into the driveway with numbers above 55 MPG.

2015/10/06 (T) Trimming & Stripping

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We did not get an early start to our day today. I got up a little after 8 AM and Linda got up 15 minutes later. Even so, she still had our granola and berries ready before I had the coffee made, but in my defense I had the extra step of transferring the three pounds of coffee we bought yesterday from their paper bags to our metal containers with the air-tight lids. We were wondering about whether grapes are berries so Linda Googled the topic. Botanically, grapes are berries but strawberries and raspberries are not. Also included among the “true” berries are bananas, tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplants. That’s right, tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplants are fruits.

Linda left at 9:30 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark for a 10 AM walk. Mike from Bratcher Electric showed up at 10:30 to revisit the wiring project I needed his company to do. They are going to install a 100 Amp disconnect switch next to the transfer switch in the southwest corner of the garage, run power to the disconnect switch from the transfer switch, and then run a 4-wire service entrance cable (SEC) from the disconnect switch through the garage attic to the electrical distribution panel in the closet with the HVAC system for the library. The electrical panel is currently a 60 A sub-panel of the main distribution panel in the basement and this project will convert it to a 100 A main panel while still allowing it to be powered by the generator if the utility power goes out.

When Mike left I gathered up the two metal cutting tools I borrowed from Chuck, our corded 1/2″ Craftsman drill (which I needed to power one of the nibblers), the small Rigid drill kit, and my telescoping inspection mirror. My plan was to cut one or two openings in the passenger side HVAC duct for the heater hoses but I decided to do some yard work instead.

We still had some bushes growing out over the drainage ditch by the mailbox and I wanted to get them trimmed up and add the waste material to the timber pile before Phil hauled it away tomorrow (hopefully). I was still working on this little distraction when Linda got back from her walk so she got a pair of gloves and helped. The bushes and trees in this area have an extensive system of vines running through them. I got a lot of the smaller vines cut and pulled free and I managed to trim one bush back enough to create an “entrance” to the inner part of this stand of trees.

Once I was “inside” the grove I found one of the main sources of the vine, a massive thing that looked like something out of a Harry Potter movie. It was easily 10″ in diameter where it came out of the ground and had 4″ to 6″ pieces branching off in different directions. I have no idea what kind of vine this but I suspect it is a wild grape vine. Given its size I surmised that it has been there for a very long time gradually chocking off the trees. I will have to eventually cut it out, but I would like to find out first just exactly what it is.

Linda helped drag all of the clippings over to the disposal pile where we cut some of them into smaller pieces before adding them to the pile. We noticed a small tree hanging out into the space above the driveway that Phil is about to build. We thought the tree was dead and decided to cut it down. It was 5″ in diameter 6″ above the ground–big enough to require the chain saw–and also had a lot of branches that were large enough to be more expeditiously dispatched with said same machine.

After felling the tree and de-limbing it I was not so sure that it was dead. We had a half dozen other trees along the northern edge of this stand woods that looked to be similarly dead but I decided not to cut them down. One in particular had a lot of obviously new, small branches. We will wait until spring and see which, if any, of these trees develop leaves. If they are alive I will trim them instead of cutting them down.

We put away the yard tools and took a break to have a light, late lunch of vegan cold cuts sandwiches and black grapes with a glass of beet juice. I like beets on salads and as a side vegetable. Beet juice is OK but a bit more of an acquired taste. We have added it into our daily food plans because of its ability to control blood pressure. Linda is adding ground flax seed to her granola for the same reason.

Measuring and cutting wallpaper on the dining room table in the house.

At 2 PM we decided to hang the wallpaper in the hallway of the bus so we gathered all of our tools and took them to the coach. I measured the wall and determined the lengths (30″) and widths of the four pieces; two full width (26.5″) and two partial width (15.5″), one for the left end and one for the right end. We cut the four pieces on the dining room table in the house where we could unroll over six feet of wallpaper, measure more accurately, and cut more easily. We cut the two full pieces out of the end of the first double roll and cut the two partial pieces out of the beginning of a new double roll.

Linda took the pieces to the bus and laid them out on the bed. I was getting ready to pour some GH-95 paste into the tray and roll it onto the wall when I decided to remove the trim board that separates the upper wall from the vertical mirror strips on the lower wall. My intent was to avoid having to trim the bottom edge of the wallpaper by tucking it behind this board. What I discovered was that the strip mirrors on the lower portion of the wall were glued to the wallpaper and some of them were loose.

The fact that the mirrors were glued to wallpaper and not to the plywood wall surface meant that they could be removed. I unscrewed the four vertical pieces of wood trim that framed the mirrors in three panels and then removed the bottom trim piece. I carefully removed each mirror by prying the underlying wallpaper loose from the wall using a large screwdriver and working from the top down. When the entire strip was loose I cut the wallpaper to release it. I handed them to Linda and she stored them carefully inside the built-in sofa. I managed to get all of them off except one which fractured in several places. We taped it up and vacuumed up the few glass fragments that were created when it broke.

At this point we were clearly not going to hang the four pieces of wallpaper we just cut as we needed to finish stripping the base layer of the old wallpaper first. We also had to take a little time to decide how to finish the lower wall. One option would be to wallpaper the entire wall and not put the wood trim back. We probably have enough wallpaper to do that, even after cutting the four smaller pieces for the upper wall, but we did not think the wall would look right if we did that.

Another option would be to install wood panels to replace the mirror strips. In this case we would use a light wood with a natural finish to provide an intentional contrast with all of the walnut trim. The mirror strips are slightly beveled on their long edges and measure 3/16″ thick at those edges. That means a 3/16″ hardwood veneered plywood should be a perfect fit, allowing all of the wood trim to go back in place. Maple or Birch with a natural finish are the most likely choices.

The wood panels is the option we will almost certainly pursue and we do not have to resolve exactly what panels to use in order to finish wallpapering the upper part of the wall. All told this will push our finish date back a couple of days, but we don’t really have a finish date anyway, and we will like the final result a lot better. We really do not like the strip mirrors and wish we could remove or cover all of them.

It was only 4:30 PM when we quit working in the bus for the day but we had both had a relatively physical day and were ready to quit. The lighting in the hallway was also a little dim due to the continuing heavy cloud cover which was having the added effect of lowering our energy level and enthusiasm a bit.

My last couple of e-mails to Lou Petkus of the SKP Photographers BoF had gone unanswered so I called Lou to make sure everything was OK. It was; he and Val have just been very busy. We know about busy. We had a nice chat about cameras and RVing plans for the upcoming winter.

Linda always puts nice dinner meals on the table and tonight was no different. She halved and cored a white acorn squash and baked it in the oven with a little vegan butter and brown sugar. She had a few Brussels sprouts left over and some baby carrots so she added onions and sautéed them to make a very good vegetable medley. Finally, she heated a package of mock chicken in orange sauce. The trio of dishes was not only tasty but lifted my spirits; not that either of us are down, but the weather has been heavily overcast for several days and had a slightly depressing effect on our moods.

I got a call from Phil after dinner updating me on his availability to work on our driveway and French drain project. The 2-day job he started yesterday morning is probably going to take him the entire week to finish so there is very little chance we will see him back at work on our project before next Monday. He did, however, find time to call a company that can hydrojet the culvert under our road and find out their pricing. He gave me the name and phone number and I will call them tomorrow and try to set something up. The other upside is that we have more time to pull dead trees out of the woods in front of our house, cut them up, and add them to the disposal pile, if we so choose.

Linda’s favorite TV shows are concentrated on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday evenings so we watched NCIS and NCISNOLA followed by an episode of LIMITLESS, just to see what it was like. I watched Two and a Half Men, which I happen to find very amusing, and then went to sleep.

2015/09/26 (S) A Step in the Right Direction

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We missed our ham radio club breakfast last week because we were at an RV rally and we plan to be at another rally three weekends from now so in spite of all the work we still have to do on the bus we went to breakfast in South Lyon. After breakfast we went to the Lowe’s in New Hudson, which is close to South Lyon, and bought a Porter-Cable 1/4 sheet palm sander. The sander is small enough to get into corners but has an integral dust collection bag. The bag can be removed for sanding in really tight spots, but it cuts down on airborne dust while sanding and reduces the amount of cleanup afterwards. We have several other Porter-Cable power tools and I am generally pleased with them.

Back at the house we took care of a few chores and then got to work on the bus. Linda continued working on stripping the old wallpaper behind the sofa while I pondered for a while about what to do before deciding to concentrate on rebuilding the landing at the top of the entry stairs. This landing is where the pneumatic entry stairwell slide cover was installed. Without all of that “stuff” in place the last step up to the landing was now too short and the step up to the copilot level was too tall. More importantly, the step heights were all different, and would be a built in trip hazard if not corrected.

I determined that the 2.5″ wide poplar boards installed on edge with a 3/4″ thick plywood floor and a top layer of 3/16″ SurePly underlayment would match the top surface of the plywood in the driver’s area. That would (should), in turn, allow me to install the new vinyl floor tiles so they bridge that seam. I will have to reuse the plywood in the driver’s area, but worst case that will require using adhesive remover followed by floor patching compound and sanding before installing the tiles.

The landing was not “square” (of course) so I made and rechecked measurements several times. I then built a four-sided frame that fit snugly and had the front board aligned with the face of the plastic riser. I am going to tile the steps and I am not going to use underlayment so I needed these surfaces as aligned and flat as possible. I will probably use floor patching compound, however, to fill the gaps before installing the tile. I used screws to secure the frame to the adjacent vertical wood that forms the riser to the copilot level and to the base of the landing with angle brackets.

I needed a piece of 3/4″ plywood approximately 31-1/8″ x 27-5/8″ for the new landing as the old piece I took out was not in good shape and I did not want to reuse it. I did not have any other 3/4″ plywood pieces that were large enough so I went to Lowe’s. They did not have 3/4″ half sheets (4′ x 4′) but I bought some more angle brackets while I was there. I then went to The Home Depot. They also did not have 3/4″ half sheets, but they had full sheets of 23/32″ sanded plywood that looked like it would work and a nice panel saw with an employee available to operate it. I waited while he built a complete set of closet shelving for a couple and engaged in some domestic counseling. He then cut the plywood sheet into two 4′ x 4′ pieces and helped me load them into a cart. I was able to get them into my Honda Element by myself and close the back hatches. I had a nice QSO with Steve (N8AR) on the drive home via the South Lyon 2m amateur radio repeater.

Linda had long since finished working on the wallpaper and busied herself in the kitchen preparing collard greens Cole slaw and vegan potato salad. It was somewhere between late afternoon and early evening but I still had enough light to work outside. Linda was still busy cooking so I decided to go ahead and try to cut the plywood for the new landing. Again, it was not a rectangle, i.e., an equiangular quadrilateral (four right angles and four sides with opposing sides parallel and equal in length) so getting the shape exactly right was tricky.

I determined that the right front corner, as viewed from the entry steps, was a right angle, or close enough to one to provide a known starting point. I put the plywood on 2″x4″s on the flat in the driveway to elevate them so I could clamp a saw guide in place and provide clearance for the saw blade. I measured the lengths of all four edges as best I could and placed the right front corner at a factory corner of one of the 4′ x 4′ pieces. I marked the length of the right side and the front on the two factory edges. The left side was longer than the right side and the rear side was longer than the front side so I marked arcs for the left and rear lengths and found their point of intersection. If the right front corner was, in fact, a right angle them this had to result in the correct shape. The key word in that last sentence is “if.”

I tried to confirm my layout by measuring the lengths of the diagonals on the plywood and on the bus but I could not get accurate measurements in the bus. I triple-checked my measurements and layout then marked the guide lines for the setback on my circular saw; 6-5/8″ to the inside edge of the teeth on the blade. Truth be told I initially marked the guide lines on the wrong side of the cut. I started to adjust my guide board to the outside of the blade and then thought better of the idea. The guide needed to be set up so that if the blade wandered off course it would cut into waste material rather than the finished piece. I re-measured and marked the guide lines in the proper place, checked their location with my small square, checked with the saw, made minor adjustments, and finally made the first of two cuts. I then repeated all of that and made the second cut. When I set the piece in place in the bus it was a perfect fit. I was so pleased that I had Linda come out to see it. Sometimes I amaze even myself.

I like to quit on a high note so that was the end of our bus work for today. We did not make dramatic progress but we kept moving and got things done that needed doing. My work today involved a certain amount of pondering and on-the-fly engineering combined with careful, repeated measuring and accurate cutting. This kind of work is never fast.

A beautiful sunset had developed, which meant it was getting dark, so I put a few things away and closed up the bus while Linda prepared our dinner. She made a nice salad and heated a couple of Amy’s vegan (non-dairy) lasagna entrées. A glass of Moscato was a welcome accompaniment and we enjoyed a second glass as we relaxed in the living room. We got a Rockler catalog in the mail today so I looked through that. If you are into woodworking it’s the adult equivalent of the Sear’s Christmas catalogs of yesteryear.

I called Butch at 10 PM. It was 7 PM in Bouse, Arizona and I figured they would be done working for the day and probably already had their dinner. The daytime highs there have been reaching 110 degrees F so Butch and the other RV Park employees have been starting work between 6 and 7 AM and trying to finish up by 1 PM. He did not elaborate but said the situation the first two weeks has not been exactly what they signed up for. He had already responded to an e-mail from Linda with more details so we let it go at that and talked about other things. We wrapped up our conversation at 10:30 and I went to bed. I was going to play a couple of games and then go to sleep but there was an update available for the iPad OS so I installed it. 9.0.1 was a big update and took quite a while to install. I was very sleepy by the time it finished and turned out the lights.

2015/09/25 (F) Miss Dig

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I turned the lights out at 11 PM last night and slept until 8:15 AM this morning. I was preparing coffee when Linda told me there were wild turkeys in the back yard. They were gathered at the deer feed block and more showed up while we were watching. There were 15 in all, and they were big. We had our usual granola for breakfast with fresh blueberries, strawberries, and bananas. We finished our morning routine and coffee at 10 AM and got back to work on the bus.

Linda continued working on removing the old wallpaper while I worked on the entry and cockpit. She used a drywall sanding sponge to try and remove the last little bit of material from the walls she stripped yesterday and it worked rather well but not 100%. I was able to remove the step well cover assembly yesterday and today I removed the last step before reaching the main floor. It did not come out easily; the three screws securing it to two adjacent walls were badly rusted and the Philips heads would not hold the screwdriver bit. I ended up prying them loose, and inelegant (brute force) but effective solution. I am going to rebuild this step with a slightly deeper run and an open front so we can store shoes under it. First, however, I have to tile the floor.

I spent some time examining the old tile in the driver’s part of the cockpit. It clearly goes under the accelerator pedal but around the brake pedal. That’s reasonable as the accelerator is electrical, with only a cable that goes through a small hole in the floor, while the brake is pneumatic and the major part of it is in the bay below the floor with all of the air lines connected to it. I came to the conclusion that the tile was also installed under the seat base, which means Creative Mobile Interiors removed the base to install the tile. I did not come to a final decision regarding removing the tile versus tiling over it, but I am leaning towards removing it.

I was also able to determine that the retaining nut on the swivel bases for the pilot and copilot seats was 15/16″ and accessible from the rear with the seats moved forward. That means I can remove the seat, 6-way power base, and swivel plate as one assembly by removing one nut. I will then have excellent access to the pedestal mounting bolts and the driver’s area once everything else is out of the way.

Rebecca from Shutz HVAC called at 10:30 AM and arrived about 15 minutes later. Shutz is the HVAC installation contractor for the Lowe’s in Howell and she was here to look at our main air-conditioning system and give us a quote on a new Trane system as that is what Lowe’s sells. Lowe’s had a Pro Show on Wednesday and Rebecca was staffing the Shutz table so we stopped to chat. She let us know that everything at Lowe’s was on sale through tomorrow at closing for 10% off with our Lowe’s credit card, including installation labor. The card is automatically good for 5% off on any product purchase so the extra 5% is not enough of an incentive to cause us to make the purchase, but we were curious what a new system might cost. I will get a quote from Darryl at DCM, however, before making any decisions. Also, our friend Mike (W8XH) recently had an A-C system installed and was very happy with the company, product, and installation so I will find out who he used and get a quote from them too.

Rebecca was very nice and very knowledgable. After looking at the condenser/compressor outside I got a step ladder and she went up in the attic to look at the old air-handler/evaporator. The system is a Coleman and we have no idea how old it is; we just know that it did not do a good job of cooling the house this summer. The quote was for a “3 ton” system for $7,800. With 10% off it came to $7,020 but that price was based on flushing, testing, and reusing the existing refrigerant lines, which did not sound like a good idea to me.

Charles from USIC (Miss Dig) showed up around 11:30 AM to mark the utilities. Phil plans to start digging and grading next week, hopefully Tuesday. Charles came to the front door and I excused myself from the air-conditioning conversation to walk the property with him. I explained what we were having done and showed him where the work would take place. He marked the main gas line along the entire length of our property, a portion of the branch line going to our meter, the tie in for the branch line to the house across the street, and the T at the northwest corner of our property where the main line splits to service the court. He also marked the phone line, which runs underground from a pole west of our house to the southwest corner of our garage. The main electrical service runs underground with the phone line but someone else has to come out and mark that. I chatted with Charles briefly before he left and then called Phil and left him a message.

Last summer Darryl from DCM Heating and Cooling installed a new natural gas furnace with an air conditioner for our library, a natural gas heater in our garage, ran all of the black iron pipe, including 160 feet of 2″ line, hooked us up to the gas meter, and got everything working for just under $11,000. The Trane system would be bigger than the one for the library, and the air-handler in the attic is a more difficult installation, but $7,800 for just the air-conditioner without new refrigerant lines seemed a bit high. After Rebecca left I called and left a message for Darryl.

Linda was ready to strip the wallpaper behind the built-in sofa so we moved the two desk pedestals onto a blanket on the kitchen floor in the bus and unscrewed the seat and set it on top of the desk pedestals. When I finally got back to work on the bus I removed the cover for the front OTR HVAC system and set it aside. I was trying to get access to the underside of the wood trim that includes a grab handle that needs to be tightened but had a look around first.

I noticed a damper controlled by a flexible cable and figured it was what determined if the air was fresh or recirculated. I turned the knob on the dashboard and saw the cable move but not the damper. The damper was stuck so I loosened it by hand but the knob still did not cause it to move. I then noticed that the sheath of the flexible cable had come loose from its retaining clip. It was a tight spot in which to work but I was able to loosen the two screws holding the clip using a right angle screwdriver. I slipped the sheath under the clip, tightened the screws enough to hold it, and turned the knob. It worked! On a day when I did not feel like I was accomplishing very much this was a tangible and unexpected success.

I removed the only four visible screws from the wood trim but it would not budge. I had tried removing it once before without success but was determined to get it loose this time. The only reasonable explanation was that CMI had glued it on after tightening the grab handle as part of the initial work we had them do right after we bought the coach. I carefully worked a pry bar under the passenger side end and gradually applied force to it. It was, indeed, “glued” on but it appeared that I would be able to pry it loose without breaking anything if I took my time.

When I did finally get it off I could see that they had used clear silicon (adhesive) caulk to attach it to a dark gray plastic piece. Royale Coach had originally attached it to this plastic piece using four screws. The plastic piece turned out to be the lower windshield defroster duct and I am considering how we might finish this without replacing the wood trim. Wallpaper is currently at the top of my list but I doubt that it would be a good solution. Of further interest to us was the wood itself. We presumed it was maple based on the color but were puzzled why they would have used a different wood in the entryway. Once we saw the back side, however, it was obviously walnut that lightened where it was exposed to light to the point of looking like maple. There is other wood in the entry and copilot area that is equally light and we now realized that we had a refinishing task and not just a cleaning task, ahead of us at some point.

My next task was to scrape as much of the caulk off as I could. I got a lot of it off, but not all. Silicon caulk is difficult to remove. I eventually found a single edge razor blade holder and blade and used that to get the last bit off. I then worked on removing layers of masking tape from the edges of the base where the former step well slide was installed.

I have some carpentry to do to rebuild the steps and prep them for the tile installation and needed some materials and supplies so I went to Lowe’s and got:

Adhesive remover;
A 4’x8′ sheet of 3/16″ SurePly underlayment;
Two 3/4″ x 2.5″ – 6′ poplar boards;
A 15/16″ open or closed end ratcheting wrench;
A bottle of Piranha Wallpaper remover;
A Piranha wallpaper remover sponge;
A pack of 2,000 18 gauge 3/4″ long x 1/4″ crown staples;
A pack of 25 sheets of 120 grit and a pack of 25 sheets of 220 grit 1/4 sheet sandpaper.

I got 10% off the total bill! which was nice. I did not get a palm sander as they were out of the Porter Cable model I wanted. The Lowe’s in New Hudson showed two in their inventory so we will stop there tomorrow after breakfast and get one. I also needed a half sheet of 3/4″ plywood to make a new platform to replace the step well slide but did not feel like dealing with that.

For dinner Linda heated some butternut squash ravioli she bought at Whole Foods. She served it with sliced vegan Italian sausage cooked with mushrooms, onions, and garlic, a side dish of steamed fresh green beans, and a glass of Moscato.

After dinner I uploaded my blog posts for July 23 through 31 plus a gallery post of 11 photos I got from Jarel Beatty of the custom walnut desk in the process of being built in his shop. I got a call back from Darryl and we discussed the new air-conditioning system. He said he would get me a price but advised us not to let anyone reuse the old refrigerant lines. If they are not 100% clean the old refrigerant will contaminate the new system. If Shutz installs the Trane system it comes with a 10 year parts and labor warranty, but it would still be a hassle to deal with getting a contaminated unit repaired or replaced.

After chatting with Darryl for a while we agreed that there wasn’t any urgency to this. For one, we need to have Darryl check the current system for leaks, and assuming it does not have one, for proper refrigerant charge, cooling capacity, and airflow. Darryl is busy doing heating systems at the moment, but is willing to do the maintenance work. Also, the cooling season is done for this year and we will be traveling during the hottest part of next summer. A final factor is that this has been another expensive summer for us with the new roof on the house, the interior remodeling of our motorcoach, and the work Phil is about to do, so we would prefer to defer this expense.

2015/09/24 (R) Blood Work

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Linda got confirmation yesterday that our lab orders had been put in by our doctor. The blood work requires a 12 hour fast (minimum) so we finished dinner last night before 8 PM and did not have breakfast this morning. We headed out around 8:30 AM for the Henry Ford Health System Columbus Center in Novi, the nearest HFHS lab to our house. We would not normally get on I-96 at that time of day due to rush hour traffic but we wanted to get this taken care of early and then get something to eat and drink. We got to the lab at 9:15 and it only took a few minutes to get our blood drawn. We then headed to the Panera on Novi Road at Grand River Avenue for bagels and coffee and some down time to sit, relax, read, research, and write.

Linda spent some time last evening researching wallpaper installation but found conflicting information. I got online and looked at some of the same websites. Wallpaper is a little out of style at the moment and some of the website information was over 10 years old but still seemed relevant. The interior walls of our motorcoach are finish grade plywood that is firmly attached to the structure of the bus with spray foam insulation underneath. The issue is how to prep the plywood before we hang the wallpaper. Some sources indicate that we need to size it, some say to prime it, and others say to use a liner material and then prime, all before hanging the paper. Other sites, however, say to just hang the paper directly on the plywood and be done with it.

We left Panera and were headed west on Grand River Avenue. We noticed that Chuck’s truck was at his shop so Linda made a U-turn and we stopped to see if he was there. He was, so we visited for a while and got to see their new refrigerator and discuss the installation, which Chuck somehow managed to do all by himself. Even with the use of his forklift, that was quite an accomplishment.

We got back to the house at 12:45 PM, changed into our work clothes, took care of a few chores, and had a light lunch of fresh apples, pears, and hummus with onion on rye bread. I then called Josh Leach at Coach Supply Direct and left a message asking him to follow up with Ferman Miller at Countertops Plus. If Ferman does not have any more of the Sandstone Corian I want to make sure Josh gets the 30″x48″ piece from the other supplier before it disappears.

The entrance landing with the floor removed revealing the pneumatic linear actuator that operates the slide out stepwell cover.

When we finally got to work on the bus around 2 PM Linda focused on stripping the old wallpaper and I started preparing the entrance for tiling. She taped off all of the wood trim where she is working, spread painter’s plastic to protect the floor, and wrapped the two living room captain’s chairs. I removed the existing vinyl tile from the entry platform, removed the plywood cover, and uninstalled the step well cover. I then removed the tile and treads from the stairs. I also moved the passenger seat forward and determined that I can probably get to the swivel shaft retaining nut from the back. Removing the seat by removing this one nut will make it much easier to tile that part of the cockpit. Ditto for the driver’s seat.

Although we got a late start on the bus today, and worked on it for less than four hours, we were satisfied with what we accomplished. The old tile came up more easily than I thought it would which bodes well for getting the entry/cockpit tiled with the new Armstrong Alterna Luxury Vinyl tile.

I called Phil Jarrell to verify that he had called Miss Dig and told them to mark the gas main and not just the utilities running to the house. He said he did and expected that they will be here on Friday. I will keep an eye open for them and intercede if possible. Phil expects to start our job on Tuesday. If he does he will probably be finished by the end of the week or over the weekend.

The entry stairs into the bus with the bottom riser cover plate removed to reveal one of the two air-conditioner compressors installed in the spare tire compartment. This is how the ports are accessed for service and recharging. The other compressor is accessed through the bay under the driver’s seat.

Linda let me know that our lab results were available so we each logged in to our HFHS MyChart accounts to look at them. Linda’s lipid profile showed a higher total cholesterol than she expected and she was not happy about it. Dr. Vangel had seen the results and commented that they were OK, but Linda was perturbed about it none-the-less. My total cholesterol was also higher than I would like but not as high as Linda’s. Her LDL and HDL numbers and ratio looked good and her HDL, in particular, was much better than mine. This was no doubt a consequence of her almost daily exercise walking. We apparently do not fully understand the lipid profile numbers or what we still need to change about how we eat to bring them in line with the guidelines put forward by people like Drs. Neal Barnhard and Caldwell Esselstyne.

Linda made a nice salad to start our dinner, served with a small glass of Moscato. The entrée was a mock chicken scaloppini that she picked up at Whole Foods. For a side dish she steamed kale with mushrooms, onions, and garlic. After dinner we sat on the back deck and enjoyed a second small glass of Moscato.

I went to my office and edited the blog posts for July 23 through 31 and hope to upload those posts tomorrow. I had an e-mail from Molly Pinner with Linda’s invitation to work as an office staff volunteer at the 2016 Escapade in Essex Junction, Vermont. I replied to that and cc:d Linda. I then e-mailed Lou and Val Petkus to let them know. I was wrapping up for the evening when I got an e-mail from Ed Roelle with the September CCO Newsletter. He develops the newsletter in MS Word and I convert it into PDF for him. I took care of that and sent it to him and then went upstairs to watch a PBS program on scenic train rides of North America.

The program was interesting but PBS was fundraising again, and the fundraising segments were longer than the programming segments. It seems like this has been going on all summer and we are, quite frankly, tired of it. After clicking around the other channels I turned the TV off and went to sleep.

2015/09/23 (W) Autumnal Equinox

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We were up at 8 AM, had granola for breakfast, and enjoyed our coffee in the living room by the fireplace. I like cool mornings.

I spent some time yesterday morning, and again this morning, considering my full-frame DSLR options. The only 50 MP “35mm” DSLR camera body on the market at this time is the Canon 5Ds/R and there is no indication that Sony plans to introduce a successor to the A99 anytime soon. The A99 is still available, as is the vertical battery pack/grip and I am at the point where I will probably order one. It has a 24 MP full-frame CMOS sensor, which is double the resolution of my alpha 100. More importantly, it will accept all of my old 35mm Minolta A-mount lenses and they will work as designed.

Linda left at 9:40 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark. I gathered up the laundry, sorted it, and started the first load. I then settled in at my desk for a while.

I e-mailed Mike (W8XH) to see if he could assist me on Saturday and/or Monday with climbing the tower to do some more antenna work. I then e-mailed Bill Gerrie to see if he and Karen were in Michigan yet. I pulled up the initial mockup of the October 2015 issue of Bus Conversion Magazine and proofread my article on replacing the speedometer. Jorge had done a good job of laying it out. I e-mailed back four minor corrections, one slightly larger one, and a general comment about the lack of space following periods. I had an e-mail from Steve Smith (N8AR) with contact information for Yaesu Fusion technical support.

The washing machine beeped so I transferred that load to the dryer and started another one. I noticed that it was after 11:30 AM so I cleaned the cats’ litter tray, grabbed the garbage from under the kitchen island sink, put it in the trash can, and got it to the street. Alchin’s normally comes “around noon” but I had a feeling they had already driven by. They were still in our subdivision, however, and stopped on the way out to empty our can.

I had another cup of coffee and updated this post. By noon Linda had not called yet let me know she was on her way home so I headed to Lowe’s for a roll of plumber’s sandpaper. I also picked up the paste we need to hang the new wallpaper. On the way back to the house I stopped at Teeko’s Coffee and Tea to order some Cafe Europe half-caff blend. Linda was home when I got back and we had a light lunch. We have both finally taken off some of the weight we put on this past winter. Long, hard work days with little or no lunch seem to help.

By the time we got back to work on the bus projects it was 3 PM. It’s hard to make progress when the workday starts in the afternoon. Today is the autumnal equinox, so it gets dark much earlier in the evening than it did in late May, June, July and even most of August. Still, as anxious as I am to get the heat exchangers re-installed we have to deal with the wallpaper in that part of the bus first. Linda helped me assemble the right desk base, repeating what we did yesterday with the left base.

The left pedestal base with the Aqua-Hot fan-coil heat exchanger mounted inside.

We installed the metal grates on the air openings (from the inside) and then used doubled-sided tape to affix the plastic mesh to the metal grate. We put a 1/2″ plywood spacer in the bottom and marked the locations of the mounting bracket holes and the heat exchanger. We took the exchanger and spacer out, punched the starter holes, and drilled. Linda cleaned the heat exchanger and used a pair of tweezers to straighten the bent radiator fins, of which there were quite a few. We cleaned off the two copper pipe stubs that provide the inlet and outlet for the antifreeze and then attached the self-stick 3/8″ X 1/4″ dense foam weather-stripping around the front of the housing. We mounted the exchanger to the spacer with approximately 1/8″ of the foam weather-stripping beyond the front edge of the spacer. We put the spacer/exchanger assembly back in the base and I secured it with screws while Linda pulled it into position, compressing the weather-stripping.

Linda cleans and straightens the fins on one of the fan-coil heat exchangers.

I took a few photographs as we worked and took some more of the finished assemblies. While we were working we got a call from Philip Jarrell of Precision Paving. Phil was calling to see if we still wanted the French Drain and driveway work done. He has been busy all summer and even more so coming into fall when folks decide they need stuff done before winter. He had given us a quote (estimate) back in the spring but could not do the work then because the soil was way too moist. The property has dried out nicely over the last seven weeks and he wanted to make sure he did the work yet this year if we were still interested. I told him “yes” and he said he would call “Miss Dig” right away to get the utilities marked and then get started.

The two desk bases with the fan-coil heat exchangers installed view from above and behind.

I think this annoyed Linda as it will be another significant expenditure, but it’s something I think needs to be done and it is not easy to get a slice of Phil’s time. (Actually, we have done a lot of difficult work together on the bus this summer and I think she was already annoyed from working with me on the right base.) Not taking advantage of Phil’s availability would likely mean a two-year delay in getting this work done.

This project is actually a combination of two different projects that happened to make more sense to do at the same than at separate times. The French drain is intended to dry out the far west end of our property which has standing water in the spring and after heavy rains, and stays moist/soft for the first half of the summer. There are a lot of trees in that area and we have lost some and are losing others. The driveway work will give us additional parking for people visiting in their RVs and create the main approach to the location for the bus barn that I hope to eventually build. The topsoil that Phil pulls out from the driveway will be used to fill in low spots on the west end of the property, further improving the drainage in that area.

The right desk base viewed from above/behind showing the fans mounted on the back side of the heat-exchanger.

Linda returned to stripping wallpaper in the bus while I folded the laundry and put it away. For dinner we had a salad and more of the soup that Linda made yesterday. After dinner Linda researched wallpaper installation while I worked at my computer and uploaded eight blog posts from the third week of July. About the time I finished the last one Brendan called so I went upstairs and Linda put the call on speaker. He is a couple of weeks into his position at Eastern Michigan University teaching Art History and gave us a status report on how it is going, along with news of how Madeline is doing in her new daycare program University of Michigan.

We watched Dr. Michael Greger’s 2015 nutrition research summary on Linda’s iPad. This is an annual presentation that he does at the vegan Summerfest in Pennsylvania. His theme this year was the top health concerns of Americans, based on a major survey that was done by one of the national survey organizations, and what nutrition research has to offer with respect to these. As we already know, many different diseases, one common answer; whole-food, plant-based, nutrition with no animal products. We really are what we eat, and Americans are now some of the least healthy people on the planet. We went to sleep reaffirmed in our dietary choices.

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.

The Phase Place

Welcome to the next phase (hosted by QTH.com)

Tag Archives: wallpaper removal (H3-40)

2015/10/12 (M) Countertops Plus

2015/10/07 (W) The Root Cause

2015/10/06 (T) Trimming & Stripping

2015/09/26 (S) A Step in the Right Direction

2015/09/25 (F) Miss Dig

2015/09/23 (W) Autumnal Equinox

2015/09/22 (T) Bench Work