Rick's Ramblings

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.

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