GOP Convention, first day

GOP Convention, first day:

"Aside from that Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"

Last Winter Expenses

It just occurred to me that I never posted our expenses for last winter. So here they are (in Canadian Dollars):

$16,654 divided by the 175 days we were away this amounts to $95 (Can) per day. In US this would be $12,845 divided by 175 = $73 per day in US funds.

In addition to this we had service on the motorhome fridge and furnace before we left ($800), batteries for the motorhome ($230) and new tires for the Honda in Texas ($640).

Also not included were the hotel and condo (our share) expenses when we drove down to San Miguel de Allende with Juan and Chris. This amounted to $1,495.

Casino gambling, we actually made a $145 profit.

Croft's clothing was well under $100 while Norma's were well over $100. Neither are included here.

Linux!

Linux Installed! I am no longer a slave to Windows! I made the new-to-me HP Mini computer a dual boot Windows 7 / Linux Mint 17.3 machine. It installed easily and then went through a lengthy update process.

I believe the Windows 7 install is corrupted and I don't intend to use it much. In fact I will probably convert the machine to just Linux  after a good test drive. In the meantime playing with it will keep me off the streets.

I don't know why I delayed so long. Just chicken I guess.

Depressing Weather On The Wet Coast

I know I haven't been Blogging lately. It rained all night again which has been the norm around here lately. It has rained part of each day for as long as I can remember. When it is not raining it is chilly and overcast and Norma has not been able to get much done in her garden which is making her an unhappy camper as well. I have a repair job waiting on the bathroom sink where the taps have become very loose and wobbly. Repairing them means taking the sink out because I do not fit in the cupboard underneath. One of these days I will tackle it, maybe even today. Norma is strangely not bugging me about it so the pressure is off. It is a messy job and I will get wet.

We have become avid Toronto Blue Jays baseball fans because of the weather and because Shaw has decided to not show any Seattle Mariners games.

Our Blogging friend Rae is spending the summer house sitting in Bulgaria so that is providing some excitement to our dreary rain soaked days.

Our Arizona friend Shadowmoss just emailed to say she might be coming up for a visit. We will be happy to see her and to provide a contrast to the (almost too) hot sunny weather she has been getting in Mesa and Prescott. She has just become a full time RV'er so it will be interesting to hear what she has to say about that.

Anyway, the Blue Jays are warming up for a morning game so off I go! Have a great day everyone!

Testing The Panel

Yesterday was a very sunny day here on the "Wet Coast" so I took advantage of the chance to test the new panel combination.

We run a small "bar type" fridge above the drivers seat. It runs on AC, plugged into the inverter. It has been our practice to reserve it for pop, water, juice and beer, nothing perishable. When we boondock for the night we unplug it and then plug it back in in the morning. I have always been a little concerned if I leave it on during the day when we leave the rig parked for a few hours as the old single panel would not quite keep up to it and our batteries were dragged down if we left it more than an hour or so.

Yesterday I unplugged the RV and left the bar fridge running on the inverter for three hours. I could have left it on all day as the battery voltage was exactly the same (fully charged) after running the fridge for three hours as it was before I unplugged the rig. The panels were keeping up! $200 well spent!

Blast From The Past

I was going through a box of "stuff" and discovered the slides I took of the 1997 comet Hale-Bopp! I ended up with ten usable shots out of two rolls of 35mm film I took one night. It was great to find them.

All were taken with my N-8008 Nikon film camera. The last was an experiment with my 500mm lens with a doubler attached making it a 1000mm. It is not great quality but is a closeup of the comet. The grain on all the shots is the result of the ASA 1600 film I was using.

New Panel Photo

The new solar panel! (The new one is closest to the camera). It turns out that after the voltage drop between the panels and controller, both panels are putting out exactly the same voltage.

Panel Mounted!

I got the new solar panel mounted on the roof and wired down the fridge vent with #10 cable. I was smart enough to tie a rope onto the straps of a grocery store bag so Norma could send up any tools I forgot and I forgot two. Saved me at least one trip down.

I just laid the wire on the roof and stuck it in place with strips of Eternabond every foot or so. It should work. Tomorrow I will wire it into the controller and watch the amps flow!

Another Solar Panel

We have one solar panel on the roof of the RV, a 125 watt unit I bought a few years ago from Camping World. It has generally been enough but when I saw a deal from Canadian Tire I had to jump on it. They had a 100 watt Coleman panel on sale for $199, marked down from $525! I called to discover they only had one left so I asked them to hold it for me and I headed downtown to pick it up.

I got it into the car OK but the box was very slippery and awkward and when Norma and I were carrying it from the car to the workshop I tripped and dropped my end as I fell backward. Norma then dropped her end so she could help me. I was fine and way more concerned about the panel! Anyway all was well and there was no damage. I manufactured some mounting brackets from some aluminium stock I had laying around (never throw anything out!), drilled four holes in the frame of the panel and pre-drilled the brackets. I then cut some #10 wire to length from a couple of rolls that my previous employer had kindly donated when I retired.

Tomorrow is the day! I will go up on the roof and run the wires down the fridge vent and into the solar controller. Later in the day Norma's new lawn guys will be here so I will have one of them pass the panel up to me. I have some Dicor self leveling sealant as well as some Butyl rubber to go between the brackets and the roof. It will look very professional.

I made the brackets because the hardware store did not have exactly what I needed and ordering them from eBay would have taken two weeks. So... I made them.

Roof Vents

Our house had none. Well, it has one on each end of the roof, under the overhang but that is not enough. To determine how much venting you need you take the total square feet of the roof and divide by 300. That gives you the number of square feet of vents you need. In our case that comes out to 6 vents. The side vents made up for two so we were four short. It was the soffit installer who pointed out the problem when he said we had no roof vents for all the new air the soffits were introducing into the attic to exit.

I studied YouTube videos and was quite confident I could do the job myself but Norma asked her new lawn guy who used to be a roofer and he offered to do them for the same rate she was paying him to do the lawn. He did all four in an hour and a half so we were quite pleased and it saved me more than that in the chiropractor bills that I would be paying if I did it myself. The vents themselves are cheap, $10 each plus tax.

I went up on the roof and I could feel the hot air pouring out the newly installed vents proving they are working well!

It was a very hot day to be working on the roof but here he is. Yes, there is moss on the roof but I have something to kill it. That is the next job.