“The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but have only one course of action.” – Frank Herbert
Wednesday, September 17, 2014
Cabin Trip 2014 - Day Three - The Rest
We did more than just sit around watching a guy upgrade our satellite Internet on Wednesday. We also got a chance to try out the game camera Lynne bought me for Christmas. Unfortunately, I have nothing to show you. I had set it up wrong. But, it is out there again and we'll see if we got anything overnight. Stay tuned for that.
Our propane forced-air heater is broken. The way it works, like all gas forced-air furnaces, I guess, is a small blower comes on to blow some air through the system purging any small amounts of accumulated gases. Then, the burner comes on (whoosh), and finally the main fan. Then, it gets toasty warm in the cabin. We noticed last year that the pre-blower would come on and just run, and run, and run. No "whoosh" and no heat. We did not have time to get it looked at, so simply turned it off over the winter. Usually, we leave it on 45° all winter which keeps the cabin above freezing as long as we have electricity.
Grant from Laramie Heating come out yesterday (Wednesday) and took a look at it. He found some problems with the water condensation draining do-dah that didn't allow enough vacuum to trigger the thingy enabling the safety systems to "okay" the "whoosh". After cleaning everything up, all was working well. He left a spare pressure switch with me, along with instructions on how to install it -- just in case.
Well, guess what? I'll be installing that new pressure switch today. This morning, we got up to a 64° cabin -- which is not terrible. I turned on the heat to just take the cool edge off and the pre-blower ran and ran and ran. No "whoosh". Bummer.
The other thing we did on Wednesday was re-imagine the furniture layout in the cabin. The cabin is 30' x 30', so 900 square feet. There are many houses that use that amount of space for two bedrooms, a bathroom, living space and a kitchen. Yet, because ours is just one big open space, there are no walls to define "rooms" and create logical furniture arrangements. So, we got to thinking that we could rearrange things to create more storage and cozy living spaces.
I, the engineer, created a computer model of the cabin floorplan along with little furniture models and now have the ability to re-arrange furniture in virtual reality.
Lynne, the pragmatic artist, asked me to help her move the real furniture around to try out different things.
Our bed is now in a new position (which we like). Likewise my dresser. These moves actually "wall off" the bedroom some turning it into a little room. We also moved the antique Hoosier from against a wall out into the open in the kitchen. It seems odd to have a piece of furniture just standing there in open space in the middle of the room. But, it works. It provides additional counter space and storate for the kitchen area.
We have ideas for the living area, TV, etc. too.
I'll try to remember to post a photo or two.
We make a hamburger recipe we saw on TV: Oklahoma City Onion Burgers, with twice cooked Belgian fries for dinner. Yum. The house smelled (and still smells) a bit like fried onions.
Well, that is it for Wednesday. It is now about 7:15 am on Thursday and the chimney sweep comes this morning. Coffee is made, and soon we'll heat up some muffins for breakfast. I'll fire up the generator for shower time. We'll get dressed, do a bit of cleaning, and the wait for the chimney sweep.
Posted under: Cabin News • by Rick on 09/17/2014 at 03:49 PM
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Cabin Trip 2014 - Day Three - Internet
It is Wednesday. Sort of day 3. Day 2-1/2 really.
Anyway, I did not finish describing what happened yesterday.
To the most observant of you, you will have noticed that we are blogging. That means we have Internet access. Those of you who have kept up with our annual trips in the past know that it often takes a day or two to get Internet access. Last year on one of my long phone calls to technical support, the agent suggested that I upgrade to their "Gen 4" system...that the upgrade was free.
So, I did. I arranged to get an upgrade of our hardware. And, made the appointment for Tuesday morning after our arrival. And, sure enough, just before noon yesterday a guy and his helper (wife) showed up to do the upgrade installation. It went relatively well. It was a bit tough to position the satellite dish so that it can just see past the stone chimney and get line-of-sight to the satellite. It took a couple of hours, but now we have a fresh, new satellite Internet connection.
The upload speed is somewhat faster. The download speed is much faster. And, our bandwidth allowance increased by a factor of 20! We used to get 250MB per day of download bandwidth. If we exceeded that then we could not do anything for 24 hours. Well, we could buy a "token" that removed the restriction immediately, but those were $5 each (or something like that.) Now, we get 2GB of download bandwidth and at certain hours (2:00 am to 8:00 am) we get an additional 2GB that does not count toward our "normal" allotment. This is a good time to run program updates, download movies or music, etc. The new service is really tuned to today's Internet-based entertainment industry.
It works great.
It is why I am able to tell you about it.
Posted under: Cabin News • Stuff You Gotta Know! • by Rick on 09/17/2014 at 03:39 PM
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Tuesday, September 16, 2014
Cabin Trip 2014—Day 2
What happened to Day 1? We arrived yesterday in the early afternoon. We had done our Laramie shopping, which went well, and were happy to arrive ready to settle in for a few days.
We could not get down the driveway. The wooden archway that marks the entrance to our drive had fallen down. This was not unexpected. When installed back in 2001, the builder did not creosote the logs and they were rotting near the ground. A neighbor had rigged up some wire hooked to a rebar pole driven in the ground, and that had held up one of the posts for over a year. But, this Winter, it fell.
I was able to drive around it in 4WD and we got the truck to the cabin site with no further issues.
I unlocked the door, stepped inside, and turned on the lights. Nothing. No lights. A quick check of the PV system meters showed that the batteries were at about 19 volts (it is a 24 volt system), and the inverter had cut out at 22 volts, just like it is supposed to. Further investigation (I have some pretty sophisticated meters) showed that the batteries had not had a full charge in 66 days! It was a bright sunny day, but the charge converter (the device that takes power from the solar panels and uses it to charge the batteries) was showing on 6 amps of input current (should have been 28 to 31 volts) and some of its indicator lights were not working. Hmmm.
No electricity meant no water, so we pee'd in the trees.
I fired up the trusty generator and it supplied us with electricity for lights and started charging the batteries.
We unloaded the truck and got the dogs settled and I went down into the crawlspace to check the batteries. They were very dry. I had one gallon of distilled water and it was used up adding water to the first two batteries (there are eight). Faced with a possible need to go all the way back into town, I planned to drive to several neighboring cabins to see if anyone was home and if they had distilled water.
To get out of the driveway, I planned to use my chain saw to cut up the log and drag it out of the way. But, as is typical, I could not get the damn thing started. So, I drove around the downed post again and went in search of neighbors. Our closest neighbor was not home. I drove back to the cabin and told Lynne that I'd drive to a different neighbor, much farther away, and if they were not home, I'd drive into town.
But, on my way out I passed the first neighbor and he volunteered to bring 3 gallons of water and chain saw to our rescue.
We got the post out of the driveway, and later I filled all the batteries. But, at this point it was obvious that something was wrong with the charge controller. The input current had not changed from 6 amps, even though the sun was in and out behind clouds. And, the indicator LEDs were still not working. It would not respond to any commands I gave it. Ah oh.
I called the company that we use for off-grid services (PV and wind) and they needed to order a new charge controller and by the time it arrived, they could come install it on Friday. Friday? Crap. That meant 4 days of minimal electricity and the noise of a generator. Did I have enough gas?
We got through the night with lanterns and minimal electricity. I did get enough charge on the batteries that they, along with the boost from the generator, were able to fill the water tanks and provide water. Good thing, because it is hard to boil macaroni without water.
Sloppy Joes and boxed Mac & Cheese for dinner along with abundant red wine.
Before going to bed, I tried one more thing. I completely reset the system. I opened the breaker to the PV panels and to the batteries. This removes all power from the inverter, my Trimetric meter system and the charge controller. I thought maybe a complete reset would fix things. What it did was wipe out the program in the inverter, so I had to reprogram it with all the appropriate settings; I lost all the readings stored in the Trimetric; and the charge controller still showed 6 input amps (it was dark by now), but the LED did come on!
To bed around 8:00. We were pooped.
This morning, however, the charge controller seemed to be working. It showed zero input amps (before the sun came up), and I was able to program it for a battery equalization charge. I ran the generator for about 7 hours and during this time the charge controller seemed to be working with as much as 31 input amps. The batteries got up to about 29 volts and after I turned of the generator, settled at about 26 volts. That is good! We'll see what happens over the next few days.
(I am going to still get the new charge controller as a backup -- this has happened before. But, I did call the installer and told her she did not need to treat my case as an emergency.)
More later, I'm sure. We did other stuff today...but, not much.
Posted under: Cabin News • by Rick on 09/16/2014 at 02:10 PM
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Sunday, September 14, 2014
Cabin Trip 2014—2nd Day On The Road
We are in Grand Island, Nebraska. Our standby motel is the Rodeway Inn (pet friendly!) which has always had excellent, clean rooms. We have a nice view of a small lake behind the motel.
The truck is gassed up, dogs and cat are fed, dogs are walked and now we are settled down with a cup of wine about to order a pizza. Tonight it will be Domino's Hawaiian Pizza.
We always get here at a good time, around 5:00 local time (we are on Central Time now). This gives us a chance to relax and wind down some. We'll get a good night of sleep, up early tomorrow and then be in Laramie at or before noon. There, we will do 2-3 days of shopping and head on in to the cabin arriving around 3:00 or so. I'm telling you this in advance because we won't bother to try to get the Internet working (which is always a multi-hour phone call) because a new system is (supposed) to be installed on Tuesday.
Posted under: Cabin News • Travel • by Rick on 09/14/2014 at 04:37 PM
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Saturday, September 13, 2014
Cabin Trip 2014 - First Day on the Road
We got away in good time this morning -- 6:30 a.m.
The drive went well, although we had rain through most of Pennsylvania. We are now in Mishawaka, Indiana at a Red Roof Inn (pet friendly!). We have fed and walked the dogs (who are very needy) and we just ordered a pizza to be delivered (Vesuvio's Pizza: sausage, green pepper, black olives and mushrooms as well as a garden salad). It will be late before we eat, probably 8:30, so bed not long after that.
I forgot my hardback book at home. I'd just started Michael McGarrity's Back Lands -- the second in a series. His books are all New Mexico based with lots of history and stories of the area where I grew up and went to school. Most of his books have been murder mysteries, but the first in this series starts the back story of his protagonist character. It is a big dense book with great story telling. We tried to find a copy in a couple of book stores along the way to the cabin with no luck. So, after struggling to get this Internet connection, I downloaded it to my iPad.
I hope our food comes soon!
Posted under: Cabin News • Travel • Books I've Enjoyed • by Rick on 09/13/2014 at 05:40 PM
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